Hannover Messe 22 has just finished. And after a couple of days of travel and public holidays I have had time to reflect on our experience.

During our time at the world’s leading manufacturing event, the Avanade team were blown away by the positivity, energy and optimism. HMI22 truly showcased the best in innovation, the latest in technology and the effortless collaboration, synonymous with an industry sector used to dealing with and adapting to disruption.

Before the event you could feel the anticipation and, in some quarters, a little trepidation about its success. Would there be enough people there? Would they be looking to the future? Would they be interested in digital solutions?

Digitising manufacturing for a sustainable future was our key message for the event, the first face to face HMI since the pandemic and I am delighted to say that any pre-event concerns were unfounded. This year’s event was deemed a fantastic success by all who went. At Avanade and Accenture, we showcased how we are helping our manufacturing clients continually change, using our digital Industry X solutions to drive sustainable manufacturing and in this video you can see we were very excited to engage with potential and existing clients from the outset.

In Hall 4 (The Digital Ecosystems zone), we engaged with clients at the Microsoft Booth, talking about solutions aligned to Microsoft’s industry priority scenarios for manufacturing. It was a great privilege to be there when Microsoft launched their new cloud for sustainability a key focus for manufacturers today.

It was also fascinating talking with manufacturers and partners, about how the new Microsoft Cloud for Manufacturing brings together Microsoft Azure, Microsoft 365, Microsoft Dynamics 365, and Microsoft Power Platform capabilities to:

• Build more agile factories
• Transform your workforce
• Engage customers in new ways
• Create more resilient and sustainable supply chains
• Unlock innovation and new services

What became evident during the week, is that developing solutions for the above topics require two key elements to ensure success. The first is the power of data providing insight into operational processes and consumer behaviour. The second is the reassurance of working in a secure but scalable environment to develop and de-risk solutions for the challenges of today.

With automation (and robot dogs!) now an established practice and with the emergence of exiting new innovations like the metaverse, manufacturers were also expressing a need for connected data and secure applications at scale, to enable innovation, accelerate agile production and enhance competitive advantage.

It is clear that improving speed to market, enhancing operational resilience and adjusting to the latest consumer trends will always be key challenges for manufacturers but the exciting part for me is attendees at HMI were looking to technology to help address them.

For more information, please visit our Hannover Messe webpage, and if you have questions or are interested in engaging with one of Avanade experts please contact us. We may even have an answer for the reference to the Pepper’s Ghost Illusion!