Issue 5/2005
09/02/05
Successful first “European Lift Congress Heilbronn”
Dipl.-Ing. Otto Bielmeier
The fact that Heilbronn, as the venue for the congress, is not just the national “Mecca” for lift manufacturers but also that the events staged by the Technical Academy at the University of Heilbronn are internationally recognised within the sector, was impressively demonstrated by this first European Lift Congress Heilbronn (ELCH) on 28 and 29 June 2005. The theme was also highly topical.
Category: Issue 5/2005
Posted by: Editor
The result of the continuing integration of European countries within the European Union which has taken place over recent years is that the European regulations valid for lifts as a product have to be applied virtually throughout Europe and that the contents of these provisions also have to be implemented expertlyfrom the material and technical aspects. Where national regulations exist these had to be replaced by the European regulations. For participants from the new member states in particular, as well as those from the future candidate countries, the Congress should offer an opportunity to gain more in-depth knowledge of European regulations, to exchange experiences and to establish personal contact with the European organisations and their main players.
Against this background the event organisers were delighted to learn that the participants, around 100 in all, had come from 17 countries in Europe. The organisation of the event by the TAH, with a proven track record over more than two decades, ensured that the Congress proceeded smoothly and, in addition, offered a superb and unusual evening and/or supporting programme which were accorded a not insignificant role in establishing more in-depth personal contact between the participants – to great success.
The first European Lift Congress opened with words of welcome from the Mayor of the City of Heilbronn Helmut Himmelsbach, the Principal of Heilbronn University Prof. Dr. Gerhard Peter, Luc Rivet the General Secretary of the ELA, the European Lift Association, Prof. Dr. Georg Clauß from the Technical Academy Heilbronn as event organiser. Dr. Gerhard Schiffner acted as technical presenterchairman and moderator.
Mayor Helmut Himmelsbach expressed his joy that this initial event had been so well received. He pointed out that Heilbronn is an important scientific economic centre within the state of Baden-Württemberg and Germany’s largest red wine growing region.
Prof. Dr. Gerhard Peter welcomed the guests and affirmed that the Technical Academy, which is housed in the University, is always an attractive meeting place for experts from various sectors of industry. The level of international recognition for and participation in the first of this new series of congresses is impressive. The hope for the lift sector is that it will also benefit from the increasing trend of students turning to engineering.
Luc Rivet pointed out that this series of events is the right course for Europe to take as it will be impossible to either establish, discuss or clarify the necessary common interests without information and contacts on a reciprocal basis. With thanks to all those who had made this event possible the introductory section on a range of topics was concluded and Gerhard Schiffner, as principal and presenter, announced the first speech on “The Fundamental Principles of European Regulations” which had been prepared by Harald Riekeles (VDMA). The speaker provided an overview of the population figures for the 25 countries, a total of 450 million in all and 20 different languages. Taking into account the candidates for EU membership, this figure will grow by a further 100 million. The prerequisite for the creation of a single European market is for existing trading barriers to be broken down and finally removed altogether through the technical harmonisation of the product requirements. The route taken on the detailed technical legislation when work had begun on the regulations could not be continued. The decision by the Council therefore led to the launch of the New Approach. In this context the “Fundamental Essential Health and Safety Requirements for Health and Safety (GSAESR)” will be formulated through Directives. When taken into consideration, technical specifications which are defined in voluntary standards trigger the presumption effect that the GSA ESR specified in the Directives were adhered to in respect of the corresponding products (property requirements). This must be confirmed by the manufacturer, if necessary with the help of an independent inspection bodytesting organisation (notified body), whenprior toplacing the product on the marketbeing marketed, in the form of a declaration of conformity by the manufacturer’s or installerconformity declaration.
New designs and advances in development can be assessed on the basis of a risk analysisassessment to be conducted for each product, proposed solutions assessed with regard to their compliance with the GSAESR’s and realised where its is established that equivalent safety applies. Requirements relating to the use or operation of the products are governed by national regulations since e.g. climatic conditions within Europe and e.g. within the area of fire safety or as the result of national regulations relating to safety at work, these requirements may be specific to individual countries and can therefore differ.
The speaker also pointed our that a number of Directives may well apply to one product if the risk assessment identifies certain significant hazards caused by the product being used as intended and considering foreseeable misusein accordance with the regulations and determined by the “hazard analysis” identifies a corresponding risk potential (consumer protection) – even after making allowance for the possibility of operator error. The various certification conformity assessment procedures (modules) were explained and reference made to the importance of full and complete documentation. The individual procedures are described in the appendices to the Directive.
