On the occasion of bauma 2025, the leading associations of the German construction and construction equipment industry will present the bauma Innovation Award for the fourteenth time together with Messe MĂĽnchen.
Innovations that have been presented to the public since 2022 or have not yet been published are eligible. The deadline for entries starts on 2 May 2024 and ends on 23 August 2024. Participation is only possible online. All necessary information on the conditions of participation and the entry form are available on the website www.bauma-innovationspreis.de.
Entries can submit their innovations in five categories:
Category 1 Climate protection
Category 2 Digitalisation
Category 3 Mechanical engineering
Category 4 Construction
Category 5 Research
VDMA Construction Equipment and VDMA Mining, together with Messe MĂĽnchen and the partner associations HDB, ZDB and bbs, are carrying out the multi-stage application process and will host the award ceremony on 6 April at the ICM in Munich. Martina Scherbel, Project Manager of the bauma Innovation Award, will be happy to answer any questions you may have about the application process.
Strategies, offers, approaches, challenges – In a time of constantly advancing development, it is of great importance to harness the potential of digitalization in mining. Operators, manufacturers, experts and authorities are currently facing new challenges due to the increasing complexity of digital applications. In our event “Digitalization – Interoperability”, we invite you to discuss operational and future issues in the course of digitalization in mining.
Further information can be found on the event website (in German)
The mining equipment industry in Germany anticipates a decline in sales for 2020 of around 10 to 15 %. However, the industry is optimistic about the future because only state-of-the-art mining technology will be able to ensure the raw materials required for climate protection and digitisation.
The importance of the mining industry in this context and also the machine manufacturers is also highlighted by the Chairman of VDMA Mining, Michael Schulte Strathaus, during the web annual press conference 2020 at the Zollverein Coal Mine Industrial Complex in the city of Essen/Germany. Due to the pandemic nobody was able to predict at this time how 2021 will go but Schulte Strathaus feels certain that incoming orders and sales will develop positively in the future. “We make sure that raw materials can be mined and processed. The mining equipment is becoming increasingly environmentally friendly and making a contribution to climate change, e. g., with alternative drives and lower energy consumption in the mines”, he confirmed.
Production and sales developed very well in 2018 and 2019 for the mining companies in Germany, contrary to expectation new business and therefore incoming orders fell sharply at the end of 2019. There were also trade conflicts, the crisis in the Middle East and Brexit, which overpowered the economic concerns at the end of 2019. At that time if the industry was expecting restrained development with stagnating sales at most, the corona pandemic also put the mining industry under pressure.
In the course of 2020, shaped by the pandemic, the companies managed to once again close the disrupted supply chains and organise production in a Covid-19-compliant manner. Communication with customers abroad was mostly changed to web-based processes. At the end of the summer the industry sent very different signals of almost unmodified sales plans and expectations to a decline in sales of 30 % or more. On the whole, the industry anticipates a decline in sales for 2020 of around 10 to 15 %. Sales will therefore stabilise between 4 and 4.5 bn €.
Some of the biggest export markets include EU countries, the USA, Russia and China. Australia surprised this year and managed to take second place among the individual markets, ahead of China and Russia. With exports of 96 %, the manufacturers in Germany are dependent on international business (Figure 1).
Fig. 1. Main export markets for German mining technology (as a percent of total exports). // Bild 1. Hauptexportmärkte für deutsche Bergbautechnik (in Prozent der Gesamtexporte). Source/Quelle: VDMA
Within the EU mining production has remained stable over the last 20 years. In the summer the EU Commission announced that it wanted to secure Europe’s supply with critical raw materials. For this purpose, the procurement of raw materials in the EU will be intensified.
In the USA Schulte Strathaus believes mining is on the verge of radical changes. “With Joe Biden the country will commit to climate neutrality and large shares of the announced funds of around 2,000 bn US$ can be channelled to the development of clean energy technologies. This brings opportunities for our mining equipment manufacturers in Germany. However, they must make more of an effort to exploit new markets or expand existing sales territories”, says the Chairman.
Following a very successful year in 2019 with exports of around 97 M €, supplies to Australia fell in the first eight months of this year to 68.8 M €. Schulte Strathaus is confident that Australian customers will once again have more interest in mining technology from Germany from 2021 as the reluctance in the development of new supplier relationships can clearly be traced back to the current corona crisis.
Russia is currently a very difficult market due to the sanctions, the political disagreements and the weak ruble. Travel restrictions and the uncertainty that supplies from Germany could be stopped at any time make the business relationships too risky for Russian companies.
