The Challenges of Elevator Oversight
Elevators are complex pieces of equipment whose availability is critical for users: apartment building residents, hospital patients, shopping mall customers, and office workers. A malfunctioning elevator in a senior living facility or a hospital is an emergency. For operators and maintenance personnel, the pressure to ensure availability is constant.
French regulations impose performance requirements (availability rates, time to restore service) but leave the choice of methods up to the maintenance provider. In just a few years, remote diagnostics has become the go-to tool for achieving availability rates of over 99% while optimizing maintenance costs.
Architecture of an Elevator Monitoring Solution
Field Components
- Elevator IoT Gateway: DIN-rail enclosure installed in the control cabinet. Connects to digital I/O inputs/outputs (fault, in service, car alarm) and, optionally, to the drive’s serial bus.
- NF EN 81-28 Intercom Module: speaker and microphone in the car, with a permanent connection to the call center.
- Position sensor: pulse counter or inductive sensor on the level cam to determine the car’s position.
- Power consumption sensor: optional, to measure the elevator’s power consumption.
Cloud platform
- Multi-site dashboard with real-time status of each vehicle
- 5-year history of breakdowns and malfunctions
- Trip and hour counters for preventive maintenance
- Cabin alarm module with audio recording of calls
- Monthly availability reports by vehicle and by site
Key Performance Indicators
| KPI | Definition | Typical Contractual Target |
|---|---|---|
| Availability | % of time in service over a given period | > 99.5% |
| MTTR | Mean Time to Repair | < 4 hours on weekdays, < 8 hours on weekends |
| MTBF | Mean Time Between Failures | > 720 hours (1 month) |
| Emergency Response Time | Time from user being stranded to technician arrival | < 1 hour |
| Flawless Trips | % of trips with no detected defects | > 99.9% |
Data-Driven Preventive Maintenance
Monitoring makes it possible to implement condition-based maintenance:
- Door cycle counter: Doors are often the number one cause of malfunctions. A cycle counter identifies doors nearing the end of their service life (100,000 to 200,000 cycles, depending on the model).
- Drive monitoring: A temperature drift in the heat sink or an increase in startup current indicates that a component is nearing the end of its service life.
- Vibration analysis: An accelerometer on the car detects wear on the guide rails or rollers.
- Power consumption: A gradual increase in power consumption under constant load indicates mechanical degradation (friction, misalignment).
These indicators make it possible to replace parts before they fail, rather than waiting for a malfunction.
Maintenance Contract Management
Connected monitoring is also transforming the contractual relationship between the maintenance provider and its client:
- Automatic reports on monthly availability—transparent and indisputable.
- Proof of service: time stamps for technicians’ arrivals and departures on-site.
- SLA monitoring: automatic alerts if a contractual deadline is about to be exceeded.
- Performance-based billing: P5 (performance) contracts are facilitated by automatic tracking of availability.