Uncertainty that had arisen in defining the scope of validity of Lift and Machine Directives has since been clarified. At long last, the market monitoring surveillance by the national bodies concerned will enable a review to be conducted in order to determine whether the manufacture of the marketed products really did reflect the “state-of-the-art”. Quality labels do not form an integral part of the regulations on technical safety but can be an additional feature of a product under the rules of the bodies awarding these labels.
In order to expand global trade as the result of an agreement with the WTO (World Trade Organisation)global organisation for breaking down technical trading barriers) a number of non-European states and economic blocks are showing increasing interest in the concept of the European regulations, e.g. Japan, China, Korea, amongst others.
Ian Fraser from the European Commission in Brussels spoke about “relevant Relevant European Directives for Lifts”, pointing out that the title of his them topic should be amended slightly to ”Future prospects for lifts”.
Ian Fraser from the European Commission in Brussels spoke about “relevant Relevant European Directives for Lifts”, pointing out that the title of his them topic should be amended slightly to ”Future prospects for lifts”.
Past and current studies showed that existing Directives are without doubt viewed and applied in a positive light. These studies revealed minor problems which can be categorised under the following topic groups:
• Areas of application for theScope of Lifts Ordinance Directive and Machinery Directiveand MR
• Conformity conformity assessment procedures,
• Improvement improvement in market monitoringsurveillance,
• Accreditation sccreditation procedures and
• Harmonisation harmonisation of the interpretations.
The speaker dealt with the amendments revision ofto the revised Machinery Directive and referred to the intention to formulate a “guideline Guideline for the Lifts Directive” similar to that used for the Machinery Directive. The aim is to provide an improved description of the fundamental elements of market monitoringsurveillance, as well as the procedures for proof of conformity assessment, which includes e.g. an adaptation to the quality assurance module under ISO 9001. The safetyguard clause procedure is to be simplified together with the associated information procedure, the mechanism for raising objections/complaints and information on non-conforming products or product safety.
Problems relating to safe access to components for maintenance and test inspection personnel for lifts without no ma-chine frameroom still require clarification; cooperation with the national monitoring surveillance bodies must also be improved. The Coordination Group of the Member States (ADCO) will once againrecently not be operated chaired by the Commission but by one of the Member States. This will simplify the work.
The revision of the other directives to be applied to lifts such as e.g. the EMC Directive has also been completed. Directive 89/336/EEC will be replaced by Directive 2004/108/EC.
In the first of 4 blocks sections on the theme of “innovations” integrated within the congress programme, Jochen Müller from the firm of ThyssenKrupp LiftsAufzugswerke in Germany, gave a presentation of a product, the result of which according to a highly detailed and consistent analysis regarding the optimum utilisation of the construction volume, will bring the developer a measurable benefit – by comparison with conventional designs – which, in addition, is not limited purely to the construction volume but also minimises consequential costs and of course makes no compromises in the area of safety.
The applicability of this series of lift types (SPIRIT) is not limited just to new lift systems but also provides for their installation in existing buildings, either additionally in order to enhance the quality and attraction of the building, or as a replacement for systems requiring modernisation. The statements made by the speaker revealed that the focus of all considerations was at all times on measures aimed at protecting the safety of test inspection and maintenance personnel (in addition to product safety). As such, in addition to the minimum pit and headroom dimensions, the key parameters for this type of lift are the accessibility of the machine, the safe working positions for the maintenance personnel as well as uncomplicated measures for releasing persons in the event of a breakdown.
The speech by Boguslav Piasecki from the Office of Technical Supervision DepartmentInspection in Warsaw as the largest of the new members states with 38 million inhabitants and more than 86,000 lift systems – of which approx. 20,000 are in Warsaw – created particular interest as the presentation of the national implementation of the European regulations within the new member states, using Poland as an example, was an extremely interesting topic.
In Poland, lift systems are subject to compulsory monitoring and inspection by approx. 300 qualified experts in safety engineering throughout the country, with the regulations dating from 1988 providing a basis. The law was supplemented by executive regulations and the lift systems were subject to government inspections from development right through to scrapping. Design and quality testing audits were just as obligatory as a final inspection prior to commissioning and regular testing inspection in respect of safety. In the final years prior to Poland joining the European Union the national regulations on the placement of products on the market were gradually replaced by European regulations.
