“ELCH” is back in Heilbronn

In 2020, it had to be cancelled due to Corona, but the Technical Akademie Heilbronn has now issued a new invitation: the ninth European Lift Congress (ELCH) on 11 and 12 October in Heilbronn.

Once again head of the congress: Prof. Dr Wolfram Vogel. Photo: © John Gale

The "ELCH" will deal with the challenges and opportunities currently facing the lift industry.

The congress will also be sponsored this time by the European Lift Association ELA, the two German manufacturer associations VDMA and VFA and the Association of Technical Monitoring Associations,

VdTÜV. Prof. Dr.-Ing. Wolfram Vogel will be the congress director. He drew up the concept and will moderate the event.

Esfandiar Gharibaan will give the opening lecture. Photo: © John Gale

Speakers and subjects:
• In the opening talk, Esfandiar Gharibaan will speak about current and planned work in international standardisation in CEN TC10, based on his own experience as its longstanding chairman.
• Roberto Zappa – President of the ELA, will present the global Initiative World Elevator and Escalator Federation (WEEF), which is intended to promote worldwide understanding and a method inventory.
• Stephan Störmer from TÜV Austria will talk about the performance and auditability of innovative technologies in safety technology and responsibility of the NBL.
• Paula Casares from TK Elevator Spain will address the topic of the evaluation of the lift product life cycle.
• Lexiang Zhang – President of the China Elevator Association - will report on the market situation and image of the lift industry in China and on experience with European EN and international ISO standards outside the European economic area.
• Daniel Nyman from the Swedish Hissförbundet and member in the ELA board will talk about the Scandinavian lift market.
• Gabriele Semino, CEO of the NEXT prototype will take a look at alternative passenger conveyance technology. He will talk about the hyperloop, which is based on an idea of Elon Musk about future means of transport: hovering vehicles, also called pads, move through air-free tubes at almost the speed of sound from A to B. Pads will be on display in Heilbronn.
• Christian Studer from Schindler AG will take up the idea that a great many existing lifts have to be modernised. The integration of the existing lifts in the digitalisation and networking process will be demonstrated.
• Roland Hoppenstedt from Ziehl-Abegg SE will deal with the topic of functional safety in his talk. He will discuss whether a new safety level can be achieved with functional safety.
• Götz Weinmann form Thinking Objects GmbH, will take the stand that an effective cyber security strategy is based on three aspects: people, processes and compliance. The importance of this interplay will be explained and demonstrated live.
• Matt Davies from Avire Ltd will provide an overview of the currently available techniques for lift monitoring and will map out the primary expectations on lift monitoring related to the Internet of Things and predictive maintenance in the lift industry.
• Aleksey Gorilovsky from LiftEye Ltd, in cooperation with Stein, will demonstrate the visualisation of the outside world, transported inside the car. Pictures of the surroundings will be coupled with augmented reality approaches in real time.
• Nicola Imbimbo from the Prismian Group will present the Internet of Things related to the lift and its possibilities. His focus will also be on the integration of monitoring of components and assemblies.
• Stefan Rohr from Elgo Batscal will report on LIMAXCP with an electromagnetic-actuated safety mechanism.

The ninth European Lift Congress Heilbronn will end with a brief summary and concluding discussion.

Congress location is the "redblue Heilbronn". According to the organiser, the participation fee is 980 € (VAT-free) incl. files, lunch, snacks, evening event, transfers to Intersport.
Registration and information: https://tah.hs-heilbronn.de/elch2022