The platforms in question are the Industrial Supply Forum in Hall 4, which will be hosting midday panel discussions from Monday through Thursday, and the Speakers' Corner at the Integrated Lightweight Plaza in Hall 5, which will facilitate knowledge transfer and dialogue on lightweight construction from 11 a.m. to 3:30 pm daily on all five days of HANNOVER MESSE.

The speakers at the Integrated Lightweight Plaza will be R&D and industrial experts in lightweight construction. They will each be allotted a half-hour slot in which to share their expertise with attending professionals. The program for the Monday will feature trends and developments in the composites market and sandwich panels for ultra-lightweight design. The topics covered on the Tuesday include innovative technologies for the manufacture of lightweight rotors, nanoparticle-reinforced magnesium alloys, solid lightweight construction, and a technology for joining fiber-reinforced plastics and steel. The Plaza highlights on the Wednesday include a paper on CFRP reinforcement in building and bridge construction. On the Thursday, the program will feature automated and additive CFRP preform production, surface functionalization using thermal spraying, and investment casting in lightweight construction, while the Friday's program will explore a range of topics, including hybrid casting and welding management.

The Industrial Supply Forum's midday moderated panel discussions were very well received by trade visitors at HANNOVER MESSE 2017 and will be back again this year, running from Monday through Thursday.

On the Monday, the spotlight will be on Mexico, the official Partner Country of HANNOVER MESSE 2018 , when Thomas Wagner, the managing director of consultants WMP México Advisors, Dr. Edmund Duckwitz, a former German Ambassador to Mexico, and Johannes Hauser, the CEO of the German Chamber of Commerce in Mexico, take part in a discussion entitled "Mexico in an Age of Protectionism. Where to from Here?"

The program for the Industrial Supply Forum on both the Tuesday and Wednesday will be organized by the German Association for Materials Management, Purchasing and Logistics (BME). Tuesday's discussion is devoted to North Africa as a global sourcing market, while on Wednesday the focus will shift to digital transformation in the supply chain. The panel participants for these sessions are Johannes Giloth, Senior Vice President Global Operations at Nokia, Peter F. Schmid, CEO of the online B2B marketplace "Wer liefert was", Ralph Ebert, head of Plant Purchasing and Supplier Management at Schaeffler Technologies AG & Co. KG, and Hans Thalbauer, Senior Vice President, IoT and Digital Supply Chain Solutions at SAP.

The program for Thursday, 26 April (the last day of the series) revolves around lightweight construction. The topic is "Carbon vs. Steel?", and the participants are Georg Petzinger, CTO of plastics engineering firm Handtmann Elteka, Tobias Scheffel, CEO of additive technology manufacturing firm ATM-Ilsfeld GmbH, and Cyrus Bark, a managing director of magnesium die cast parts specialist C&C Bark Metall-Druckguss und Formenbau GmbH.

Detailed programs for these key events at Industrial Supply are available at www.hannovermesse.de/en/industrialsupply