The Machinery directive was implemented into national law in 2001 and the Lifts Directive in 2003. This was followed by the implementation of the EMC Directive 89/336/EC and the Construction Products Directive 89/106/EC. Poland now has two notified bodies which operate within the framework of the Lifts Directive. One of these (UDT-CERT) has already carried out more than 2000 certifications. The application and implementation of the new regulations for existing lifts emerged as a problem and – the assumption is – this topic is undoubtedly not limited just to Poland. In Poland some 75 % of passenger lifts still operate without locking car doors and under the European regulations must therefore be categorised as hazardous.
Poland’s participation in the European lift committees has to date not been resolved as suitable experts have not yet been nominated. Finally, the speaker made reference to the fact that the free flow of goods with Poland is operating successfully, to the mutual benefit of the markets and that acceptance of the technical expertise of the testing inspection bodies has been established.
As has been seen from the previous speeches, the notified bodies play an important role in the placement of lifts on the market. As a representativecahirman of the certificated coordination committee of notified bodies working together in the NB-L, Frank Tegel from the Liftinstituut Institute in Amsterdam explained the system, the prerequisites for accreditation as well as the tasks and duties of these this independent institutions. The notified bodies whose tasks are set out in the Directive are without doubt an important hub in the network of European safety regulations. The risk analysis assessment is the key procedure for assessing a product or a system with regard to determining the risks of its use as well as for finding and implementing appropriate measures that trigger allow the supposition effectpresumption of conformity that the requirements as set out in the GSA ESR’s are being met. To enable and permit this work to be carried out calls for certain requirements of these bodies to be fulfilled and backed up by evidence via a certification procedure.
These conditions include, amongst other things, the existence of a proper organisation, the availability of sufficient resourcesnecessary tools and know-how and that independence is guaranteed. The Commission has also set up a coordination forum – the NB-L “Notified Body Forum on Lifts” – and entrusted it with the task of monitoring the work to ensure it is in accordance with the rules, verifying this against past experience, if necessary harmonising the testing procedures and, if required, putting forward recommendations for modifications use to be submitted to the Commission or the Councilfor approval. Ad hoc groups which each look at a specific topic, have been set up in order to identify deviations or confusion in the textdeal with particular questions. There is a list of empirical valuesitems based on experience offor electrical and hydraulic component testing, as well as for maintenance, testing or emergency release on lifts, from which specific details and submitted recommendations can be taken. These are used in the efforts to find a uniform view of problems and the approaches to their solution within the Directives’ scope of validity.
The Commission has set up a website under CIRCA which provides information on this work by the NB-L. Applications for access to the website can be submitted to the Administrative Secretariat of the NB-AS under sabine.simon@ecta.lu.
Pierre Bianchini of KONE Brussels explained how a European standard was createdis produced. As a representativechairman on of the Lifts, Escalators and Travelators Moving Walks Technical Committee TC 10 with the CEN (Commission European de Normalisation) the speaker is actively involved in the formulation of the European standards for lifts etc. The consultations give rise to the creation of the end of the process a European standard is created which must be adopted, unamended, into the respective national regulatory framework. Participation in the corresponding Mirror Committee offers an effective way to influence the content of European standards.
This committee sends experts to the European standardisation committees, makes national decisions on statements in respect of draft standards and assists in the multi-stage standardisation procedure.
This committee sends experts to the European standardisation committees, makes national decisions on statements in respect of draft standards and assists in the multi-stage standardisation procedure.
The CEN was established back in 1961 as an international, non-profit organisation based in Brussels and a mandate from the Commission to produce a standard for lift systems is one of the first projects in the engineering technical sector. Today, this organisation encompasses 28 national standards organisations of the Member States of the EU and EFTA countries as well as 6 affiliated organisations of EU applicant statescentral and eastern European countries not yet belonging to EU or EFTA and 8 associated sector organisations of consumers, industry, representatives of the trade unions and SME employer organisations etc. In addition, over 300 corresponding professional organisations are in constant contact with the CEN and its working groups in an advisory capacity.
