Control 2025: a Resounding Success for the QA Industry’s Top Event

High levels of visitor interest, in-depth expert discussions and ground-breaking technological innovations for greater cost-effectiveness and efficiency in product manufacturing: the 37th Control international trade fair for quality assurance was held successfully from the 6th through the 9th of May, 2025. 500 exhibitors, including 180 from outside of Germany, presented state-of-the-art measuring and test technology innovations to 20,166 expert visitors from a total of 70 countries in four exhibition halls. The newly launched “Control Quality Talks”, where experts discussed artificial intelligence in quality assurance, stood out as a highlight on the first day of the trade fair.

Control 2025 has come to a successful conclusion. Numerous satisfied exhibitors summed up the four days of the trade fair in four fully occupied exhibition halls in Stuttgart: “Control is one of the most important industry events,” observed Nadeem Sawani, Vice President Sales EMEA at Mahr. He emphasised Control’s role as the ideal platform for showcasing innovations and interacting with customers. Manuel Müller, Senior Product Marketing Manager at Hexagon Manufacturing Intelligence Germany, also pointed out: “For us, Control is the most important meeting place for the measuring technology sector.” Not only can expert visitors view various systems here, they can test them live as well. Dr. Raoul Christoph, Associate Managing Director at Werth Messtechnik, was also satisfied: “Control continues to be the most important trade fair for quality assurance.” Florian Schwarz, CEO of CAQ AG Factory Systems and long-standing Control exhibitor, also praised Control as a great team-building opportunity.

“We’re delighted that so many industry players took advantage of Control 2025,” says Bettina Schall, managing director of trade fair promoters P. E. Schall. “We’ve seen clearly that the search for forward-looking solutions is especially vigorous under strained and difficult circumstances. The focus is on economic efficiency and maintaining a strong competitive edge. As a result, reducing costs, improving processes, increasing efficiency and conserving resources are issues of vital importance for everyone. In particular within this context, new technologies are indispensable for measuring and testing, as well as inspection and quality assurance.”
“High levels of international participation, amounting to 36%, have once again demonstrated Control’s global impact and its reputation across all industry sectors,” notes Fabian Krüger, Control project manager at trade fair promoters P. E. Schall. “No other trade fair provides visitors with such a comprehensive overview of the capabilities and technologies available today for quality assurance. All companies in every industry are pursuing the goal of process improvement, and Control 2025 was able to provide valuable, forward-looking impetus to this end.

Product manufacturing is focused on efficiency, productivity, the conservation of resources and sustainability. Modern measuring systems with higher levels of performance and precision provide significant support for the optimisation of processes and the prevention of waste, which is why quality assurance (QA) is playing an increasingly important role in production. Current trends include a shift from traditional tactile measuring processes to optical measuring technologies. The growing significance of contactless measuring procedures was demonstrated by great interest in the special show for “Contactless Measuring Technology” organised by Fraunhofer Vision, which took place for the 19th time this year. At a central location, expert visitors experienced concise, compact demonstrations of systems for inline 3D microscopy, high-speed image processing, thermography and fully automated test stations for small-batch production, as well as complete contactless measuring and test systems, for example.

One of the key trends in QA is the increasing automation, flexibility and scalability of inspection and testing processes, not least of all thanks to AI-supported image processing systems. All in all, systems featuring artificial intelligence sparked considerable interest amongst the visitors. This was made impressively apparent during the “Control Quality Talks” panel discussion, which the trade fair promoters introduced as a new feature this year. A moderated panel of experts including Dr.-Ing. Ira Effenberger, Head of Research for Artificial Intelligence and Machine Vision at the Fraunhofer Institute for Manufacturing Engineering and Automation IPA, Dr.-Ing. Ralf Christoph, Managing Director and Proprietor of Werth Messtechnik, Florian Schwarz, CEO at CAQ AG Factory Systems, Dr. Christian Wojek, Head of AI at Zeiss IQS and Dr. Timo Bernthaler, Managing Director of Matworks GmbH discussed the subject of “AI in QA – Will the Future be Free of Defects?” The debut event was very well received by the audience, who participated actively in the discussion with great enthusiasm.
Considerable interest was also aroused by Professor Dr. Daniel Carl from the Fraunhofer Institute for Physical Measurement Techniques IPM with his presentation on “Generating Added Value with Measuring Technology” at the trade fair’s opening ceremony. Modern measuring methods with varying levels of integration – inline, in-machine or in-process – make product testing significantly faster and more precise. This results in less scrap, conservation of resources and cost savings, and thus a direct gain in added value. Above all, modern 3D measuring techniques such as digital holography are gaining ground.

“The development of measuring and test systems for quality assurance is progressing rapidly,” summarises project manager Fabian Krüger. “Automated, flexible inspection systems, automatic measurement data management including documentation, as well as automatic data analysis, are leading to even greater reliability and speed in measuring and testing applications. This results in more efficient production, increased productivity, less waste and lower costs. The QA sector is consistently pursuing this path, and we’re pleased to continue our support for this highly interesting development with Control.” “Control remains the most important international industry event for quality assurance,” says Bettina and announces: “Already in 2026, the event format will be expanded to provide condensed, compact and concise expert knowledge and industry news. The expert QA community will benefit from this expanded control format by way of increased value, greater efficiency and a beneficial impact on business.

The next, i.e. 38th Control international trade fair for quality assurance will take place from the 27th through the 30th of April, 2027.

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Schall has developed successful business platforms with internationally recognised trade fairs for quality assurance (Control), optical technologies, components and systems (Optatec), stamping technology (Stanztec), automation in production and assembly (Motek), bonding technology (Bondexpo), plastics processing (Fakuma), sheet metal working (Blechexpo) and joining technology (Schweisstec). This has given rise to entirely new markets in various sectors, whose protagonists are distinguished by tremendous innovative strength, comprehensive systems competence and practical application solutions.