Connected Services boost availability of lifts

Digitalisation has long since also taken hold in the lift industry. For example, last year Kone and IBM launched an alliance to develop new services and products.

Using the Internet of Things (IoT) and IBM’s “Watson IoT platform”, which will optimise the efficiency and availability of lifts. The result is the 24/7 Connected Services that Kone will be presenting at the interlift.

Operators are looking for more transparency and information related to their lifts in an increasingly networked world. The response to these demands is the 24/7 Connected Services, which will ring in a new era in lift maintenance as part of the Kone Care maintenance solution.

Cloudbased IoT technology

Kone makes use here of IBM’s “Watson” cloudbased IoT technology to collect data from various lift sensors. Over 200 parameters can be taken into account in current Kone lifts, from statistical status reports to critical safety reports – round the clock.

Watson conducts a constant target-actual state comparison of the data for this purpose; an algorithm determines experience values for each lift.“If the actual state reveals a divergence, we can take proactive measures”, noted Olaf Torney from the Technical Field Support Kone.

Avoid malfunctions, improve travel comfort

Consequently, the company will be entering a new digital age with the launch of the 24/7 Connected Services. “Thanks to the cooperation with IBM, we are in a position to provide our customers with expanded service solutions, such as the pre-emptive maintenance of lifts,” explained Franz Ansorge, service product manager at Kone.

“For example, based on the data analysed by Watson, we can monitor safety-relevant lift components round the clock. Moreover, we can tell how high the load capacity utilisation of the lifts is. Our service technicians can then take preventive action and intervene to guarantee the best possible travel comfort or avoid breakdowns.”

Fewer standstill times

The 24/7 Connected Services provide operators with an overview of the status of their lifts at all times. In addition, they benefit from fewer standstill times and greater availability of their lifts. “Thanks to the Internet of Things, we can raise the maintenance and care of lifts to a new qualitative level,” Jochen Kramer, service department head at Kone was pleased to note.

Kramer is convinced that the innovative data services will play an increasingly important role in the future,“In an urbanised world, a lot depends on how passenger transport is organised. Our customers as well as the lift users benefit from this.

In this regard, the 24/7 Connected Services are an ideal supplement to our Kone Caremaintenance solution, as part of which our service technicians take individual and personal care of the lifts of our customers.”

Lifts “talk” to Watson

But how do the 24/7 Connected Services work in practice? It is very simple: there is continuous communication between the IoT systemWatson and the connected lifts.

You can even listen to this now - because to show how the lifts can be monitored remotely and status reports analysed, Kone and IBM have translated the raw data of the lift sensors into human language. What still sounds futuristic is in reality the revolution of lift maintenance – you can find examples from around the world at machineconversations.kone.com.

www.kone.com