At the suggestion of a national standards organisation or the European Commission CEN is granted a mandate to formulate a standard with a clearly defined technical content. The Technical Committee remains formally responsible for all enquiries relating to modifications and interpretations, even after publication. The existing standards should be reviewed every 5 years to establish their relevance and whether they are up to date. The procedure and an associated timetable determine the life cycle of a standard, without exception. All the steps were explained and the weighting in the individual approval stages clarified and this showed that by also including comments from those who were not directly involved in the formulation, the process of creation does not allow for a speedy resolution.
In block section 2 of “Innovations” Prof. Dr. Horst R. Ermer gave a presentation of a system which had been introduced for the first time at the Heilbronn Lift Conference staged by the Technical Lift World in 1999 and is now used worldwide and recognised as “state-of-the-art”. Fires in and around lift shafts have repeatedly prompted discussion on how this risk could be eliminated. It is a known fact that smoke is the primary cause of death and not the fire directly itself. Even where the core of the fire started on the ground floor or the lower ground floors the deaths on the upper floors were caused by the effects of smoke inhalation. With the help of informative photo material the speaker impressively demonstrated how the methods for keeping smoke out of the lift shaft gain significant time for the rescue teams, consequently enabling them to quickly reach the actual core of the fire.
Practical experience showed that pressurisation of 50 pa Pa is sufficient for keeping the shaft smoke free. Leakages on the doors reduce this pressure to approx. 15 pa Pa although it is still enough for keeping the shaft clear of the dangerous gasses.
The sounds noise of airflow at the doors in normal operation is not considered annoying and the pressure of approx. 100 N applied to the door panels has no effect on the functioning of the door movements.
Efforts are under way to include the exclusion of smoke as a stipulated requirement in the respective provisions and technical regulations or standards. The modern European system of regulations has adopted the following reference in Point 1.5.4 of the EN 81-72 standard: “Preferably the lift shaft and the protected lobby should be protected by pressurization against the ingress of smoke”. Corresponding equipment and functions are required for a so-called fire fighters department lift in order to maintain its operation. These are already included in the European standards. With the help of a series of sample designs examples the participants were provided with extensive information so that in practice they could give consideration to these preventative measures in order to safeguard the lift users and rescue services in the event of a fire.
The standards and their application was the subject for the speech by Giovanni Varisco, EDC Lift SRL Milan, the latest editions of and modifications to the standards EN 81-1 and -2 /A1. EN 81-21, EN 81-71 and EN 81-73 forming the topic of examination. The details on these standards resp. the corresponding modifications and additions, were discussed in detail. It is therefore difficult to mention specifics here. Particular importance will be attached to EN 81-21 as this involves regulations relating to the installation of new lifts in existing buildings. It is irrelevant as to whether there is or was an existing lift in an available shaft. The standard regulates alternative solutions to points from the basic standard EN 81-1 and -2 if individual requirements cannot yet be fully met due to the structural conditionsbuilding restraints. This can concern the depth dimensions of the shaft pit as well as the headroom or the counterweight systemarrangement.
EN 81-71 which deals with the vandal-proof resistant lift design, is an equally important standard. The details on designs of specific components were discussed, providing an insight as to which measures are required to enable a lift which has been vandalised to also be safely used. Potential designs include those that offer maximum availability and maximum possible hygiene. EN 81-73 deals with the response behaviour of lifts in the event of a fire. This standard applies in particular in the case of so-called intelligent buildings in which the lift systems are integrated within the fire safety concept (e.g. evacuation of the building). This also gives rise to specific requirements for the composition of individual components, including the key functions for control. Details were discussed and the reasons given for the normative texts.
The transmission of shaft information for further processing in the control unit can no longer be satisfactorily resolved via mechanical solutions for faster operating speeds. In the 3rd block section on the topic of innovation Enrico Marchesi from Schindler (CH) gave a presentation of “MOSIS”, a new modular shaft information system which can be used up to operating speeds of 10 m/s at unlimited travel height thanks to its wide range of applications and minimum number and dimensions of its components. The core of the system is a magnetic tape which is fitted directly in the bar neck of the guide rail profile and consequently provides an absolute measurement of for the car position to be positioned in a non-slip location. By having additional sensors on the cabin the true floor points are interrogated and allowance is continually made for any changes in the building (fluctuations, settling). The core technology is the magnetic longitudinal coding which has already proven successful in thousands of other industrial applications. One of the most important achievements of the Mosis system is the development of a process which enables a single track tape to be coded on the one side in such a way as to ascertain an absolute positional formation and at the same time to permit the synchronisation of the scanning procedures with the help of the Linear Feedback Shift Register process (LFSR). The car’s position can be determined down to less than half a millimetre.
