Transformation of the stair lift sector

With immediate effect, thyssenkrupp Elevator is equipping 120 customer advisors in nine countries with mixed reality technology and Microsoft HoloLens.

The Group intends to provide the first completely digitalised sales process of its kind worldwide in the stair lift sector in the form of HoloLinc. The aim is a fourfold reduction in the time between the first measurement of a customer staircase and delivery of the new stair lift.

HoloLinc should make the transformation of the stair lift sector a reality. According to the lift group, the way rooms could be measured and digitalised was completely new and sales staff would be able to immediately commission production of the solution identified at the push of a button.

Enormous time saving

Since extremely precise measurements were produced with HoloLinc with just one customer visit, supposedly difficult details could be taken into account on the spot. The data was sent to the Microsoft cloud platform Azure and used to design the best mobility solution.

This could be visualised on the spot, individually customised and assigned an end price - virtually in real time. As a result, the whole process only took a few hours.

Combining mixed reality and a cloud-based configurator should also provide customers with entirely new options. By using a "digital twin", they could see precisely what the proposed solution would look like in their own home and adapt it to their own needs and the space available. If 40 to 70 days are currently needed between measurement and installation, this period should drop with immediate effect to two weeks – a fourfold time-saving.

Cooperation with Zühlke and Microsoft

HoloLinc was developed in cooperation with Zühlke and Microsoft. This did not just involve the digitalisation of a single production step, but rather the entire production chain - from the first measurements to production, thyssenkrupp Elevator explained.

A total of 120 sales employees from nine countries have now received their HoloLinc toolkit, which among other things includes a tablet, portable printer and other technical accessories.

Following a pilot project in the Netherlands with over 300 installations, thyssenkrupp Elevator is now launching the solution in Germany, the United Kingdom, Belgium, France, Italy and Spain. In 2018, it will be the turn of Norway and Japan.

www.thyssenkrupp-elevator.com