CastForge impresses the sector

CastForge will be held for the second time from 16 to 18 June 2020. Through this still young event, Messe Stuttgart is providing buyers, designers and developers from many different industries with a central platform that enables them to gain an extensive overview of the market from national and international suppliers of castings and forgings, as well as from specialised processors. With its clear focus on the value-added chain, extending from cast blanks or forged blanks and machine processing through to the final component, the trade fair concept not only impressed the 3,700-plus trade visitors and more than 150 exhibitors but also numerous associations from both Germany and abroad, when it launched in 2018.

Gunnar Mey, Department Director of Industrial Solutions at Messe Stuttgart: “The Czech foundry association Svaz Slevaren made it known directly after CastForge 2018 that they would be returning again with a joint stand and, together with us, organised an information event for its members in Brno in March. The Czech foundries have shown plenty of interest in CastForge.

In 2020, we can also look forward to having the support of the Turkish association Tüdöksad. We are currently discussing new cooperations and country pavilions with associations from Italy, the Netherlands and Portugal.”

Final discussions are currently taking place between those organising CastForge and the Bundesverband der Deutschen Gießerei-Industrie (BDG - Federal Association of the German Foundry Industry) regarding the participation of the association in the Stuttgart trade fair next year.

Max Schumacher, Chief Executive Officer of the BDG, explains: “With its 3,700 visitors, 21 percent of whom come from outside Germany, primarily representing the automotive, mechanical engineering and plant construction sectors, CastForge has proven itself to be a suitable platform for our steel and iron foundries, which we support as an industry representative. We have thus long been in contact with Messe Stuttgart and are currently looking at the various options for BDG involvement, such as holding an iron casting forum next year in Stuttgart.”

Tobias Hain, Managing Director of the Industrial Association for Massive Forming, explains: “Compared to the general industrial trade fairs or regional events, CastForge takes a clearer approach and correctly focuses on our customers from the massive forming sector.”

Furthermore, he is also very impressed by the location of Stuttgart with its close proximity to the most important customer groups and the short duration of just three trade fair days.

Gerhard Schindelbacher, Managing Director of the Österreichisches Gießerei-Institut (Austrian Foundry Research Institute [ÖGI]), justified the participation of ÖGI in CastForge 2020 as, for example, the perfect opportunity to personally discuss increasing quality requirements for castings:

“At CastForge, we are able to demonstrate the versatility and massively untapped potential of casting, however also the possible limits.” He refers, in particular, to the importance of CastForge for the very much export-oriented Austrian foundries. In his view, the themes of casting and forging, as well as processing, complement each other: “With the use of numerical process simulation and newly developed alloys, the most complex and best quality components can be processed today cost-effectively and using resources efficiently, which would not be possible with any other procedure. Furthermore, there is currently a major hype surrounding additive manufacturing and digitalisation so that it is important for both sectors to visibly present their strengths. Thanks to additively manufactured sand moulds and sand cores, a greater casting complexity is possible.”

FUNDIGEX, the export association for Spanish foundries, will also be represented at the CastForge event in 2020.

“As a Spanish association, we made the conscious decision to participate in the first CastForge event because we were, and still are, convinced that this trade fair will become one of the most important events for casting and forging. This has been confirmed by our members who took part on behalf of our organisation in 2018. The exhibitors were all very pleased with the event, thus prompting us to participate once again in CastForge 2020 with a national pavilion for the Spanish foundry industry,” explains Marina Giacopinelli, Managing Director of FUNDIGEX.

Cornelia Schlingelhoff, Project Manager for CastForge at Messe Stuttgart, is also delighted with the positive developments:

“We are currently in the process of allocating floor space and, due to popular demand, there are only a few stand spaces left; the hall is already almost booked out.”