Mosis has also broken new ground in signal processing. CAN (Controller Area Network) ensures reliable and efficient communication of the data to the lift control unit. The result is a total system that communicates the actual position of the lift car to the lift control unit right down to tenths of a millimetre in less than 2 milliseconds after the interrogation. And that’s at all standard operating speeds on high rise lifts. Another advantage of the system is its simple installation and maintenance-free operation. The following lift functions can currently be performed with the help of MoSIS:
• Position measurement
• Shaft final limit switches
• Delay control circuitSlowdown monitoring for reduced buffer stroke and
• Detection of the door zone at the destination floor level
MoSIS is one of the first systems to put the programmable electronic systems
in safety-relevant applications for lifts into practical use in accordance with EN 81-1/2 prA1 (PESSRAL).
in safety-relevant applications for lifts into practical use in accordance with EN 81-1/2 prA1 (PESSRAL).
Christian de Maas Latrie from Otis France reported on “Standards in the preparation stage”. The document CEN/TR 81-10 shows the structure of the EN 81 series of standards and provides an overview of the existing and proposed standards. In this series the drafts for the standards presented below are currently in the preparation stage and will be made available to the general public in the near future. EN 81-22 Electric Passenger and Goods Passenger Lifts with Inclined Travel Path is the official title of the standard which deals with inclined lifts for carrying passengers. In the past there were no uniform safety engineering standardsrules for these lifts and in practice we see a combination of funicular railway and passenger lift which generally resulted in high installation and maintenance costs. This standard is also fundamentally orientated towards EN 81-1/2 and so the necessary deviations and substitute solutions for this type of lift are described in EN 81-22. Limits for the design of such systems are laid down. Many of the conditions are adopted from proven practical experience with funiculars railways and the speaker highlighted the corresponding points in a tabular comparison. The draft standard will be submitted at the end of 2005 for the formal agreement vote procedure and publication of the final version can be expected in mid 2006 publication. The industry anticipates around 300 systems per annum on a European-wide basis.
EN 81-31 Accessible Goods- Only Lifts will be the title of the standard which deals with this type of lift. Here again the consultations debates have been concluded to such an extent that the public survey enquiry will be initiated in the third quarter 2005. If the formal approval vote proceeds successfully at the end of 2006 then this standard will also be able to be published in mid 2007.
Standards EN 81-40 and EN 81-41 deal with platform lifts for persons with limited mobility using inclined or vertical travel path. Here againdepending on progress of consultations debates have been concluded to such an extent that formal approvalvote can commence be expected at the end of 2006 with the anticipated date for publication of the final version being mid 2007.
The EN 81-80 Rules for the Improvement of the Safety of Existing Passenger and Goods Passenger Lifts standard has by far and away the widest range of applications – some 4 million existing lifts in Europe. Michael J. Savage from the Schindler Group Great Britain reported on the reasons which led to the creation of this standard which has now also become known under the heading SNEL Safety Norm for Existing Lifts. More than 50 % of the existing lifts are more than 20 years old and in those days were installed in accordance with the safety regulations applicable in the respective country. The reasons for adapting these systems to the state-of-the-art are various and are also required as a result of the demographic trend in the population and the resultant necessity to maintain or actually increase people’s mobility. (Staying within their familiar environment.)
The EN 81-80 provides for a step-by-step adaptation of the safety of existing lifts by first using a checklist to record identify the existing hazard situations, analysing these with the help of the filtering method and in this way setting priorities for each existing hazard according to the level of risk. A suggested timetable enables the hazards to be rectified on a staggered step-by-step basis with the aim being to bring the entire lift up to the state-of-the-art. Since the operation of existing lifts is subject to national law EN 81-80 can only be seen as a guideline. It is the responsibility of each country to formulate a suitable procedure for improving the safety of existing lifts.
Dr. Luciano Faletto SALA Consulting Arese (Milan) reported on one aspect of improvement in safety – although not only this applies to new systems – through better access facilities for maintenance and emergency operation in the case of machineroom-less MRL lifts. This aspect was not always taken into account with the necessary level of consistency when machineroom-less lifts were introduced. The consequence of this was that the layout location of the machine and/or the control unit in the shaft can give riserisks for the maintenance and test inspection personnel, risks that did not apply in the case of lifts with machine room. The speaker pointed out that when planning new lifts or carrying out modernisation work safety at work must not be allowed to be pushed into the background for design or economic reasons.
