06-1 Growth is fuelled by need for standards
Growth is fuelled by need for standards and support for members…
The turn of the year is used by many to find out how things are going and to planning… so did the DLMS User Association.
First some statistics:
In 2005, 17 new members have joined, giving a net growth of ten. With this, the DLMS UA counts 76 members including four associated members, organizations having similar interest as the DLMS UA.
Whereas the DLMS UA has been started in Europe, it has now become an organisation with global membership. An important growth is coming from outside mainly from the Middle-East and the Far-East. This is a clear proof that utilities, meter manufacturers and system providers do realize the benefits of international standards when it comes to investment to systems for meter data exchange, and that DLMS/COSEM meets their needs.
The distribution of membership in geographical terms is as follows:
Continents: Africa (1), America (2), Asia (14), Australia (2) and Europe (57).
Countries: Australia (2), Belgium (1), Bosnia & Herzegovina (1), Canada (1), P.R.China (4), Czech republic (2), Germany (12), Denmark (2), Spain (3), Finland (1), France (6), Greece (2), Hungary (2), Indonesia (1), India (2), Italy (2), Japan (1), Korea (2), South Korea (3), Lithunia (1), Republic of Moldova (1), Netherlands (2), Poland (4), Portugal (2), Russia (1), Saudi Arabia (1), Sweden (1), Slovenia (1), Slovak Republic (1), Serbia & Montenegro (1), Switzerland (4), Turkey (1), Ukraine (1), U.K. (2), USA (1), Republic of South Africa (1).
New vendors are busy implementing the specification. The year 2005 has also brought the first DLMS/COSEM compliant meters developed and tested in Asia. To date, more than 20 Certificates have been issued.
Also, in 2005 the DLMS UA has been designated by the IEC as a Registration Authority for the IEC 62056 series of standards. In addition to this service, we maintain the standards, answer questions and run the conformance-testing scheme.
The training seminars are another important element of the support we are providing to our current and potential members. Since 2002, the training seminar was running in 9 different countries and more than 200 experts have been trained.
We believe that the support provided by the DLMS UA, including the maintenance of the international standards, the training seminars, answering questions and the conformance-testing scheme has helped us to obtain this growth.
We are therefore committed to serve the industry and our members even better in 2006 by adding new, innovative elements to the specification and improving the support services.