Federal Chancellor Angela Merkel visited Beckhoff at Hannover Messe

As part of her traditional opening-day tour of the Hannover Messe, German Federal Chancellor Angela Merkel also visited the booth of Verl-based company Beckhoff Automation on 7 April. Among the people accompanying her was Mark Rutte, Prime Minister of the Netherlands, this year’s official partner country of the trade show. At the booth Managing Director Hans Beckhoff presented his company and the basic technologies it produces for the Industry 4.0 concept.
Angela Merkel was also accompanied by Johanna Wanka, Federal Minister of Education and Research; Stephan Weil, Prime Minister of the state of Lower Saxony; and 50 more guests and about 100 journalists. Hans Beckhoff and roughly 200 employees welcomed the illustrious delegation. After a short presentation of his company, Beckhoff explained the components of his company’s control and drive technology, using an Embedded PC and the eXtended Transport System (XTS) made by his company as examples. With innovative systems like these, the automation company provides the underlying technologies for “Integrated Industry”, the motto of this year’s Hannover Messe. Beckhoff Automation covers this subject in detail at its booth with its special “Industry 4.0 Forum”, where it demonstrates that PC-based control delivers the basic technologies, functions and services needed for the Smart Factory already today.
At the end of his presentation, Beckhoff also mentioned the status of the “ScAut” research project, which the Federal Ministry of Education and Research has named a “Leading-Edge Cluster” in the it’s OWL (Intelligent Technical Systems OstWestfalenLippe) technology network. As the consortium manager, Beckhoff Automation explores with the ScAut project how engineering-related findings from a wide range of disciplines can be integrated into automation technology in order to make technical systems more intelligent.