Growth in members at Next Group

Last year, the Next Group succeeded in adding seven new members from Australia, Germany, Sweden and Turkey, as reported by Volker Hager (Hydroware) at the Annual General Meeting at the end of November.

The charitable NeXt group e.V. association provides a platform for the development of open source hardware and software.

A large proportion of the new members resulted, among other things, from the exhibitions and talks at the Schwelm Symposium and interlift 2023, where the Next Group was present for the first time with its own stand. At the meeting – which took place in hybrid form – the participants decided once again to take an active part in several events in 2024.

Geert Maurissen (Safeline Group) presented the association’s current finances and planned budget. Jörg Hellmich (Elfin Technology) and Nico Raschle (Masora) provided information about market and technology trends. Joachim Klingler (Telegärtner Elektronik) talked about the current status of the Lift Cloud.

New standards and regulations

The past actions of the Board of Management were then ratified and it was re-elected for another year. The Board of Management includes Volker Hager (Director Business Committee), Jörg Hellmich (Director Technical Committee) and Geert Maurissen (Chairman).

The subsequent discussion with all participants then concentrated on the "open lift cloud" and "cyber security", including the new standards and regulations. Roy Schneider (Thor Engineering) gave an account of the experience in developing the open lift controller "Thor E2", which already included requirements from the new standards on cyber security.

Next Group: The members of the Next group together develop specifications for different applications in the field of lifts and escalators. Founded in February 2017, the association offers a neutral platform for developing standardised components and interfaces for lifts and escalators and aims to promote the image of standardised interfaces. The association currently has 26 lift sector company members.

next-group.org