European Materials Handling Federation
organization
The European Materials Handling Federation (French: Fédération Européenne de la Manutention, FEM), is the association representing material handling, lifting and storage equipment manufacturers in Europe.
History
FEM was established in 1953 with two main purposes: (1) facilitating cooperation among materials handling manufacturers in Europe through their respective national committees and (2) creating state-of-the-art technical recommendations from the sector on the use of its equipment.
1993 marked an important change in FEM core activity with the establishment of the Internal Market (European Union) and the gradual increase in relevant regulatory requirements (firstly in the area of safety) originating from the EU. Consequently, in 2000 FEM Secretariat was moved to Brussels to be closer to the decision-making centre.
Structure
It represents 15 National Associations in 13 EU Member States, plus Russia, Turkey and Iran. FEM members represent more than 1,000 companies that employ 160,000 people directly in Europe. The industry has an annual turnover of €62bn (2016). FEM office is located in the same building as Pneurop, Comité Européen de l'Industrie de la Robinetterie or Orgalime, of which it is Associate Member. FEM is one of the sector associations Orgalime offers services to.
FEM is organised in Product Groups that reflect the various industries under the materials handling heading: conveyors for bulk handling, crane and lifting equipment, elevating equipment, intralogistics systems, industrial trucks, mobile elevating work platforms, and racking and shelving.
The constituent organisations include:
Agoria
VDMA -
The Federation of Finnish Technology Industries
CISMA
AISEM
DMH - Dutch Material Handling
FEM-AEM
TEKNIKFÖRETAGEN
NRSEA
ISDER
BMHF
Since 2018, FEM President is Jos De Vuyst from the company STOW.
Function
It holds a Congress every two years in the autumn.
This brief starts where responsible research should: with the source description of “European Materials Handling Federation” as organization. Everything that follows is an evidence route, not borrowed authority.
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The subject matters to the history & society register because the source frames it as organization. Its deeper value depends on whether names, dates, institutions and citations support that framing.
Contemporary correspondence, administrative files and participant testimony can test how later narratives organized the event or institution. The source revision retrieved here is dated Apr 22, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q1377562. VIAF identifies the subject as 136335375. The Library of Congress control number is no95005394. 3 of 5 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1953, 1993, 2000 and 2016.
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This entry incorporates text from “European Materials Handling Federation” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.