In China coal mining is far ahead of the Chinese mining industry. While the country recovers from the corona pandemic, the mining sector achieved sales of around 309 bn € and profits of approximately 30 bn € in the first eight months of 2020. The manufacturers from Germany could not benefit from this. Up to August exports had only reached a value of 67.7 M €, which represents a decline of 45 %. Nevertheless, Schulte Strathaus envisages good opportunities for positive development because China focuses on digitisation and unmanned operation in the mines. This is where mining technology from Germany can be particularly helpful.
Apart from all technology, for the manufacturers of mining equipment the focus is increasingly on the social benefits. “With our machines we guarantee a climate-friendly and secure supply with high-tech raw materials because without this there is no climate change”, confirmed Schulte Strathaus. (VDMA/Si.)
The manufacturers of machines for extraction and preparation of raw materials have also been shaken by the coronavirus pandemic. The figures underline this. In reaction to this, the sector is working hard to reinvent itself. Everyone agrees here that driving forward new developments and digitisation of processes are the best ways out of the crisis.
Fig. 1. Exports of German mining suppliers – comparison of first half 2020 with first half 2019. Source: VDMA
The 145 manufacturers of mining machinery in the VDMA Mining Association, based in Frankfurt/M./Germany, began 2020 with weak revenue figures as a result of the sharp decline in incoming orders at the end of 2019. The number of new orders has also remained at a low level this year, both in the first quarter (– 54 %) and in the second quarter (– 32 %). For the first half of 2020, this represents a total drop in incoming orders of 43 % (Figure 1).
In terms of revenue development, companies were initially still able to benefit from the good level of orders received in the first half of the previous year. However, the pronounced collapse of 51 % in the first quarter can also be attributed to a statistical base effect resulting from the 2018/2019 boom. Sales revenue in the second quarter of 2020 was even 17 % above the same period of the previous year – with customers throughout the world continuing to place plenty of orders well into the summer of 2019. Ultimately, however, sales revenue in the first half of the year was 21 % below the same figure from the previous year.
Global exports displayed a similar trend. In the first half of the year, they remained 11 % below the previous year’s figure, reaching a value of 760.2 M €.
While exports to the US continued to increase and Russia maintained its level, exports to China declined sharply from 75.6 to 41.8 M €. This left China, for a long time the industry’s most important single market, lagging behind in 6th place. The importance of the eurozone is really showing itself here. Among other things, the strong exports to Great Britain can be attributed to a major railway project, for which “Made in Germany” tunnel boring machines are being used.
The coronavirus pandemic has only played a minor part in the drop in exports to China. The nationalistic tones and the objective of the Chinese Communist Party to develop the country into a leading technical nation are having an ever greater impact on the business. Although Chinese mines continue to appreciate and value German mining technology, there is also a strong sense of wishing to use mining technology from their own country. Between these developments, the Chinese have also been working intensively for many years to gain information on the latest German technology and German expertise in the course of technical approval procedures.
Strong tendencies towards use of local equipment can also be observed in the Russian market. Russia is interested in German mining technology. However, many in the country are lamenting the fact that Russia’s raw materials industry is so dependent on imports and are therefore appealing to German companies to engage in more technological cooperation. The objective here is not only to achieve improvements in terms of health & safety at work and efficiency, but also to attract investment that can give a development boost to the country’s own industry – above all in terms of digitisation and automation.
In many other markets, particularly in Latin America and Africa, mines are being forced to close, as more and more people are becoming infected with coronavirus. In Australia, on the other hand, the “champagne corks are popping”, as recently reported in the press. Demand for gold and iron ore is strong and delivering Australian mining companies impressive profits.
The global consultancies consider the raw materials industry to be well-positioned in handling the crisis. However, both the rate of infection in the producing countries and developments in the customer sectors are leading to major uncertainties. Although these are clearly two different worlds with very different positions, they are both still suffering from the effects of the pandemic. There seems to be less demand for energy resources, which is therefore putting pressure on prices, e. g., since industries such as the automotive industry – and thereby also the steel industry – are operating at reduced output. Based on estimates of the consultants, raw materials with high demand, above all in China, are likely to be less susceptible to fluctuation and price changes. Indeed, the consultants expect the industry leaders among the mining companies to maintain their financial stability. On this basis, they will then, e. g., be able to work on the key factors of environmental, social and governance (ESG) or give greater priority to cyber security from the perspective of safety first. However, one common goal is to increase the general resilience to future crises beyond the scope of coronavirus and its effects. Digitisation has a key part to play here.
German mining suppliers are catering to these circumstances by driving “technology research” further forward. Digitisation represents a major part of this. However, other technical areas such as alternative drive concepts or further expansion of autonomous operations in mines are also affected. (VDMA/Si.)
