Asansör Istanbul 2015

Growing trade show attains global scale in Turkey.

Asansör Istanbul 2015 was held in the four new halls at the Tüyap Fair Convention and Congress Center on March 26-29. The venue now has two excellent hotels just a few steps away from the halls. This adds convenience for both visitors and exhibitors, and, indeed, one of the hotels had direct access to the exhibition entrance lobby. The new halls have great headroom, which allows exhibitors to display full-scale working lift systems and bodes well for future industry exhibitions here.

Attendees could see lift equipment ranging from individual components to complete systems. The Turkish industry is very close to the European Union (EU) in many ways, and AYSAD (Turkish elevator association) is a full member of the European Lift Association, so, as would be expected, the products exhibited are influenced by the European Directive on Lifts and CEN codes. The Asansör Conference reflected this and had key working group members giving informative presentations and seminars. Importantly, there is also a visionary element to Asansör, and a significant part of this was the International Lift Design Contest (see sidebar). This was the sixth such event and had the theme “New Lifts for Passengers and for Passenger & Freight in Existing Buildings.” A selection of entries was displayed in the main exhibition hall, and the winners were presented with their awards during the evening gala.

Some key companies at the exhibition were also showing a visionary side to their design activities and had prototypes and concept products for visitors to see, which again showed that the Asansör exhibition is more than a simple showcase and is growing in sophistication and ambition.

Asansör Istanbul has developed progressively since its first iteration in 1992 at the center of the “Old World” where East meets West. The exhibition has always been colorful, and this 14th edition was just that, with flags, banners, floral bouquets, dramatic lighting and well-displayed products. The outcome of Selahattin Durak’s stepping down from the Istanbul Fair Organization (IFO) following the 2013 event and Tarsus’ joining IFO and AYSAD as organizer of the show was unclear. However, a positive influence was noticed, with the expo apparently moving on seamlessly, enabling more exhibitors and visitors to enjoy the numerous stands in the comfort of new halls with great facilities.

Exhibition

IFO Managing Director Zekeriya Aytemur invited a number of key figures in the lift sector to open the event by cutting a ribbon and sharing some opening thoughts with invited guests at a podium set in the busy entrance hall. Those helping him open the expo included Turkish Deputy Minister of Science, Industry and Technology Dr. Davut Kavranoğlu; President of AYSAD Sefa Targit; President of ELA Philippe Lamalle; and Erol Erbirer, a founding member of AYSAD who had worked in the industry for more than 60 years.

Four halls were used for this 2015 event, with an exhibition floor area totaling some 50,000 m2. More than 434 exhibitors from 28 countries enjoyed good headroom, with stands arranged with broad, carpeted aisles between. This allowed good sightlines and comfortable viewing opportunities. This is an important feature of the Asansör fair, and the committee insisted that no enclosed stands would be permitted. “National Pavilions” grouping companies from Germany, Italy and China were included. These pavilions helped with the logistics and cost effectiveness of exhibiting for many companies. However, most larger international companies chose to have their own exhibition booths or be featured in a display in a partner’s or agent’s stand.

Most lift products at the exhibition were components, but there were also new systems and prototypes. The components included lift cars, door operators, geared and gearless machines, safety gears, hydraulic pumps, electronic valves, ropes, belts, control panels, guide rails, guides, freight lifts, etc. Panoramic cars were in abundance, and it was clear that companies had the intention of supplying these products for the large and still-growing Turkish shopping-mall market. Complete lift packages including hydraulic, traction and pneumatic systems could be found. Traction systems had the most diverse arrangements, utilizing steel ropes with geared or gearless machines, belt suspension and/or transmissions and machines mounted in a variety of positions.

Asansör Istanbul also caters to contractors, specifiers and supply companies operating in the countries that border the Black Sea and the Southern Mediterranean, including the Persian Gulf and Middle East regions. Visitors and specifiers from these countries were much in attendance and actively looking for all types of lift and escalator packages. Also, European installation companies were there looking at the possibility of sourcing more products from Turkish manufacturers. The great deal of equipment designed, manufactured and supplied from the EU and globally reflected the fact that Turkey is now a major international lift market. The Turkish lift and escalator market requires a great deal of understanding, and independent lift consultants are certainly going to be needed to mediate between the lift supplier/service company and the owner, whether the latter is public or private.

The expo was a great success from many points of view. Visitor numbers were logged at 28,278 from 88 countries. The great strength of Asansör Istanbul is that it gives options for products that can be used in the mass market. Equipment on show is not intended to supply supertall buildings, travel extremely fast or have the most sophisticated control. It is about the everyday needs of lift companies and users working in the built environment. The Turkish lift industry has worked hard to build on this reality and shown that much is possible. ELEVATOR WORLD and your author look forward to seeing which changes happen over the next few years. Asansör Istanbul 2017 will surely tell another story regarding the lift industry, and we will be there to see just what that story is.

