Technical Academy of Heilbronn eV Dr.

Christian Studer
European Lift Congress Heilbronn 2022 Digitization of existing installations

Digitization of existing installations

Dr. Christian Studer
Head New Technologies
Schindler Elevators Ltd
christian.studer@schindler.com

Michael Vogt
Lead Sensorics & Diagnostics
Schindler Elevators Ltd
michael.vogt@schindler.com

Abstract

In this paper we discuss the digitization of our maintenance business. We start from
the general benefits of such an approach and discuss the general architecture of an
elevator diagnostics platform. We will focus on the close loop principle where
digitization and associated algorithms are optimally combined with human power and
expertise to bring best in class service to our customers. Further on we address the
challenges associated to connecting old elevator equipment to the cloud, using
sensor kits. We will introduce the concept of green service, enabled by digitization,
and show a concrete example how this is implemented in Germany. Digitization of
the service is more than just putting some sensors in an elevator. It’s about the entire
digital ecosystem the elevator company offers, it’s about the humans interacting with
the digital data, allowing them to best drive elevator availability, maintenance
efficiency and sustainability.

1 Introduction

The internet of things (IOT) is transforming the industry. Technical equipment is

connected to a cloud backend, allowing for exchanging data between the equipment
and the backend. This data can include status data, performance data and
commands for equipment operation. Almost every machine is connected today. The
elevator and escalator industry, and Schindler in particular, has taken up this
technology to shape now the internet of elevators and escalators.

2 The internet of elevators and escalators

The elevator industry faces the challenges of a widespread and global network of
elevators, which has to be maintained in a high qualified way. The internet of
elevators and escalators offers a huge opportunity to our industry and revolutionizes
the way how maintenance of elevators has classically been done. Benefits for the
customer include high elevator availability, shorter reaction times at callbacks and a
high maintenance efficiency in general. The environment profits from less physical
maintenance car trips to the individual installations, implemented in green service
models.

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Technical Academy of Heilbronn eV Dr. Christian Studer
European Lift Congress Heilbronn 2022 Digitization of existing installations

In general, connectivity and integration of elevators into the internet of elevators and
escalators offers the following benefits

• Elevator status with high precision, i.e. elevator companies know before the
customer if the equipment has a malfunction and can act in a proactive way,
shortening malfunction resolution times and increasing elevator availability for the
customer
• Better visit on site thanks to advanced diagnostic capabilities, informing the elevator
technician already in advance on the root cause of the problem, allowing him to
arrive prepared on site
• Physical visit avoidance by replacing a physical maintenance trip by a continuous
remote and virtual check, triggering physical trips only if they are required. Physical
trip avoidance means less CO2 in the air and a great asset for the industry to reduce
carbon emissions
• Enhanced planning, i.e. maintenance trips can be scheduled based on the actual
status of the elevator, yielding both efficient service for the customer and
contributing to sustainability.

Figure 1 shows the typical setup of an elevator within the internet of elevators and
escalators. The elevator is equipped with a gateway which sends equipment data to
the cloud. This data is analyzed by a diagnostic engine and symptoms of the elevator
are created, rating these symptoms based on urgency, e.g. urgent issue triggering
immediate intervention, or non-urgent issue to be reviewed in the next scheduled
physical maintenance visit. Recommendations are given to the technician, who
himself gives again feedback to the system on the real problem encountered on site.
With such a closed loop architecture the system can continuously learn and improve
the performance.

Figure 1: Closed loop diagnostic system, allowing the system to learn from technicians input to
continuously improve the performance

Looking at the diagnostic engine, we distinguish the following mechanisms to be

applied. First, there are so called rule-based methods, where equipment data is
processed by expert defined rules. Modern elevator diagnostic engines also make

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Technical Academy of Heilbronn eV Dr. Christian Studer
European Lift Congress Heilbronn 2022 Digitization of existing installations

anomaly detections, whereas equipment data patterns are learned by machine

learning algorithms and anomalies in these patterns are detected. Anomaly detection
does only show the presence of an anomaly; however it does not rate this anomaly.
A third approach therefore is a data driven one, where elevator failure labels are
connected with equipment data and anomaly data patters, which yields automatic
generated failure models. For the data driven approach the closed feedback loop to
the technician is of outmost importance.

Figure 2: Anomaly detection within the closed loop system architecture

Figure 2 shows the integration of the anomaly detection in the closed feedback loop,
on the example of door information. Constant anomaly detections are summarized
into a daily view and outliers are reported to the service technicians. Based on his or
her feedback the anomalies can then be further mapped to physical problems
delivering a true data driven closed loop diagnostic engine.

