Buildings nowadays use IoT to offer a better experience for people. Within these, smart lifts are the logical next piece to incorporate technology to optimise safety, monitoring and maintenance.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Smart buildings are sometimes referred to as \u2018automated buildings\u2019, \u2018intelligent buildings\u2019 or buildings that incorporate smart technology. A smart building is any structure that uses automated processes to automatically control the building\u2019s operations including heating, ventilation, air conditioning, lighting, vertical transportation, and other systems. These buildings typically use sensors, actuators, and microprocessors, to collect and manage data according to a business\u2019 functions and services.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The infrastructure in a smart building allows building owners, operators, and facility managers to improve asset reliability and performance. Goals for using this include reducing energy consumption, optimisation of space and minimising the environmental impact of buildings. Fundamentally, smart buildings help make occupants more productive and buildings more cost-effective when compared to a building that is not connected.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Advanced technology is changing the way buildings are managed. Smart Building Management provides deep insight into performance of building assets, maximising uptime, and solving problems before they start. Simply, Smart Building Management protects investments in buildings and ensures that they can easily be kept in optimal working order. By predicting potential issues, it drives an evolution in processes from proactive to predictive and delivers analytics to act on. For the building manager, this system provides a 360-degree view of a building assets\u2019 real time performance.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The movement of people through buildings, referred to as \u2018people flow\u2019 has also changed dramatically over the years. Buildings have gone from using steps to move people between floors, to operator-driven lifts, and to the automatic push-button lifts we use today. Internet of Things (IoT) solutions, along with customer expectations, are driving a shift in the way that lifts in buildings are being designed and built for people flow.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Smart lifts use sensors located within the lift shaft and on the lift car which collect data and provide real time monitoring of the performance. New types of smart lifts provide significant value to the lift maintenance company and building owner who have the responsibility to maintain up-time to optimise the building and offer accessibility for occupants.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
For maintenance engineers, smart elevators minimise downtime through real-time monitoring. Lifts that go down for unscheduled maintenance are an inconvenience to the building users and can often catch maintenance personnel off guard. This results in frustration and makes some areas inaccessible for those who rely on the lifts. With an effective monitoring solution, maintenance engineers can keep a close eye on the operational efficiency of the lifts. This means that maintenance engineers can not only anticipate when issues may occur, but it also means that the downtime of the lifts can be greatly reduced. For facilities managers it is one less concern to know that problems with their lifts could be detected early and dealt with swiftly.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In addition to the monitoring of lift activity, the introduction of Destination Control to manage people flow through a building has transformed the simple act of passengers travelling between floors. Instead of pushing a button to go up or down, passengers select their desired floor in the lobby area, and they are then directed to the lift that will take them to their destination with the fewest number of stops. The system can be set up to anticipate rush-hour surges in the lobby which prevents large volumes of people standing in the lobby area waiting for vertical transportation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Data can easily be gathered from lifts \u2013 this opens a plethora of options including big data, maintenance predictability, remote monitoring and maintenance, etc.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Though there are many trends and predictions in the industry outlining the benefits of gathering data on and around lifts \u2013 what information can really be gathered and how could it be used by different parties?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Within the lift industry, the technology of things is starting to become more widespread, with larger lift manufacturers offering lift monitoring services via their lift controllers that provide an increasing amount of information. Data gathered can be used for preventative lift maintenance, which leads to higher satisfaction levels from building owners due to the increased uptime of their lifts.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Ultimately lifts need to keep moving people through buildings and ensuring that this happens safely is paramount. Using a combination of sensors and devices to monitor lift equipment offers simpler monitoring and maintenance organisation based on data received. Gathering data such as lift doors with high levels of use, frequency and distance of travel and number of door cycles completed can help to pinpoint future issues and where maintenance may be needed. Understanding humidity, temperature, vibration and other factors can be highly beneficial for optimising lift travel, benefiting both passengers and lift maintenance providers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Though in the past new equipment had to be installed, it is nowadays possible to retrofit lift\u2019s existing installations by adding new products currently already available in the market. You don\u2019t need to replace your entire lift to enjoy the benefits of a lift monitoring system. You don\u2019t even need to replace your lift controllers with expensive replacements.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Due to the high costs involved, most people would prefer to retrofit an existing lift, not tear it to pieces. MEMCO by AVIRE products are built with this in mind, they replace and upgrade existing components – modernising these whilst also adding the ability to monitor lifts easily.<\/p>\n\n\n\n