Escalators and elevators continue to replace the traditional stairs in the modern world. As the population increases and places become more crowded, problems like congestion naturally come into the picture. In pursuit of tackling the issues created by overly populated spaces, high-rise buildings have become the need of the hour.
However, escalators and elevators today aren’t merely limited to sky-high buildings. The modern-day subways, shopping malls, and other much shorter residential spaces have also started utilizing their potential, making them a primary contributing factor to global infrastructural development.
One major company at the forefront of this phenomenon is the leading German multinational elevator company known as TK Elevator. The company became one of the most trusted escalators and elevator service companies globally as they made navigation a breeze for all. How? Let’s find out.
A Brief about TK Elevator
With customers in over 100 countries served by more than 50,000 employees, TK Elevator achieved sales of €8.5 billion in fiscal year 2021/2022. It ensures high levels of customer service globally from its extensive network of about 1,000 locations. Over the past several decades, TK Elevator has established itself as one of the world’s leading elevator companies and became independent after separation from the thyssenkrupp group in August 2020.
The company’s most important business line is the service business proudly provided by around 25,000 service technicians. The product portfolio ranges from standardized elevators for low-rise residential buildings to highly customized solutions for skyscrapers. In addition, it covers escalators, moving walks, passenger boarding bridges and stair and platform lifts. Integrated cloud-based solutions, such as the MAX platform, are delivering enhanced services. With these digital offerings, there are no longer any limits to urban mobility.
One of the highlights of its product range is the TWIN elevator’s cutting-edge technology which allows two independent elevator cars to operate within a single shaft. The unique implementation of TWIN has led to an effective reduction in wait time for passengers and has saved valuable floor space for property owners across global landmarks.
Service, maintenance, and modernization are the crucial aspects that drive the TK Elevators’ business. Developers, property managers, and REITs globally entrust TK Elevator with their entire portfolio of mobility assets across different properties and locations.
The world today continues to move toward a sustainable future, including the TKE. The brand is well-equipped to leave a footprint with its innovative yet energy-efficient elevators along with its cloud-based maintenance solutions.
Efficient, Convenient, and Sustainable
TK Elevator has made mobility more convenient through its products and services that cater to different settings, be it residential, offices, shopping centers, hotels, hospitals, train stations, or airports. The range includes passenger, freight, panoramic, home elevators, stairs, and platform lifts for low, mid, and high-rise properties across various segments.
TK Elevators has consistently proven itself as an innovative mobility solutions provider tailored toward developing urban areas. It invests significant resources in R&D to make the latest equipment available to its customer base. The simple philosophy consists of three things: Higher efficiency, lower maintenance, and the least emission.
At its core, TKE’s strength lies in its strong design and engineering. The company has aligned itself with the emerging global trend of designing and constructing sustainable buildings and cities. Its products and solutions optimize efficiency and reduce downtime. Notably, its magnetic traction machines allow TKE to bring energy-efficient, high-speed, and high-capacity solutions to the market.
TKE also offers an array of modernized solutions for older elevators and escalators. These solutions efficiently revitalize the elevators and escalators whether they were made by TKE or third parties. The product line extends to moving walks that enable advanced mobility between major infrastructures. These moving walk networks provide an emission-free solution for airports, railway stations, and central business districts.
Overall, TKE is a holistic experience that goes beyond its products and services. It begins with the purchase of TKE’s precise German-engineered elevators and escalators, but what makes the experience special is the reliable service and maintenance spanning throughout the service life of the particular product.
Ground-breaking Technologies and Products
TWIN: This revolutionary system offers the benefits of significantly increasing system capacity without the need for extra elevator shafts. Its ability to park one of the two cars while the other stays operational is especially impressive. Thanks to the system, when the passenger volumes are low, non-moving cars become very energy-efficient. Moreover, the TWIN can also be equipped with energy recovery devices that can provide around 30% of energy back into the building’s power grid.
MAX: It is a ground-breaking predictive and pre-emptive service solution that enhances the remote monitoring capabilities to significantly boost the current availability levels of both new and old elevators. By utilizing the Internet of Things capabilities of Microsoft Azure, MAX enables an elevator to “inform” service workers about its actual needs. That includes real-time identification of problems, component replacements, and preventive system maintenance.
AGILE: The AGILE Destination Selection Control, also known as DSC, enhances customer experience and improves the system’s energy efficiency by reducing wait and travel times. More than conventional elevator control systems, the AGILE DSC increases passenger handling capacity by up to 30%. This minimizes travel time and reduces congestion in lift lobbies. In addition, DSC allows for flexible elevator grouping, lift core layouts, and overall building design.
Keeping up with the Industry Trends & Challenges
TKE provides services with a customer-centric mindset and a commitment to meeting customer needs through innovation. Drawing from its vast knowledge and market foresight, the company has introduced a range of value-added products and solutions tailored to specific markets that are also sustainable.
By the year 2050, urban populations are projected to account for nearly 70% of the global population. That translates to a 2.5 billion increase in the number of city inhabitants, with the vast majority of growth expected in Africa, South America, and Asia. As migration to cities increases, one way to achieve urbanization is through efficient planning and infrastructure development. Keeping this in mind, TKE is investing in the development of new technologies to elevate urban mobility to new levels.
