Pushing back technological boundaries, global elevator company thyssenkrupp is redefining the art of people-mobility. Dr. ANDY CHAN, managing director in Hong Kong, speaks on the shape of things to come.

A diversified industrial group with over 200 years, headquartered in Essen, Germany, thyssenkrupp Elevator has to its credit 40 years in the industry, 20 years in Asia.

The company’s Asia Pacific headquarters covers 22 countries in the Asia Pacific and the Middle East and boasts factories in China, India and Korea.

The company launched MULTI – the world’s first rope-less elevator system in 2017. The very first MULTI will be installed in OVG Real Estate’s new building in Berlin in 2019.

2018 saw the opening of the company’s Zhongshan factory and test tower – the tallest among thyssenkrupp test towers worldwide, capable of testing high-speed elevators of speed up to 18m/s.

Trend Breaking Technology 

“Our mission has always been to create a value-added offering to customers with our innovation and digitalization. Our Innovative MULTI – the world’s first rope-less elevator system – is a case in point. It breaks the 160-year reign of rope-dependent elevators,” says Dr. Andy Chan, managing director of the company in Hong Kong.   

MULTI reduces elevators’ footprint by up to 50% while increasing passenger capacity by at least as much. “Our cloud-based predictive maintenance solution MAX delivers efficiency gains and saves time for customers. The machine learning allows us to substantially flag potential repair issues before they occur, reducing elevator downtime,” explains Dr. Chan.

Around 120,000 elevators in the US, Germany, Spain and South Korea are already connected to MAX and are benefiting from predictive analytics.

“New market conditions, new price pressure, fast-moving competition and  increased material costs, present  a new set of challenges.” – Dr. Andy Chan

Rising up in China 

After many years of stable growth, the market in China has changed, Dr. Chan says. “These changes, which include new market conditions, new price pressure, fast-moving competition and increased material costs, present a new set of challenges.”

“We must respond by working more effectively and collaboratively, and by continuing to build and maintain a world-class service business throughout our operations in China.

“We also need to be better at value selling. We need to leverage our service and product strengths to give our customers a deeper understanding of the many benefits thyssenkrupp Elevator can offer.

An example of how we are addressing this is the rollout of our new product naming system in China with the launch of meta100, whose product name easily identifies its positioning among customers.”

On the Horizon   

According to Dr. Chan, big data application will allow the emergence of reactive maintenance to preventive maintenance and now predictive maintenance thus allowing a high level of reliability, acceptability and maintainability.

“Urbanization leads to the demand of vertical and horizontal transportation in the increasing number of high rise and super high rise buildings. Also, urbanization demands an integration of transportation means into a system such as METRO, and airports,” he says.

He observes that digitalization is increasingly adopted in management and operation systems. For instance, thyssenkrupp Elevator maintenance works are highly digitalized with operational tablets. VR and AR are also used as training, show room and other applications.

“Businesses are striving for simplification in systems and operations. Less is more and less is smart are the trends today. Ultimately, by means of or precise engineering that aims for tomorrow, thyssenkrupp Elevator employees work together to craft our city as the best place to live.”

For additional information, please visit www.thyssenkrupp-elevator.com/hk/

Hong Kong’s Business Leaders share market and interest intelligence in the pages of HKMVC 2019

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