MINNEAPOLIS – The SMTA and Canon Communications today announced a one-year agreement in support of Canon’s Electronics West show. Under the terms of the agreement, the SMTA will endorse Electronics West and encourage its members to participate.

A Canon spokesman, told Circuits Assembly the agreement is hopefully the beginning of a long-term relationship that would grow to encompass each organization’s other electronics-related shows.

As part of the agreement, SMTA will colocate its Medical Electronics Conference at Electronics West. The deal is good for one year, but the two groups said they look forward to extending the agreement to 2009 and beyond.

Electronics West now consists of six additional co-located shows in the Anaheim Convention Center: Medical Design & Manufacturing West, Pacific Design & Manufacturing, Automation Technology Expo West, WestPack, PTX West, and Green Manufacturing Expo. The exposition will be held Jan. 29-31; the conference will begin Jan. 28.

The SMTA will recruit and produce conference programs to complement two of the seven shows. The SMTA Medical Electronics Conference will be run alongside the long-running MD&M West conference, while Electronics West gets an SMTA-produced electronics manufacturing conference to support the new products and technologies being displayed on the show floor.

The deal marks a switch from the two group’s previous colocation arrangement – SMTAI and Assembly Technology Expo – which fell apart when they could not agree upon financial and other items. The split led SMTA to establish SMTAI as a standalone exposition, which takes place this fall in Orlando.

However, those issues appear to be on the mend. The Canon spokesman said the hope is this arrangement will extend to all other related Canon and SMTA shows.