ISO TC 178 Meetings in New York City

The week of April 23 was an important time for the international elevator industry, as it was during this week when representatives of 30 nations gathered at the headquarters of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME) in New York City to participate in the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) TC 178 Plenary Committee (PC) and Working Group (WG) meetings. The meetings were hosted by ASME and the National Elevator Industry, Inc., with additional support provided by Otis; Fujitec America; Schindler; Draka; Elevator World, Inc.; GAL Manufacturing Corp; the International Association of Elevator Consultants, the International Association of Elevator Engineers and the National Association of Elevator Contractors.

WGs 4 and 6 met Monday through Wednesday. The PC Meeting was held on Thursday and Friday, with 50 delegates participating to review the ongoing work and future assignments of all of TC 178 WGs and receive reports from the TC 178 Secretariat and ISO representatives. During the PC Meeting, reports of the following WGs were presented and discussed. In addition to the meetings, the attendees participated in a tour of the World Trade Center (WTC) construction site in Lower Manhattan, where they visited the recently topped out WTC 1 Building and WTC Memorial.

The meeting began with welcoming remarks offered by William Baker of ASME, and Lou Bialy of Otis Elevator Company. TC 178 Chairman de Mas Latrie then opened the meeting and introduced Anna Caterina Rossi who reported on the ongoing work of ISO/TAG 008 on building systems. Eva Contival of AFNOR (French Normalization Association) TC 178 Committee Secretary followed with her report.

PC Meeting attendees were updated on the progress of the ongoing work of the other TC 178 WGs. The committee also received reports from the conveners of WGs 4, 5 and 6 on the work undertaken during the days just prior to the TC 178 meeting. Following is a list of the active TC 178 WGs and the reports presented during this event:

• WG 2: Guiderails
• WG 8: Electrical Requirements
• WG 10: Energy Efficiency
• WG 11: Improvement of Safety of Existing Lifts

WG 4: Safety Requirements and Risk Assessment

WG 4 has completed the development of risk-assessment and -reduction methodology for lifts, and is taking up the task of doing the same for escalators. It has also developed Global Essential Safety Requirements (GESRs) and Global Essential Safety Parameters (GESPs) for the industry to use when developing performance-based safety requirements. Development of GESPs for lift components is also on the WG’s agenda.

WG 5: Escalators and Moving Walks

The work of comparing the escalator codes of North America, Europe and Japan is underway, in preparation for the development of GESRs and GESPs for this equipment.

WG 6: Lift Installation

The current work being undertaken by this committee is the updating of machine-room-less lift standards, development of methodology for fire testing of lift landing doors and development of a technical specification for the use of lifts to evacuate buildings in emergencies.

In addition, WG 6 has established and is maintaining an ongoing liaison with the ISO/TC 59/SC 16 committee, which is evaluating the accessibility and usability of the built environment. The review of the ISO 21542 standard being developed by this committee is also being reviewed by WG 6. As the meeting drew to a close, the date of the next PC Meeting was announced for October 20, 2014, in Pretoria, South Africa.