So, whilst my feet audibly proclaimed that they had walked 500 miles and were no longer prepared to walk 500 more, my point is that despite the economic uncertainty of Brexit, this year’s event was still pretty busy on the show floor. However, as in previous years, the hubbub of activity was most noticeable in the co-located aisles of the Composites Engineering Zone.

The appetite for all things composite continues to outstrip the show’s other Zones as everyone makes the most of their opportunity to shine in what is a tradeshow success story. UK industry increasingly relies on this Easyfairs event to invite further synergistic commercialisation and help increase its depth of marketplace penetration.

Simplifying the supposed ‘black art’ of composites manufacture and revolutionising part production requires fully-automated, repeatable, controllable, traceable and efficient production processes - which isn’t the aerospace industry’s way of doing things because its production processes involve an even longer walk – as a tightly-regulated industry, it needs to be.

Instead, it is the automotive and consumer industries that stand to reap the benefits of Advanced Engineering’s synergistic multiple co-locating zones and grasp the opportunity to mass-produce composite parts firmly by the horns.

A walk down memory lane reveals that this event began as The Aero Engineering Show back in 2009. Its aerospace element has become more educational, instructional and mostly found within the show’s well-attended forums. It still warrants a co-locating Zone, but growing demands to mass-productionise composite parts could create more divergence between it, and the methods of the automotive and consumer sectors.

Mike Richardson, editor