Mr. Glatz, before you went into 'active' retirement on 1 January, you were Managing Director of the Electrical Automation Association for 18 years and also founded the Software Association. What have been the most striking trends that you have witnessed over the last 18 years at the VDMA?

Rainer Glatz: The defining trends came mainly from IT. It was about adapting the latest IT technologies to the special needs of automation, in other words 'industrializing IT'. Typical examples are Industrial Ethernet, graphical HMIs, object orientation and agile software development, open data interfaces and cloud services.

One child of these trends is the Digital Factory in Halls 6 to 8 of the Hannover Messe, which you created. How has the trade fair developed and, above all, how will it continue to develop now that Cebit is a thing of the past?

Rainer Glatz: Following the departure of robotics and logistics from Hannover Messe in 2004, we proposed positioning IT and software independently under the 'Digital Factory' label. It took a few years to fill an entire hall with manufacturers of business software such as PLM, ERP and MES in the vicinity of Cebit. The decisive impetus for growth came with the topic of Industry 4.0. It is remarkable that the Digital Factory is now the world's largest trade fair for digital platforms in the B2B environment. Both the discontinuation of Cebit and the growing importance of digitalization in the industry will further accelerate growth. Digitalization will become the central cross-cutting theme of the Hannover Messe and will be addressed in almost all halls.

You also founded the Software Association - today: Software and Digitization. How has it developed and what role does it play in the VDMA?

Rainer Glatz: The Software Association was actually only made possible by a departure - the VDMA's Information Technology Association merged with Bitkom in 1999. This created a technological vacuum in the VDMA in the software sector that had to be filled. In the meantime, the association has grown to become the VDMA's largest trade association with over 400 members.

How important is digitalization for mechanical engineering? What are the topics of the future?

Rainer Glatz: Digitalization is not actually a new topic for mechanical engineering. Mechanical engineering has been using IT and software for a long time to optimize internal company processes with standard software such as ERP, PLM or MES on the one hand, and to improve its own products with industrial IT and embedded software on the other. With Industry 4.0, however, the significance has changed massively: Digitalization is increasingly becoming a decisive competitive factor and offers potential for new business areas. After networking and integration solutions in the factory, digital B2B platforms and AI or machine learning are currently gaining in importance. After that, topics such as autonomous systems, adaptive operator guidance and even quantum computing for industry will certainly be discussed.

How well positioned do you think the German mechanical engineering industry is in terms of digitalization?

Rainer Glatz: First of all, we can be proud of the fact that the German mechanical engineering industry has taken on a global leadership role with Industry 4.0 in close cooperation with the automation and IT sectors. Many other sectors have slept through the new digitalization topics and left successful business areas primarily to US companies. At the moment, however, I see the problem that the mechanical engineering sector is weakening in the concrete implementation of digitalization projects. This may be due to the extremely good economic situation or the lack of suitable IT specialists. But the competition is not sleeping. China in particular is trying to take on a global leadership role in the field of intelligent manufacturing with government support. The USA is also increasingly seeing the industry as an interesting sales market.