The 'Smart Factory & Automation Industry Exhibition 2021', Asia's largest smart factory and industrial automation exhibition, successfully concluded at COEX despite the difficult circumstances caused by COVID-19.

This event, held for three days from September 8th in all halls of COEX A, B, C, and D, consisted of the 31st International Factory Automation Exhibition, the 6th Smart Factory Expo, and the 9th Korea Machine Vision Industry Association, with 500 companies and 1,800 booths.

Despite the COVID-19 pandemic, this event attracted 27,007 buyers, garnering a enthusiastic response from the industry to smart manufacturing technology. Smart manufacturing companies and buyers engaged in lively purchasing discussions.

Additionally, side events such as non-face-to-face export consultations and summits to explore ways for small and medium-sized enterprises to coexist were held, suggesting new avenues for the smart manufacturing industry.

In particular, at the 'SF+AW CEO Summit 2021' held for the first time in the theme hall on the 8th, 37 domestic supply solution representatives from automation, smart factory SW, robots, sensors, and machine vision gathered to explore directions for expanding the domestic demand ecosystem centered on the private sector, as well as ways for cooperation between automation companies and smart factory ICT companies. />
In addition, at the "Non-face-to-face Video Export Consultation" co-hosted with the Korea International Trade Association (Chairman Koo Ja-kyul) on the 8th, 69 Korean companies participated and consulted with 26 promising buyers from 10 countries, including Japan and Singapore. The consultations were worth US$22 million and contracts worth US$2.57 million were concluded across 83 consultations. The KOTRA consultations held from the 9th to the 10th also saw 36 consultations, US$9.75 million in consultations, and US$3.2 million in contracts concluded.

"This is the first exhibition in two years, so many companies and buyers have been eagerly awaiting it," said Hong Dong-soo, General Manager of Baumer Korea, who participated in the exhibition. "We had high expectations, as there were few opportunities to showcase newly released products." He added, "We were concerned about the dampened atmosphere caused by COVID-19, but we were met with a larger than expected number of exhibitors and customers, making it a successful exhibition."

COEX CEO Lee Dong-won said, “This Smart Factory and Automation Industry Exhibition is meaningful in that it presents the future of domestic smart manufacturing technology and provides an opportunity to find a way forward together,” adding, “I hope that more companies and buyers will participate in the next event so that the domestic smart manufacturing market can continue to grow.”

Industry professionals who were unable to attend the exhibition in person can visit the SF+AW 2021 online exhibition website to view detailed information on participating companies and products. The online exhibition will run until September 30th.