Keeping a mega city moving
Mumbai’s extensive metro system relies on our high-performance escalators, made in India, to keep passengers moving efficiently through its stations.
Elevator and escalator maintenance is changing – fast.
Maintenance and repair services are evolving into seamless, uninterrupted processes. With digital connectivity and sensor technology, issues can be detected before they become problems, often without anyone having to report them.
As a result, building owners and facility managers can enjoy more uptime and less disruption thanks to significant reductions in breakdowns and maintenance callbacks.
Digitally connected units that can transfer real-time data to central operation centers are at the heart of this transformation. But so are the teams of people working on and alongside this technology. This series of short articles reveals the day-to-day experiences of the Schindler teams helping to shape this new era of elevator and escalator maintenance.
You’ll get to walk in their shoes, and see how they’re harnessing the power of digitally connected equipment to deliver dramatically enhanced customer experiences.
Here's a quick flavor of what you’ll find.
Pre-empting faults means better maintenance quality, faster reaction times and higher overall uptime. And because connected units require fewer physical callbacks, they also offer a more sustainable option for building owners.
This is the domain of Annika Jamal El-Din, who is helping to shape sustainable services at Schindler. Achieving green building credentials is a key sustainability objective for many building owners.
That’s why Schindler developed its "Sustainable Service" that reduces the CO₂ footprint of elevator maintenance to the absolute minimum (almost to zero). In Germany, for example, our company has obtained certification demonstrating that we can achieve a reduction of 99.5%** of total emissions for a service contract that includes digital services, compared with a standard service contract.
In her article, Annika also runs through the many avenues the company is pursuing as part of its aim of becoming a net-zero CO2 organization.
**According to TÜV Rheinland certificate (Zertifikat Product Carbon Footprint; PCF C01-2022-03-21254480).
It’s a little-known fact that Schindler doesn’t only look after its own escalators and elevators. Actually, around 45% of Schindler’s global maintenance services are for third-party units.
That’s where Li-qun Meng and the Global Multi-Brand team come in. He has the daunting task of ensuring service personnel have all the latest technical information for thousands of non-Schindler units readily available in 30+ languages. He’s able to do this thanks to a powerful combination of great training, the expertise of Schindler’s support network, performance data from connected units, and the latest digital tools.
Escalator and elevator technology has entered the connected era. These digitally enabled units can provide real-time status updates 24/7. They are capable of diagnosing operational issues and often, in concert with Schindler’s Technical Operation Centers (TOCs), addressing the problem remotely.
The connected elevators can even prompt service callbacks where necessary, while accelerating the repair process by providing diagnostic insight to technicians. All of these benefits contribute to efficiently run units and minimum building disruption.
Of course, information from smart elevators is only valuable when somebody is monitoring the data. That’s where experts such as Abby Thebeau in Schindler’s digital services arm—Schindler Ahead—come in. Working with technical personnel across the company’s 27 global TOCs, she enables the digital insight to be used for fast maintenance actions in the short-term, but also for shaping future products and services.
Much of the work Schindler conducts occurs quietly in the background - minimizing customer disruption. But when our service personnel are required on site, it is often to solve issues before customers even know about them – never mind they cause any disruption - thanks to connected technology.
Schindler has a global network of more than 40,000 service technicians and engineers, such as Julien Locher. Julien has a close connection with his customers in the Swiss capital Bern. He uses this connection (along with professional expertise and digital insights) to provide a fast, efficient and, friendly service.
Technicians such as Julien are supported by advanced connected, digital tools and a Global Field Support team of expert engineers such as Marek Kunert.
Schindler has accumulated over 145 years of escalator and elevator expertise. The combined experience of the individual members of the Global Field Support team itself runs into hundreds of years. This team sits at the pinnacle of Schindler’s technical support function. Marek and his colleagues troubleshoot and solve complex elevator problems for customers around the world.
Their role is to give Schindler’s network of technicians and engineers remote assistance. They also fly out – sometimes at a moment’s notice – to repairs and installations on large projects. It’s quite a ride.
These stories give us a glimpse into an unseen world of innovative, connected technology that drives elevator and escalator excellence. The Schindler team shows what it takes to deliver high levels of uptime, minimize passenger disruption, and a seamless service that sometimes seems almost invisible.