February 2020
thyssenkrupp Elevator inaugurate its first smart spare parts warehouse for elevator maintenance and repair in Madrid. With this the company intends to improve service for customers in Spain, Portugal and Italy.
The construction costs for the modern and environmentally friendly spare parts warehouse amounted to 3.5 million euros. A new central distribution warehouse in Spain is to reduce waiting times for elevator spare parts by 20% and to save 10% of all trips by service technicians.
As a central management and storage point, the new facility in San Fernando de Henares aims to guarantee the complete availability of all spare parts for elevator operators and optimize their logistics through Smart Data services, analysis and processing of real-time data. The company stressed that the use of smart data analytics will help to manage logistics processes in only a third of the time previously required.
The digitalized spare parts logistics is intended to ensure that elevators can quickly be put back into operation. Downtime for customers would be minimized as the spare parts are available around the clock and arrive at the service technician at exactly the right time.
According to the company, the technicians could save 10% of the annual trips between the customers and branch offices, since all required spare parts are now brought along on the first visit. "The customers themselves benefit from the fact that lifts requiring maintenance are back in operation 20% faster when the precisely fitting replacement parts are now available to the technician without long ordering and delivery times."
With a total area of 6,853m², including 6,253m² storage space and 500 m² office space, the pilot project in Spain offers space for around 10,000 different spare parts. It can process over 1,4 million orders per year – an increase of 400% compared to the previous system.
The warehouse in Madrid will be the first centrally managed smart depot of its kind in the world, according to thyssenkrupp Elevator. Similar facilities are planned for various important distribution hubs, including Memphis, Neuhausen, Shanghai, Porto Alegre and Pune. As a result, thyssenkrupp Elevator wants to completely end the distribution of its many elevator components to currently more than 10,000 small storage locations.
To make the spare parts warehouses and thousands of elevators "talk" to each other, the new facility will be linked to Max – the predictive maintenance solution by thyssenkrupp Elevator already installed in 120,000 elevators worldwide.
The real-time data collected by sensors is sent to the cloud, where it is analyzed by a learning system with artificial intelligence. According to thyssenkrupp Elevator, the advantage for customers is that Max recognizes which technical components need to be maintained or replaced before they fail. "This allows for replacement before the elevator is out of service for even a minute."
The synchronization of the new depot with Max is intended to ensure "event more seamless delivery of the right parts to the technicians". Max’s algorithm, which is connected to the technicians’ mobile devices, is to send precise diagnoses, keep employees informed about maintenance and repair needs at their customers’ sites and prepare them for all eventualities.
With this pilot project, thyssenkrupp Elevator aims to reduce its environmental impact and promote a more sustainable supply chain. According to the "Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change", around 5.5 % of global greenhouse gas emissions are attributable to logistics activities. Digitalized warehouse logistics would eliminate the need for many trips to transport spare parts.
The elevator manufacturer’s truck fleet is to save 64 tons of CO2 or the equivalent of 400,000 kilometers per year thanks to the digitalized warehouse logistics. Environmental friendliness is also the top priority when it comes to packaging spare parts, the company explains: all materials should be reusable or recyclable.
Digitalpaper
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