„EN ISO 8100-1/2 is too complex“

He is confident that the Chinese market will return to stable growth once the current real estate crisis has been overcome, Zhang Lexiang, Secretary General of the China Elevator Association (CEA), told LIFTjournal.

By Bernd Lorenz

Over the past few decades, economic development in China has generally only gone in one direction: steadily upwards. This has also been reflected in the real estate sector and in the number of elevators, escalators and moving walks installed. Only the coronavirus pandemic has halted the upward trend.

"In 2021, the unit production of elevator and escalator was over 1.21 million, increasing over 12 per cent comparing with that of 2020, whereas, the production dropped to 1.1 million in 2022 – the year of the severe pandemic lockdown," reports Zhang Lexiang, Secretary General of the China Elevator Association (CEA). He is confident, that after overcoming the present real estate crisis, the market will see stable growth again.

Up to November 2023, there were 10.8 million installations, which were registered under government safety supervision. "There should be over 12 million installations including those without supervision e.g. in homes, rural areas and special locations," he explains. While the elevator industry in Europe is increasingly focusing on the modernization of older systems, this is not a significant issue in China. "Currently over 90 per cent of the existing installations are installed in the recent 15 years, therefore the proportion of replacement is small."

Training in China

Photo: © bjdlzx/iStock.com

Many skilled workers are needed to install and maintain the systems. However, there is no special training in elevator construction in China. "We do have many elevator worker or installer training schools, but there is no unified qualification process and the syllabus is not suitable for the real working conditions and business environment," says Zhang Lexiang.

What's more, most fitters are treated badly and sometimes work in extremely dangerous conditions, as Zhang Lexiang sometimes shows in videos on his LinkedIn channel. "The complete elevator companies normally subcontract the elevator installation work to the installation teams at a very low budget, and the workers get very little." As a result, fitters are leaving the elevator industry after only a short time. Experienced specialists are therefore hard to find.

Role of the WEEF

The World Elevator and Escalator Federation (WEEF) was founded a few years ago to promote global technical harmonization and mutual recognition of standards (see LIFTjournal 2/2024). The China Elevator Association is also part of this network of various international associations.

Zhang Lexiang hopes that the WEEF can play an important role on improving elevator quality, rules of business practices and job safety. "The ultimate goal of WEEF should be making the innovations happen and breaking the technical barriers to the innovations by reforming the very old school elevator standards and deregulate the government over control on our industry", says the Secretary General of the CEA.

Concise and simple standards

Whether the WEEF will develop from a rather loose association into a powerful federation remains to be seen. What is certain, however, is that EN ISO 8100-1/2 will come into force in the near future – a globally valid standard for the elevator industry (see LIFTjournal 2/2024).

But Zhang Lexiang is sceptical. "There are only a few experts capable of really understanding these standards because they are too complex for all the stakeholders. The standards should be written in a concise and simple manner so that all the stakeholders can easily understand them and apply to them with full awareness," he argues. 

About the person: Zhang Lexiang (59) is Secretary General of the China Elevator Association (CEA) since 2015. Previously, he was Standing Deputy Secretary General for 14 years. In 1985 he graduated with major in Automatic Control.

According to Zhang Lexiang CEA is the only nationwide association representing the Chinese elevator industry. It currently has about 900 members, one third of which are complete system suppliers including all the multinationals and remaining are mainly the component manufacturers.

More information: elevator.org.cn