After a period of rapid growth, the European Machine Vision Association (EMVA) now includes more than 100 members. The 100th organisation to join the association was NeuroCheck, a company that specialises in automated visual inspection systems
Christian Demant, president of NeuroCheck, said: ‘We have heard so many positive things lately about the EMVA activities that we have now decided to join and to be actively involved in the future. A strong point has been the last EMVA Machine Vision Business Conference in Lyon where obviously all the important players of our industry were represented and enjoyed excellent possibilities of networking and exchange. We now want to be part of it.’
The EMVA has grown rapidly since it was first established in 2003 with just 25 members, and it now includes 105 members. Don Braggins, a member of the EMVA executive board, suggests that its early success was largely due to promotion by the VDMA – the German Engineering Federation - but (as Demant testifies), word-of-mouth recognition and highly successful networking events are also playing an increasing role.
‘The EMVA is a pretty obvious point of reference to find anything to do with vision technology,’ Braggins told imveurope.com. ‘It has grown very significantly, and with members from 18 different countries it’s now pretty international.’
Braggins points out that the 4th International Vision Night, hosted by the EMVA at the Vision Show in Stuttgart this November, proved to be so popular that tickets sold out despite moving to a bigger venue.
In addition to organising networking events, the EMVA has recently sponsored the creation of the new EMVA 1288 Standard that stipulates how suppliers list the specifications of their equipment, to allow easier comparison between different vendors. It also played a key role in the design of the GenICam standard, which should allow easier integration between different vision components.
