KONE’s Care-for-Life™ lets customers see the status of old equipment and provides options for repair that include energy savings.
If the elevator or escalator in your building has been in operation for some fifteen to twenty years or longer, inevitably the question of updating the equipment arises. Old machinery not only uses obsolete technology, they also require a lot more electricity to operate than newer solutions.
In order to help customers assess the status of their equipment, KONE has developed an approach called Care-for-Life™. KONE sends technical personnel on-site to review equipment based on set criteria that include safety, aesthetics and technical details. The technical staff collects this data and provides a summary on the condition of equipment. KONE salespersons work with the customers to find out their needs and use the technical report as guidance in helping to pinpoint areas that need improvement.
For elevators, the KONE team now also conducts a Care-for-Life energy efficiency survey that shows customers potential energy savings. In some cases, a modernization can reduce an elevator’s energy consumption by up to 70 percent.
“For many years now, KONE has surveyed old elevators to show customers the safety and performance benefit of modernizing their equipment,” explains Luigi Sibilia, who works as the vice president of KONE’s tendered repair business.
“Benefits in energy efficiency have increasingly been one of the major outcomes of the surveys. That’s why we decided to systematically include an energy efficiency examination into all of our Care-for-Life surveys. We also want to raise awareness and let people know that by modernizing an elevator, it is possible to significantly reduce energy consumption needs and costs.”
Care-for-Life services are available for elevator modernizations in most KONE markets of operation. For escalators, the service is available in all major markets. At its heart, the reason why KONE provides the Care-for-Life services, explains Sibilia, is to make sure that the customers get the solutions they need. “We want to make sure we are not selling products a customer does not need. Care-for-Life shows our consultative approach to making sure we show our customers the added value of our solutions. If we simply pushed our products, we could never develop the professional relationship needed to continue working together over many years.”