Delayed real estate projects have impacted elevator industry
Kone Elevator India’s MD, Amit Gossain (File photo) NEW DELHI: Kone Elevator India’s MD, Amit Gossain talks to TOI about how the pandemic has changed the elevator and escalator industry in India: Excerpts: How has the pandemic impacted the elevator and escalator industry? The pandemic has certainly caused unease across the globe and in India and disrupted many businesses across sectors. The elevator and escalator market too has been impacted with real estate projects being delayed, and we believe that the real estate market also will take time to come to terms with the new ways of working including social distancing, etc. However, the pick-up is likely to be quick once things settle down. At Kone, for us, the ability to deliver has been good overall considering the demanding operating environment. But we are aware that the slowdown will have an impact on the timing of our project deliveries and the pace of installation in many markets. We estimate that in 2020, our sales will decline or be stable at best at comparable exchange rates as compared to 2019.
The rate of decline in sales will depend on the duration and severity of the government measures and the pace of recovery. While we have many residential, commercial and major projects underway, our priority right now is to ensure the health and well being of our people and to ensure our customers are well served as elevators and escalators are emergency services. What is the company’s focus on R&D? How much of the R&D is done in India? Innovation has been one of the most significant elements at Kone and there is always a lot of focus on research and development. In fact, the group has led the technology innovation race through sustained focus and investments in research and development. Kone’s global technology and engineering centre in Chennai, called India Technology and Engineering Center (ITEC), which is one of the eight global R&D centres, is a testing and research hub and supports the latest technology and development for Kone’s future solutions. It works with customers, suppliers, strategic partners and research institutes in providing the best-in-class people flow solutions. An extension of ITEC-Chennai is the technology and innovation function in Pune, which focuses on enterprise monitoring, service management for IT Solutions and digital development competencies for smart people flow solutions. ITEC takes a lot of global designs and indigenizes them based on the needs of Indian customers, thus ensuring consistent world class elevator and escalator designs and products for our customers in India and South Asia. ITEC also remotely monitors our 24/7 Connected elevators and escalators equipment to ensure less equipment downtime, fewer faults and detailed information on maintenance tasks. Chennai also has three training centers where Kone’s installation engineers and field mechanics are trained to meet Kone India strong reputation for high quality and uncompromised safety, as well as the expectations of Indian customers, when installing and maintaining elevators and escalators. In November last year, Kone’s new elevator manufacturing unit in Tamil Nadu, the largest in this region, was inaugurated. This unit aims at leveraging digitalization opportunities and speeding up development in a changing business environment. It will tap exciting and unique ways to improve customer and user experience as well as the quality and productivity of Kone’s operations. Though the new plant will majorly focus on the Indian market, Kone exports to South Asian countries – Nepal, Bhutan, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka. ITEC recently also worked closely with the global teams while designing the Health and wellbeing solutions that were launched in June this year as a response to the COVID-19 situation. The features and technology were fine-tuned keeping in mind local requirements. IoT and AI have had a huge impact on all verticals. How has Kone Elevators been able to leverage technology for products and maintenance? Technology has indeed changed the way buildings are controlled today – they are a lot smarter and more efficient now. At Kone, we launched safe, transparent and intelligent 24/7 IoT connected elevators and escalators, leading the way in technology
and innovation. Kone’s 24/7 Connected Services uses cloud technology and is the world’s most intelligent elevator and escalator services that monitors round-the-clock. In collaboration with the recognized leader in cognitive computing, IBM Watson, this breakthrough technology can better monitor, maintain and take action before breakage, thereby ensuring less equipment downtime and fewer faults. Using the latest technology, the elevators and escalators can now speak their minds and keep technicians one step ahead of what’s happening. In the wake of the current pandemic, the 24/7 Connected Services were offered free for the first six months to our current customers who operate medical facilities. This initiative will benefit hospitals across the country, and ensure uninterrupted vertical movement of people. When the cities open up, shared spaces will never be the same again. How has Kone responded to the situation? Public spaces are stressful in a coronavirus-stricken environment and the way people interact with everyday surroundings is set to change. It becomes imperative that buildings and cities are made safer and healthier places to live, work and commute. Elevators and escalators will still be essential in buildings. Therefore, what is needed are processes and techniques to tackle how people can keep moving safely in the post COVID world. And this is where Kone came forward with its people flow expertise and knowledge, and introduced a range of health and well-being solutions that will help recreate safer user journeys and healthy spaces in buildings. The solutions are built on Kone’s deep expertise and knowledge of people flow, which is vital when addressing the challenges of adapting to a new way of life in the face of the current pandemic. These solutions range from Escalator Handrail Sanitizer, Elevator Call using mobile phones to Elevator AirPurifier. The Elevator Call Feature allows users to call an elevator using social messaging channels like WhatsApp, removing the need to touch possibly contaminated buttons or displays. To further reduce concerns over elevator use, Kone has introduced in selected markets the new Kone Elevator Air Purifier that uses technology – including an advanced photocatalytic oxidation (PCO) process developed by NASA for air control on spaceships – to improve air quality in the elevator car by removing most of the potential pollutants, like bacteria, viruses, dust and odours, in the air. Kone Handrail Sanitizer, an escalator handrail cleaning solution, uses a type of ultraviolet light (UV-C) to gradually disinfect escalator handrails. As we all learn to live by the new norms of our cities, neighbourhoods and buildings, it’s likely we’ll continue to insist on smooth flow once we do get going again. With cloud based Kone 24/7 Connected Services, Kone helps to ensure transparency and preventive maintenance on equipment performance. What are your major challenges in terms of operation and supply chain management, and how will you manage it? In the beginning, we faced a few challenges like sourcing some of our components from various countries But we came back on track immediately through an efficient warehouse management system. This enabled us to know when we needed to have certain materials as well as creating a time cushion in terms of delivery to make sure everything runs smoothly. Being present in the people flow sector we were always prepared with a risk management plan so that our customers are not affected. At Kone, we innovated new capabilities for remote operation almost overnight, a complete digital transformation including the digital payment system which is the first ever in our industry, and the launch of new products. What is the company’s view on self-sufficiency? The post- Covid-19 world is a good opportunity for India to become self-reliant. Besides setting up factories and manufacturing units, the need for the hour is to invest in innovation. If India has to compete on the global scale, we have to ramp up domestic research & development and innovation. At Kone in India, We always continue to explore new paths and discover new ways of thinking. Together with our partners, we constantly strengthen our position as innovation leader in our industry. It is by understanding urbanization; focusing on improvements for people and anticipating the needs and opportunities for people – that we can develop innovations and breakthroughs which help improve buildings and make our cities better places to live in. I feel COVID has opened opportunities for India particularly to ensure success of Make in India by improving our processes and showing the world that India is a business friendly country. We have been making in India since 1984 through our state-of-the-art factory in SIPCOT Industrial Park, Pillaipakkam, Sriperumbudur near Chennai. The factory is equipped with the latest technology in production, reinforcing Kone’s customer.
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