Attendees at WMTS head to the Job Shop Night, one of the many events put on at the show. (Photo: Canadian metalworking)

EDMonTON If there was ever any confusion over manufacturing’s recent return to prominence, the latest edition of the Western Manufacturing Technology Show (WMTS) helped clear things up.

The show, which was held at the Edmonton EXPO Centre between June 4-6, saw steady traffic throughout the course of the week and over 75 new products and services were showcased on the floor. The show was also host to a number of talks and events for both attendees and exhibitors alike.

After experiencing some down years during the recent recession, the show’s organizers, the Society for Manufacturing Engineers (SME), were pleased with the event.

RELATED: WMTS 2013 set to hit Edmonton

“2009 was a huge recession – the show struggled horribly. It was half empty,” said Janine Saperson, an event manager with the SME.

“2011 we rebuilt, (there) was a lot more belief in the fact that the industry was coming back… then come ’13 there seems to be a lot more confidence. More machinery than they’ve seen in many, many years.”

The event started Tuesday June 4, with rally car driver Andrew Comrie-Picard delivering the keynote address discussing the idea of “intuitive engineering”, and how manufacturing solutions can often come from strange places, or be born out of necessity.

From there, the show was off and running and over the course of the three days attendees filtered through the doors to watch, or take part in demos on everything from 5-axis machines to virtual welding equipment.

Predictably, a large portion of the attendees were interested in machining for the purposes of serving the oil and gas industry.

“A lot of it’s threading, a lot of it’s lathes,” says Joe Poulin, Canadian Sales Manager for Hurco, when discussing the interest he received on the floor.

“In Ontario, I don’t know what the ratio is but its probably one lathe to six mills, here it’s probably six lathes to one mill. That means, ‘round’,” he said, referring to the oil and gas presence.

And as a result of these massive oil and gas operations in Alberta machine tools are now in serious demand out west.

“There’s a huge market for machine tools,” says Nelson Martins, a partner at Synergy Machine Sales.

“There’s a lot of machining here. It’s concentrated. Less milling, more turning – the tubes and threading on the end… That’s why there’s a big turning focus here. More so than in other places.”

“My other business partner’s not here right now, because he’s at a shop discussing machines,”  he continued.

The show also played host to a number of conferences that were well received. The topics included everything from lean manufacturing strategies, to working with the Federal Government.

With such a positive response from the 2013 show, the SME predicts an even better turnout for WMTS 2015 (the show is held biennially).

“I think it’s really quite a robust industry here… The rebook has been astounding, but a lot of people are looking for bigger space,” says Saperson.

“Talking to exhibitors, looking at the rebook there’s a lot of confidence going forward. The show is going to be bigger in 2015, for sure.“