Gothenburg Maintenance Fair Continues to Grow

Gothenburg hosts the largest and most important industrial fairs in Sweden including Elfack (energy), Scanpack (packaging), Trä & Teknik (wood industry), Logistik & Transport (logistics) and Scanautomatic & Processteknik (automation and process technology) and Underhåll (maintenance). Together they have attracted more than 70,000 visitors to the Swedish Exhibition & Congress Centre in Gothenburg.With three months to go, the Underhåll maintenance fair is already larger than its previous edition.

“Underhåll is the industry trade fair at Svenska Mässan that has grown the most recent years,” says Anna Jarnö, Business Manager at the Swedish Exhibition & Congress Centre in Gothenburg.

Underhåll expects at least 10,000 visitors and more than 330 exhibitors when the event takes place in March. Many of the exhibitors attend regularly and the event has become a natural gathering spot for those who have an interest in investment and maintenance efforts. At the last fair, exhibitors occupied almost 9,000 square meters of floor space – a figure that has already been exceeded, even though there are still several months left.

“If we get more exhibitors, which we expect, we will have the opportunity to expand even further,” says Anna Jarnö.

Hot Topics and International Speakers

The focus areas for this year’s fair are sustainable maintenance, industrial safety, digitalisation, productivity and additive manufacturing (3D). Underhåll is Europe’s largest trade fair in operational reliability and maintenance, which means that organisers expect more international visitors.

“Several seminars will be presented in English, in order to be accessible for a larger audience. We have also invited international speakers to get a global perspective. Among others, Terrence O’Hanlon, Executive Director of AMP (Association for Asset Management Professionals) will talk about the importance of leadership around maintenance issues.”

In addition, leading companies such as Preem, Scania, Volvo, Astra Zeneca, LKAB and Boliden will tell us about how they have solved many of their production and maintenance challenges.

Two Days Focusing on Safety

A new feature at Underhåll 2020 is a “start-up pavilion” where start-ups – many with a focus on various digital solutions for industry –will have the opportunity to network and interact with larger companies.

A further development is that more time has been set aside for the Safety Officer Days, which is being organised in parallel with Underhåll.

“So far this year, there have been reports of 5,000 occupational injuries in manufacturing industry alone. The statistics look much the same in recent years and that is a figure we need to reduce. Therefore, we will focus heavily on how we create safer and more secure working environments during this year’s Safety Officer Days,” says Conny Lundberg of IF Metall, co-organiser of this part of the programme.

The Image of an Attractive Industry will Attract More Women

Only about 10 per cent of visitors at Underhåll are women, which is in part a reflection of the maintenance community. The low number of women who choose to work in industry is a challenge that needs to be addressed, in order to cope with skills availability in general in the future.

“Together with RISE, we have created an open seminar, where focus is on how to make our industry attractive to more people. With the increasing digitalisation of industry, maintenance is changing, which opens up the need for new skills and tasks. This will definitely help to attract more women,” says Anna Jarnö.

The Underhåll maintenance fair takes place on 10-13 March 2020 at the Swedish Exhibition & Congress Centre in Gothenburg. In total, visitors will have the opportunity to take part in some 60 open seminars on the event’s agenda without cost. To see the entire programme, read more here!