In order to meet the particular needs of the sector during the COVID-19 emergency, and to complete with specific instructions the various national protocols on how to work safely during the pandemic, EFESME has developed sector guidelines to give clear and precise indications on how to behave when it is necessary to intervene at an installation for maintenance, repair and rescue of trapped people.

>> The Guidelines are available for download here (in English)

  The document, developed on the basis of input and comments submitted by the various EFESME members, was developed during several meetings by a group of experts and technicians with different experiences in the field. The group, which saw the active participation of Antonio Ciani, Nicola Di Lillo, Luca Incoronato, Giuseppe Iotti, and Paolo Tattoli, with the participation of Massimo Bezzi as President of EFESME and promoter of the document, and the Brussels office of the Federation, based its work on documents already developed at the national levels, and integrated them with comments received from European colleagues, to create a document generic enough to be shared by the various members, but at the same time specific enough to provide useful and sectorial indications where the various protocols could not go into detail.   The elaboration of the final version also saw the participation of ELA - European Lift Association, EFESME's counterpart for large companies and multinationals in the sector, and counts on the support of SBS - Small Business Standards and SMEunited, proving how crucial it is for SMEs to be able to rely both on information that is precise, simple and shared from the various players in the lift sector, and on the support of the European organisations created to support their needs and their work. The European document is divided into a series of introductory paragraphs aimed at explaining the nature of the virus, the objectives of the text and the technicians for whom it was designed, so as to provide general good practices that must always be respected, before going into detail and analyzing what is the safest behavior to have when one goes to a plant and intervene on it. Among the topics covered, one finds:

• The use of the means of transport
• The Intervention at an installation
• The use of PPE
• The rescue of trapped people

Plus two Annexes on PPE and on WHO recommendations.   These guidelines are in no way intended to replace what are the European, national, regional and/or local laws and decisions developed by the relevant authorities to work safely during the pandemic. What they aim to achieve is to provide a compendium of good practices specific to the lift sector and for interventions outside a company on an installation so that a technician knows how to operate safely even in those particular cases not covered by national protocols, which tend not to go into detail. Furthermore, the generic nature of the guidelines allows them to be adapted at national and/or even regional level where authorities have thought of stricter rules. EFESME has also already confirmed that two of its members, ANACAM for Italy and ANPA for France, are working on the translation of the guidelines at national level, so that, once again, the work done at European level can find its fulfillment and material usefulness at national level, in order to effectively support the daily work of SMEs that the Federation represents.