In particular, in the case of some MRL lifts it is not possible to carry out an emergency release of passengers in every situation, the result is that expensive equipment has to be obtained and installed first. This delays the emergency release and encourages a course of action which is not planned and which can be dangerous for both the personnel carrying out the emergency release as well the trapped users of the lift. The special feature of the machine presented is its accessibility from outside the shaft. The machine can be viewed and tested through a flap trap door next to the shaft door on the top landing and the emergency release carried out by brake bleeding release and turning the hand-wheel. The speaker used an example to show how this machine can be installed to optimum effect in a complete lift.
One of the key topics in the European lift market is the question of the national implementation of the EN 81-80 standard formulated for the safety of existing systems. Luc Rivet (ELA European Lift Association) tackled this topic and provided an overview of how the individual member states – according to the latest information – have implemented or will be implementing the improvement in safety for existing systems. One of the first steps that the European standard has to take is for it to be translated into the national languages of the 25 EU member states. Only Slovenia and Cyprus have yet to translate and publish this new standard. The associated legal internal implementation has not yet been carried out in all the states. In many cases the filtering method defined in the standard is being used in order to assess the risks which are already covered by the national regulations and new decrees are being passed for those risks still not covered.
The most important point is the absence of locking car doors. Progress in updating or replacing these is slow as in some cases lack of space is creating problems in implementation. In his speech the speaker explained the current status of the regulations in the individual states. This left an overall positive impression. Of the new Member States Poland and Hungary have already made significant progress in the implementation of the European regulations whilst the remaining countries still have some way to go. There are however still differing viewpoints in respect of the practical measures for implementation and this is determined by the scope of the measures required which are characterised by the original standard of safety in the individual states and is determined by the economic conditions. The general picture in Europe is a positive one and in each case the relevant industry is in a position to enable the operators to fulfil the requirements.
The greatest success in the implementation of these measures has been achieved in Belgium, France, Italy, Luxembourg, Denmark and Spain in which decrees are already in force or will shortly to come into force. Germany is taking a slightly different route in that lifts are seen in most cases as work tools equipment which are covered by the Use of Work Equipment Directive and therefore have to meet certain minimum requirements. Other countries are still dragging their feet or are carrying out the filtering method from EN 81-80 as a preparatory step. In the new Member States in which existing lifts show significant shortfalls in safety in some cases, the process has also begun. The major problem in these countries however is financing the measures. As the central instrument and one applied throughout Europe, the SNEL also provides for the harmonisation of safety in existing lifts in Europe.
In his closing words Dr. Gerhard Schiffer referred to the importance of the European Lift Congress as a platform for information and an exchange of experiences for the European lift industry. The successful Congress, which was also rated as very positive by the participants, could give rise to the development of a permanent arrangement. Following a thorough review of the suggestions and comments received, the aim in Autumn this year is to announce the date for the next European Lift Congress. He thanked the participants, the supporting organisations and especially the speakers whose interest and commitment had made the greatest contribution towards the success of the Congress.
With its evening programme, advantage of which was taken by everyone, the Technical Academy of Heilbronn offered not only the technical programme but also the opportunity to pursue personal contact by making use of the special features of the region. Coaches took the participants to the Bird of Prey Sanctuary which is unique anywhere in Europe and is housed at the Staufferburg Guttenberg near Friedrichshall, which originates from the year 1200.
The Bird of Prey Sanctuary is home to around 40 different species of 150 animals. Every year around 60 rescued birds are returned to the wild. The sanctuary has been able to build up stocks of endangered species and previous breeding grounds, still intact, are being resettled. During the shows the differing flight styles were displayed by the various species of eagles, owls and vultures as they flew above the heads of the crowd.
The conclusion and highlight of the evening was an excellent evening meal at the Bad Rappenau Spa Hotel, which included a selection of superb wines from the Heilbronn region.
The proceedings of the first European Lift Congress Heilbronn, including the manuscripts of all the speakers, are available to order in German or English from the Technical Academy Heilbronn (tah@fh-heilbronn.de) for a fee of EUR 80.–.
5/2005
