Of course, energy prices, investment pressure and global competition remain pressing issues. Yet they no longer dominated the narrative. Instead, the exhibition revealed an industry fully aware of its challenges – and once again recognising room to shape its own future. There is a renewed appetite for progress, fitting for the show’s 30th anniversary.
Die casting as a system technology
Die casting is no longer operating purely in crisis mode. The sector appears to have reached a point where it accepts that previous market logics will not return. In their place, a new self-understanding is emerging: die casting not as an isolated manufacturing step, but as an integral element of industrial value creation – as a system technology.
“It is important to integrate equipment directly into the production process,” says Ralf Versmold, CEO at Godfrey & Wing GmbH. “That means no longer viewing it as an external process, but integrating it directly into the production line. Data exchange with upstream and downstream processes and, of course, the flexibility and scalability of equipment are very important throughout the entire die casting industry.”
This perspective runs across a wide range of applications. It applies to traditional automotive programmes as well as emerging fields such as energy and infrastructure technology, medical technology and industrial components with high functional requirements. Aluminium, magnesium and zinc die casting now stand less for individual components and more for integrated process chains: data integration, scalability and life-cycle considerations are increasingly taking precedence over sheer component size.