Separating itself from the Crowd
TKE covers the entire life cycle of elevators, escalators, and moving walks from A to Z. It prioritizes customer satisfaction and offers services that enable property owners and managers to save costs and boost profits throughout their expansion.
TKE’s modernization services, combined with its digital solutions MAX and AGILE Destination Selection Control are ideal for property revamps, repurposing, and upgrades. Each customer benefits from improved accessibility and passenger capacity in older buildings, resulting in short and long-term advantages such as higher rent returns.
It’s no surprise that the demand for IoT-based smart elevators is constantly growing. AI-powered elevators can provide real-time insights, productive maintenance, and enable communication in elevators. These innovative digital solutions have enhanced technology like data, extended reality technology, algorithms, and detectors to reach the required levels of efficiency and consumer safety.
With innovation at the forefront, TK Elevator especially focuses on digital offerings like AGILE Destination Selection Control designed to work with new installation or modernization projects. With AGILE, TKE deploys energy intelligently and flexibly, saving energy consumption by optimizing elevator deployment at all times. Additionally, AGILE effectively provides passengers with a better travel experience by reducing waiting and traveling times.
Future of High-Rise Construction
The increasing number of tall buildings and the need for feasible and hassle-free traveling such as elevators are two sides of the same coin. A High-Rise elevator system demands meticulous and impartial capacity analysis and detailed simulation. In this system, not only the building, but its population and peak demands need to be correctly modeled. Furthermore, elevator configuration and physical or dynamic zoning are also determined.
In high-rise buildings. TKE’s TWIN is especially useful in reducing urban sprawl and its impacts. Moreover, older buildings can also be made more sustainable or “greener” by modernizing their vertical mobility system. Other solutions, namely MAX and AGILE DSC can also make operations of older buildings more energy efficient.
India under the Spotlight
In India, a country that contributes to around 17% of the world’s population, the boom in high-rise construction is even less of a surprise. The country’s population is growing at 1.7% every year. On the contrary, the urban population is growing rapidly at 6% with 380 million living in 8,000 cities and towns.
The Indian elevator market is uniquely driven by rapid economic development and urbanization. Locally operating an R&D center underlines TKE’s commitment to serving and developing solutions tailored specifically for the Indian market.
TKE’s Elevators and Escalators, manufactured at Pune’s Multi-Purpose Facility (MPF) are widely used in shopping malls and subway stations across the country. For residential projects, Its low and mid-rise elevator solutions have become the preferred choice for local communities on a daily basis.
TK Elevator has always supported the government’s “Make in India” initiative through the promotion of its localized R&D and manufacturing. This Multi-Purpose Facility (MPF) is built on 84,000 square meters of land. Seeing its immense growth potential, TK Elevators will continue investing its resources in the Indian market.
The MPF includes a corporate office, production facility, central warehouse, centralized call center, customer experience center, training center, product showroom, and test shafts. The facility was for an initial capacity of manufacturing 6000 elevators, which can be expanded to over 10,000 units in the near future.
Leveraging Cutting-edge Technologies
The modern world is connected through smart devices, with technology revolutionizing the way humans do business. In the past few years, Smart, Machine-Learning, and Internet of Things solutions have changed the elevator industry by increasing elevator availability and reducing out-of-service situations by up to 50% through real-time diagnostics.
With a lethal combination of AI and Humans, the MAX technology predicts maintenance issues before they even occur and notifies elevator engineers by flagging the need to replace components and systems before the elevator lifecycle ends. Its cloud-stored data schedules maintenance based on machine-calculated life-span predictions of components, resulting in fewer service disruptions and reduced labor costs.
TKE’s digitized after sales service, with each technician connected to the office through a smart tablet, enables the company to efficiently service the elevators and escalators while maintaining a better response time and minimum MTBF (Mean Time before Failure).
One additional benefit of these tablets is that technicians can access routes, manuals, technical data banks, and expert advice from remote locations, making for a superior customer service experience.
For some of its major customers, TKE has introduced a practice called predictive Maintenance. By leveraging this practice, critical components of the elevator can directly be replaced from the units at the end of the elevator’s lifecycle irrespective of its malfunctioning or functioning.
Metro Station Elevators: Vision and Mission
Already among the world’s best, TKE Escalators reliably moves millions of people across metro stations around the world. From heavy-duty powerhouse escalators to trendy interior designs, TKE escalators are exactly what customers need.
Today, road traffic is a major concern in most modern cities. As a result, having a well-connected yet efficient metro network is essential. With experience in installing escalators and elevators in various cities across the globe, TKE’s objective is to effectively combat high-traffic scenarios through its expert solutions.
In addition to escalators and elevators, the company also offers moving walks. These moving walks are convenient, comfortable, and in line with the highest safety standards that optimize capacity and space. Whether you are pushing a stroller or carting luggage, they help people cover long stretches at metro stations while simultaneously saving time.
Leveraging its global service network, TK Elevator’s highly skilled professionals aim to keep the new or retrofitted system operating at peak performance for years to come. TKE will also work closely with the customer to find the right solution to retrofit or add a modern touch to your aging system.
So far, TK Elevators has sold more than 7000 units of passenger transportation equipment to metro and railway projects across more than 21 Asian cities. Its branches are also servicing more than 2600 installed units in metro and railway lines. Additionally, TKE has installed escalators and elevators for metro networks in Sydney, Moscow, Sao Paulo, Madrid, London, Beijing, Pune, Kolkata and several other cities globally.
