A classic candy store offers a dazzling display of lollipops, gumballs and every variety of sprinkled, dusted chocolate and chewy, gummy delights. The bright colors and sugary sweet smell are designed to make an eight-year-old’s eyes bulge, mouth water and tongue hang out.

IMTS is just like that, but for technical trade journalists. The show provides an immersive display of manufacturing technology and a seemingly unlimited supply of experts (some of them also colorful) to talk about applications of that technology.

So, yeah. For a week in September, we were like kids in a candy store (we tried very hard not to drool, though—it’s so unprofessional).

Me with Mike Larson of Hainbuch America at the unveiling of Hainbuch’s new robotic workholding automation solution.

Senior editor Aaron Fagan with Titan Gilroy of the Titans of CNC.

Rethink Robotics returned to IMTS with seven new collaborative robots.

We each came back with stacks of business cards—new contacts and old friends—and notepads full of ideas about the articles that will fill our pages over the course of the next year. We saw innovative new technology, product launches and advances in the art of gear manufacturing. 

And although a lot of that information we can get from company press releases, the true insights come from the one-on-one conversations with the experts—people who have experience with projects like the ones you work on every day. That insight and knowledge is the engine that drives our content.

It boggles my mind that some of our competitors don’t send editors to this show. When you read Gear Technology, you can count on the fact that we have direct insight into the challenges gear manufacturers face as well as the technology and solutions being used by companies like yours to help overcome them. 

Many of you recognize the value of a show like IMTS, and you make the effort to go and experience the candy store for yourselves. You can read longtime industry veteran Dan Carleton’s take on the show in this issue’s Addendum column (page 56). 

But we understand that not everyone can make it to a trade show like IMTS. So it’s our goal to take what we learned and bring it back to you, both through direct articles about the technology as well as features that make use of the ideas and insights we gained on important trends. 

I can’t promise that our coverage will give you the full Willy Wonka experience, but I can promise you’ll get at least some of the flavor.