There is no doubt that IoT, or Internet of Things, has been advantageous to businesses by facilitating communication between various devices, as well as between devices and the cloud. Besides business processes, IoT is also transforming infrastructural devices such as elevators and escalators beyond their utilitarian function of carrying people between the levels of a building with speed and comfort.
It does so through predictive maintenance. IoT’s technical capabilities let the devices manage large streams of performance data and predict maintenance requirements and impending failures at a fraction of the time and effort it would take a human technician to perform that kind of analysis.
Here are the 10 benefits of IoT-enabled elevators:
1. Improved Predictive Maintenance
The biggest advantage of IoT-enabled elevators is the improvement of its preventive maintenance schedule and transforming the elevator into a predictive maintenance model. The device can now monitor changes in operating conditions, like heat, friction, or noise. This data is then communicated in real-time from the escalators to maintenance teams and clients, allowing professionals to foresee possible issues before they occur and provide solutions.
2. Ability to Monitor Operating Conditions
Depending on the elevator manufacturer and model, IoT-enabled devices enable professionals to gather data easily from the following areas:
- Critical safety circuits
- Load weighing
- Number of trips
- Number of door cycles
- Wait times
- Traffic trends
- Ride analysis (acceleration and deceleration, jerk, bumps, vibration)
- Harmonic analysis (the harmonics of the machine, suspension members and guiding members)
3. Remote Diagnostics and Troubleshooting
Without IoT, technicians would have to make multiple trips to the elevator site to detect and identify problems. But with IoT-enabled elevators, they can now analyse and correctly identify problems even before visiting the sites, saving valuable on-site time that would otherwise have been wasted on testing and troubleshooting. By having a complete diagnosis earlier – even a partial one – it ensures that the technician can spend all that time fixing the problem instead.
4. Real-Time Notifications Enabled
IoT-enabled elevators may be able to detect problems before facilities managers and building occupants notice anything amiss. For example, when an elevator is on the third floor of a building with a switch in the wrong position, the person-in-charge will be alerted. He/she can then quickly contact the customer to resolve the issue as opposed to the customer having to call for service, get in the queue for a technician and have the technician arrive just to find out that a switch needed to be turned.
5. Behavioral Insights
In the future, IoT-enabled elevators are expected to be able to gather data on the behaviour of users to make riding elevators more seamless. For example, during lunchtime when there is a large influx of elevator users, IoT data can help inform devices to arrive on schedule, allowing passengers to get to their destinations faster.
6. Avoided Downtime
There is no such thing as 100 percent uptime because elevators still need to be taken out of service for maintenance. However, people’s movement within buildings can be disrupted by maintenance, especially when there are unexpected outages. Therefore, downtime for your vertical transportation should be rare, planned, and only take place during off-peak hours.
7. Increased Product Reliability
IoT data can also benefit elevator manufacturers. They can use the data to assist in their innovation process, such as deciding whether to change a part vendor, as well as learning which components are strong, which ones are weak, and make improvements accordingly.
8. Flexible Communication Standards
Many facilities looking at IoT integration for their elevators often fear that the equipment is proprietary. It is entirely possible to avoid this scenario of being tied to a long-term maintenance agreement for an uncooperative system by specifying your needs up front. That way, it is possible for maintenance companies to work out a way to integrate – if not fully, then partially – their own IoT systems with the existing equipment of another manufacturer. Facilities can also hire an elevator inspector or consultant to draft a specification for IoT and ensure the building receives something that most maintenance companies can integrate with.
9. Less Frequent Replacements
Constant monitoring of equipment and avoidance of breakdowns is more beneficial financially due to less time spent diagnosing the problem and no need to pay for emergency repairs. In the long run, ongoing monitoring of equipment can provide significant cost savings because only component parts are upgraded, which is planned for, versus replacing an entire unit due to unforeseen extensive damage from a series of issues.
10. Better Facilities Management
As IoT devices become more affordable and cellular technology continues to advance, it seems only logical to invest in IoT for better facilities management. Building managers can use IoT as a tool for predictive analytics and predictive maintenance as well as add future services and apps, such as allowing people to use their mobile devices to signal their arrival at the lift, cutting down on waiting time.
There you have it: the 10 ways IoT is changing elevators through predictive maintenance, which make predictive maintenance one of the most important applications of IoT in the escalator business. As your reliable network solutions provider, EKTECH is equipped to help improve the performance of your business infrastructure, deliver transparency and new insights, as well as save costs. Contact us today to find out how!
Comments are closed.