After the welcoming speech by ASO Safety Solutions CEO Helmut Friedrich, René Heydorn (ASO Sales Manager) and Andreas Holz (Sales, ASO UK & Ireland) took over the moderation of the event.
The first talk of the conference was given by Ian Law, Editor of the newspaper Perimeter Systems and initiator of Fencex, the tradeshow for the British door and fencing industry. He gave insight into the British market and described the development of the gate industry in the last few years in particular. Afterwards, John Birkett, General Director of the Automatic Entrance Systems Installers Federation, or AESIF for short, discussed industry standards and the problems affecting installers which result from them. Phil Papard, Head of Product Safety at Health and Safety Executive, talked about CE markings and machinery directives. BS EN 13241 as well as its supporting standards was presented and explained in detail by Michael Skelding, Secratary of the Door and Hardware Federation.

After a refreshing lunch and many interesting discussions, Stuart Roddy (EasyGates) and René Heydorn (ASO) continued the event. In their presentation, they reported about the European market, certifications and European technology. In the technology section in the afternoon, Chris Dodgson (Faac UK) talked about safeguarding gates by means of drive systems with stress limitation. In addition to technical details, he explained the risks of this technology and the correct usage of this safeguarding procedure.
The presentation by Andreas Holz and René Heydon (ASO) revolved around the safeguarding of gates with active closing edge protection and the safe monitoring of contact edges. With the help of the live measurement of the operational forces on a sample sliding gate, the necessity of correctly dimensioning a safety contact edge on the gate was shown. In this way, the conference participations were able to get an idea of the function of an active safety system on an automatic gate.

After the presentations, a fascinating discussion began between the participants and speakers. Interesting conversations were also held at the speakers' meeting points and contacts were made.
A subsequent participant survey showed that more than 200 guests were completely satisfied with the first Gate Safety Conference. But this is not the only reason why ASO Safety Solutions is planning future events with great enthusiasm. After this overwhelmingly positive reaction, the first UK Gate Safety Conference can be seen as the largest event of its kind worldwide. With this in mind, we're looking forward to the next ASO Gate Safety Conference.