Lift Design Awards and Conference

Lift Design Awards

Asansör Istanbul’s conference and “Lift Design Awards” have become important parts of the overall event. It is crucial for the wellbeing of the industry that relevant and creative new solutions that facilitate people moving in architecture are encouraged and supported. To that end, the aforementioned contest and its awards are included as an integral part of the whole event. The winners of this sixth edition, which tasked entrants to design “New Lifts for Passengers and for Passenger & Freight in Existing Buildings,” were announced and presented at the gala on the first evening of the exhibition (March 26). The awards were presented by Ercüment Hizal and Sefa Targit, who stated that the selection had been very difficult to make and that the entries titled “Panoramya” and “Blade” were the two winning ones. The young designers of these entries were Hilal Kurt and Merve Aynur, and Pinar Simsek and Emre Caglar, respectively. Congratulations were extended to them as they were invited up to the stage to receive the prize money and a hearty round of applause.

Conference

The Asansör Istanbul Conference was a two-day event, with the first day being international, complete with simultaneous translation. The topics for this session covered issues at a European level. The second day was devoted to national lift topics and industry overviews. Here, the experiences of key lift people could be shared with a wider audience that will benefit many active in the industry at a national level.

Day One

Selcuk Dikmen, a very experienced lift professional, chaired the opening day of the 2015 conference. This started with a presentation by Ebru Gemici Loukas from VDMA (German mechanical engineering association) titled “Industrial Statistics of Lifts and Escalators.” The speech focused on the recorded lift industry statistics for 2011–2013. After a general look at the overall European lift-industry statistics, Gemici Loukas concentrated on the state of accident reporting across Europe and how difficult it has been to collect consistent figures. However, the emerging statistics being collected are becoming more reliable. Every year, the process is better understood, and the figures can be used in a more meaningful way. As for the reported accidents in 2013, Loukas showed that for the 18 reporting countries, 835 cases had been recorded — 17 fatal, 144 serious and 674 minor. These figures were interrogated in great depth and certainly help identify the key areas where safety can be improved.

The second presentation was “Standards and Risk Assessment” by Paolo Tattoli, a member of CEN Technical Committee 10/Working Group 1. Its illustrations showed the procedure and gave the audience insight into the workings of risk assessment. Tattoli used the example of a knife on a table to show the level of risk this situation presented. Following this intriguing example, the risks connected to designing, installing and using lifts in seismic areas were considered.

The final session of the day was jointly given by Esfandiar Gharibaan and Wolfgang Adldinger. This showed how and why the new EN 81-20/-50 standard had been formed and when it will be fully implemented. This comprehensive presentation not only gave the audience a general overview, it also illustrated detailed criteria. The implementation of this standard is important, but another key factor for all to consider is Directive 95/16/EC on Lifts, which comes into effect in April 2016. Both presenters stressed that this was very soon, and companies should be very aware of that implementation date.

Day Two

Sefa Targit, president of AYSAD (Turkish elevator association), chaired day two of the conference. He introduced Ercüment Hizal, Adnan Köşker and Nihat Ergün, who formed the panel of experts. Keynotes below give an overview of the topics the panel discussed.

Ergün, Turkey’s former Minister of Industry & Technology, stated that the country’s wealth is “above the ground and not under it.” He explained that “to increase this wealth, [the] public authority relies mainly on our industrialists and entrepreneurs.” He then added that there is a law that has been debated in Parliament that will hold provincial administrations and local governments responsible for any lift accidents.

Hizal stressed that Turkish industrialists are not able to grow and create their own brand: everybody wants to be “a boss”; therefore, partnerships are not fostered. Also, R&D activities are not highly valued: copying is preferred over creating individual, original designs.

Köşker, mayor of the industrial city of Gebze, said that those in charge of performing yearly lift controls are not adequately trained, nor perform uniform auditions. Confusion over which codes and standards are required is still a major problem.

There is a real value in these small conferences, and it was good to see that the exhibition committee allowed time to run its two sessions during the main exhibition. This is always difficult to arrange and ensure an audience can be enticed away from the attractions and hospitality of the stands. As the main exhibition becomes larger, however, the challenge of attracting the audience becomes harder. Certainly, the Lift Design Contest and the conference both have high value and are expected at the next Asansör Istanbul event, which will take place in 2017.

Dinner for the Press

by Sofia Antoniadou

KLEEMANN held a dinner for the industry press on March 26 at the Tüyap Palas. It brought together representatives from the largest industry magazines, both locally and globally, affording an opportunity for discussing current industry issues and relaxing in an elegant and friendly setting. Lazaros Asvestopoulos, commercial director of KLEEMANN and Apostolos Kalyvas, general manager of KLEEMANN Asansör, KLEEMANN’s subsidiary of 14 years in Istanbul, welcomed the guests. They also had the chance to announce the company’s new 6,500-m2 logistics center in Istanbul and presented its plans to firmly establish itself in the markets it is in, and further develop and expand its presence to new targeted markets worldwide.