Bauma is a success for companies from the region. The Liebherr plant in Ehingen can fill the order books, Peri presents 3D printing technology.

You don’t need to print a lot of advertising on colorful bags or distribute measuring sticks when the yellow cranes towering high into the air at Bauma can be seen from almost the entire exhibition center in Munich anyway. Liebherr presents itself in full size at the large construction trade fair: two football pitches full of cranes, excavators and monstrous shovels are waiting to be admired by visitors and, at best, bought.

The mobile and crawler cranes built at the Liebherr plant in Ehingen occupy about a quarter of the exhibition space. Two new products will also be on display: The new eight-axle mobile crane LTM 1650-8.1 and the five-axle crane LMT 110-5.1, among others with new transmission. Both are not in Liebherr yellow at the fair, but in black – “otherwise they wouldn’t stand out,” says Tobias Ilg, press spokesman for the Ehinger plant. The eight-axle in particular is “really well received” by customers, as can be seen from the order figures. In total, the Ehinger plant had about 150 new orders in its books towards the end of the Bauma, reports Ilg.

The managing directors of the Ehingen plant are similar: “We are not bored, we are very satisfied”, said managing director Mario Trunzer at an appointment with politicians from the region. Alexander Baumann, Mayor of Ehingen, Heiner Scheffold, District Administrator of Alb-Donau, and Manuel Hagel, Member of the CDU State Parliament, paid Liebherr a visit – and heard that the plant in Ehingen is running at full capacity. “We are currently at a little over 2000 units per year, we are at the top end”, said Herbert Hummel, Managing Director Production.

A new planned Liebherr branch near Ehingen, the so-called Service Branch South, was also discussed by the managing directors with the politicians. Trunzer said there was not much new to say about this. Liebherr had a closer look at several locations, including the site in Ehingen-Berg. Mayor Alexander Baumann had offered this to the company.

It is important for Liebherr to remain in the Alb-Donau district.

“For me it is important that it stays in the Alb-Donau district – if it doesn’t go to Ehingen,” said District Administrator Heiner Scheffold. Trunzer stressed that he wanted to stay close to the plant in Ehingen. “The branch should not be more than half an hour or an hour away.”

After their visit to Liebherr, Manuel Hagel, Heiner Scheffold and Alexander Baumann started their tour of the fair and visited the Ehingen companies Tries and Intexmo, among others.

Not only Ehingen, but also Weißenhorn is represented with a prominent company at the Bauma: Peri, the Weissenhorn based formwork and scaffolding manufacturer, has set up a complete hall on the exhibition grounds with an area of 4200 square meters. The company shows, for example, how scaffolding can be planned using 3D lasers, even in complicated environments such as a refinery. This new technology was also used in the Ulm cathedral: the scaffolding inside was precisely planned with 3D lasers and then assembled so that the damage to the ceiling vault could be repaired.

Big crowd in the Peri Hall

A comparatively small stand in the Peri Hall also attracted a lot of attention: there is a curved concrete wall filled with insulating material. The screen next to it shows how it was created: by 3-D printing. “We believe that it has potential and want to be there,” said press spokesman Markus Woehl at the trade fair. Peri recently acquired a stake in Cobod, which has already brought 3D concrete printing to market and recently sold the world’s largest 3D concrete printer to Saudi Arabia. “This is a technology of the future – Crawler Exkavator, and the interest in it is huge,” said Woehl. There was also a huge crowd in the Peri Hall on Friday noon – and throughout the week, Woehl reported. “We expect more visitors than in 2016”.

The large exhibition halls, where a wide variety of international manufacturers present engines, tyres and components, are a little less crowded. Among them is the Ehingen-based hydraulic element manufacturer Tries, whose customers include Liebherr, Fendt and Peri. Tries was lucky this year, said Steffen Schrode, who is responsible for project planning and sales: no stand at the edge, but in the middle and on a corner. Tries does not sell directly at the trade fair – instead, the employees use the platform to exchange ideas with existing customers and establish contacts with potential new customers. “Bauma is our main trade fair,” said Schrode. One focus this year is on control blocks. “We have invested a lot in this area and we want to build it up.”

Search for skilled workers

Fabian Kohlbecker, managing director of the company RampfFormen from Allmendingen, which manufactures moulds for concrete blocks, is also “very satisfied”. At Bauma, Rampf presents a new high-tech mould to the European market, which has already been published in the USA: This mould makes it easier to produce structured concrete blocks than before. “We mainly use the trade fair to cultivate contacts,” explained Kohlbecker, because the stone industry is relatively small and closely networked. As good as Bauma is for business, Kohlbecker is worried about one thing: he is desperately looking for specialists for his company. But finding them or trainees for the Allmendingen site at Bauma is very unlikely.