Trade shows usually have one major theme that ties all the companies that attend it together. But when the show’s theme is components and materials, virtually any company qualifies. The 2009 International Materials and Components Industry Show has attracted a large variety of companies, from textile underwear manufacturers to robotics components companies.
It was a strange experience to walk around the show floor this time. A plastic tent pavilion set up on the corner to show the air conditioning capabilities of an air conditioning company sits side by side with a robotic arm actuator firm, and beyond that one can see precision-engineered metal components and accessories built to within 0.01 millimeter-tolerant specifications. There are approximately 250 companies attending and it seems like each one of them is representing a different industry.
Actually there are divisions of the companies, a little method in the madness. The companies are divided into nine comprehensive categories: machinery components, automobile components, electric components, electronic components, robotic components, metal materials, textile materials, chemical materials, and ceramic materials. Still, these nine categories are pretty broad. For the purposes of this magazine, the electronic and robotic components are the most obviously a part of our milieu. However, some companies seemingly unrelated to IT actually are indispensible to the industry.
For instance, Woonjin Chemical is a company with four divisions – textiles, filters, fibers, and materials. The company’s materials division does make diffuser plates for LCD monitors, a connection to the IT industry, but its filter division is also closely connected to the IT industry. Its filters are used by factories all over the world to purify clean water to be used in its manufacturing processes. Specifically, one company representative said that semiconductor factories require a large amount of purified water in order to create computer chips, the foundation of the industry.
