European drive technology – Covid-19 is a big global challenge and a global change process

The European power transmission engineering industry met at its first online meeting for its Annual Meeting of the European Power Transmission Sector Committee EUROTRANS on 29 September 2020.
This year´s Annual Meeting focus was on the challenges of Covid-19. “Covid-19 functions as a catalysator for digitalization, it will speed up processes in our societies, in our global industry, and in the power transmission industry”, says Eric Goos, General Manager of Hansen Industrial Transmissions N.V., Belgium plant of Sumitomo Drive Technologies. He is the outgoing president of EUROTRANS and established a modern organization which is well prepared for the challenges of the future.

Salim Haffar pointed out: ”Digitalization and Sustainability will be one of the key challenges for our industry – to be successful in the future we need cooperation and networking opportunities beyond national borders and technologies.” During the discussions with managers from all over Europe, there was general agreement that the European power transmission industry with its cutting-edge technologies and global presence is a leading player in the global market, and a strong European network such as EUROTRANS is fundamental to strengthen this position.

The European power transmission industry expects a minus of 20% in 2020 and a growth between 5 to 10% in 2021

Currently the economic development of the power transmission industry is very weak due to international conflicts and the pandemic situation. The industry sees that the bottom of the downswing situation has been reached and expects a long period to recover to the former economic level of 2018/2019. For 2020 the European industry expects a minus of 20%, the further development depends on the global economic and political outcomes. For 2021 the industry expects a plus between 5 to 10%. Although the economic situation is a big challenge for the power transmission industry, some customer groups are quite positive, such as the semiconductor industry, pharmaceutical industry, railway industry and logistics industry.

“Our industry in Europe is innovative and on a long-term perspective it will grow further. EUROTRANS is an ideal forum to discuss future trends within an international management”, summarized André Thuswaldner.