The World of Automation gathered at Bombay Exhibition Complex in Mumbai for AUTOMATION 2014 in mid-October 2015, making the event a huge success. In spite of the opening day being the day of elections in the state of Maharashtra, there was remarkable presence of CEOs and other dignitaries from top management of exhibiting companies, policymakers and of course visitors for the inauguration ceremony.

Present at the inauguration ceremony were chief guest Mr Richard Timoney, President Foundation Fieldbus; guest of honour Mr Joseph Kabakeza, First Council and Deputy High Commissioner of Government of Republic of Rwanda; Chairperson of Board of Governance Mr B R Mehta and other board members along with Mr M Arokiaswami, MD of IED Communications Limited, the organisers of AUTOMATION 2014.

Rwanda has also been consistently ranked one of most reformed countries with exceptional performance on the annual World Bank Doing Business Rankings. Rwanda is the best place to start a business in Africa. Many consider Rwanda one of Africa's leading lights on information communication technology. Nicknamed "the Singapore of Africa" and the goal is to be the technological hub of East Africa.

Mr Timoney briefed the gathering on the activities of the Foundation Fieldbus. He said the organisation represents the excellence within Fieldbus protocol stacks. Combining Fint's 20 years experience within marketing and development of Fieldbus technology with FI's unique fieldbus expertise makes the perfect basis for improving the parties' position in the market, providing the best solutions, engineering services and support to world-wide customers. Fieldbus International AS, Fint, provides fieldbus network products and services to vendors and users in the process control and offshore industry. Fint specialises on products based on the Foundation Fieldbus, Profibus, HART and Wireless HART technology. Fint also supplies its patented, high-speed fieldbus I/O system for Hazardous environments. Foundation Fieldbus is a part of AUTOMATION exhibitions since the beginning from the year 2002.

In his address, Mr BR Mehta, Sr VP, Reliance Industries Ltd said that Automation has key role to play in fuelling economy worldwide and specially in India as many new projects in every field like oil & gas, refineries & petrochemicals, cement & steel, textile, and telecommunications & automobile industries are coming up in the country. Mrs Jyothi Joseph, Director, IED Communications, presented the Vote of Thanks.

AUTOMATION 2014 featured over 800 exhibitors in an exhibition space exceeding 23,040 sq.m. Since inception, the organisers have presented the Best Stall award to encourage the exhibitors. The award is defined in four categories. The following are the winners across the four categories:

Direct foreign participation:

• First: M/s Lima SPA
• Second: M/s Sanyo Deinki Co Ltd

Small stall category:

• First: Cybernetik Technologies Pvt Ltd
• Second: R Stahl Pvt Ltd
• Third: Electropneumatics & Hydraulics India Pvt Ltd

Medium Stall Category:

• First: Axis Engineering
• Second: Weidmueller Electronics India Pvt Ltd
• Third: Autonics Automation India Pvt Ltd

Large Stall Category:

• First: ABB
• Second: Rittal
• Third: VIPA

The participants were happy with the organisation of the event spread over four days. Mr Kalidas Bhangare, Managing Director, Testo India Pvt Ltd, expressed: "We are associated with IED Communications and Automation since its inception. It has shown amazing growth and today Automation is the most recognized and well-acclaimed platform for the Automation Industry. We are glad to say that Automation 2014 also like every time gave Testo India, good footfall to its stall and great business opportunities too."

Sudhakar Badiger, Head Marketing, Pune Techtrol Pvt Ltd said "The overall response in the exhibition was excellent with quality visitors all 4 days from different areas, i.e., OEMs, consultants, PSUs, distributors, etc., from India and overseas, and most of the visitors are new customers for us. We received good enquiries too. On the whole it was a nice event."