3 Third-party and old elevator installations

The internet of elevator and escalators is a very well-suited concept for new elevators
where connectivity and associated equipment data can be directly integrated in the
elevator components. However, the challenge arises from all the old or third-party
elevator installations which were not foreseen to be integrated in the internet of
elevators and escalators when they were build decades ago. Basically, the easiest
way to connect such old equipment is still to get limited access to the old elevator
controller. Often also older elevator controllers have service interfaces which can be
connected to the cloud with some efforts. But as a matter of fact, such old
installations generally have not very much data available to share, making the remote
diagnostic concept more challenging.

Another approach often seen in the industry is to come up with additional sensor kits
for old installations, where the elevator is equipped with a set of sensors, which
measure the performance of the elevator. In general, the data quality of such sensor
kits is good and allows good insights into elevator performance. However, such
sensor kits are quite expensive, not because of the sensors but mainly because of
the installation and cabling of the sensors. While wireless would be an option for data

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Technical Academy of Heilbronn eV Dr. Christian Studer
European Lift Congress Heilbronn 2022 Digitization of existing installations

submission, the energy supply of the sensors remains a challenge as the elevator
shaft offers low opportunities for energy harvesting. A clear priority is therefore to
directly connect to old controllers and only use sensor kits where not enough data
can be retrieved from these controllers.

Looking at the old and especially third-party elevators with their huge variety, a
further challenge is to really identify the components and to learn their failure model.
While anomaly detection can be carried out for such installations, the link to the real
failure issue remains the challenge. Here the service technician comes into play who
gives feedback and teach the system on the real root causes of the detected
anomalies.

4 The Lift Guardian

An example of such a sensor kit is the lift guardian inspection kit for Germany and
Austria. With this kit the mandatory elevator checks can be performed remotely in a
high-efficient, modern, and green way. Sensors include laser positioning, inductive
cabin light current measurement, magnetic door position measurement, as well as
vibration measurement.

5 The Technical Operation Centers

Schindler is committed to deliver service to its customers in a modern, efficient, and

sustainable way. Connectivity and the internet of elevators and escalators play an
essential role in this. All of this is happening in a closed loop system, where humans
play an important role. Elevators within the internet of elevators and escalators are
not left alone in the digital world. Analytics and machine learning are only a means to
consolidate and identify the elevator which really require attention by our technical
teams. Technical operation centers run by Schindler play a major role in this. High
qualified staff in these operation centers constantly monitor the aggregated
performance of the elevator fleet and can make deep dives once the remote
diagnostic engines point out potential problem cases. Technical operation centers
allow for best combining data driven machine learning with human expertise,
constantly interacting with each other to continuously improve. Figure 3 gives an
impression of such a technical operation center run by Schindler.

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Technical Academy of Heilbronn eV Dr. Christian Studer
European Lift Congress Heilbronn 2022 Digitization of existing installations

Figure 3: Technical operation center

6 Sustainability as driver of digitization

While digitization has been started in our industry from the viewpoint of elevator
availability and maintenance efficiency, the green aspect of digitization comes now
into the focus. With better tailoring of the physical elevator service visits the elevator
industry can save a lot of emissions on its service car fleet. In a green service model
physical service trips are still necessary, best executed with an electric vehicle, but
thanks to the data driven pre-evaluation and monitoring of the elevators, these
service visits can be made much more effective and tailored to the actual situation
the elevator is in.

Schindler is proud to have certified together with TüV Rheinland the first green
service offering in our industry. This green service which is available for our German
customers reduces the CO2 impact of maintenance by 99.5%.Figure 4 shows the
associated certificate from TüV Rheinland.

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Technical Academy of Heilbronn eV Dr. Christian Studer
European Lift Congress Heilbronn 2022 Digitization of existing installations

Figure 4: Certified green Schindler service

7 Conclusion

The digitization of the elevator industry and of the maintenance business in particular
is the future of our industry. Customers profit from high availabilities and short
callback resolution times, the environment benefits from less carbon emissions.

The digitization of old and existing installations build decades ago remains a
challenge. First priority is to connect the old controllers. If this is not possible
dedicated sensor kits can be used, which come at a certain cost. Additional
challenges include the component characterization of the old installations in terms of
type of the component and their failure model.

Overall digital system architectures are best formed as closed loop system, where
digital data is prepared, analyzed, and aggregated by machine learning, and where
humans interact with this data to work more efficiently.

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