KONE References 2017: Urban Journeys

n the heart of the bustling Beijing business district, thousands of construction workers are working on the contours of a building inspired by a Zun, an ancient Chinese wine vessel. The China Zun tower, once completed, will stand 528 meters high comprising 108 floors. “More than half the construction has been completed, and we are already the tallest building in Beijing,” exclaims Wang Wuren , deputy chairman and general manager, CITIC Heye Investment CO., LTD. “We started construction on the tower in 2013, and we will complete the tower in 2018. It is being constructed faster than other similar projects, which is very important from a profitability point of view.” KONE’s JumpLift™ technology has a big role to play here. The technology helps shorten construction schedules by several months, which means quicker return on investment. How? It uses a temporary machine room inside the permanent hoist way. Its self-climbing feature ‘jumps’ upward as the construction work progresses, and also reduces the downtime of elevator installation to a minimum. This is because when the building is complete, the JumpLift can be swiftly transformed into a permanent elevator. The installation of the JumpLift has paid off big time for the developer, in terms of both costs and, more importantly, time saved. “My calculations show that we are saving about 320,000 work hours per year at China Zun, which is a big saving,” says Wuren. WUREN IS RIGHT. SINCE JUMPLIFT is also used to move men and materials in a way that’s faster, safer and more economical, it has a cascading effect on traffic capacity, improving people and material flow efficiency by between 15% and over 50%. “I’ve traveled to America, worked on big projects in Shanghai and seen how essential vertical transportation solutions for workers in a high-rise building are. But it is expensive to install that many elevators,” says Wang Wuren pragmatically. “For example,” he continues, “a contractor might use around 35 elevators to shift workers and material around, and they would have to alter it each time to suit construction, which of course means more costs.” But the problem was duly addressed. For a project the size of China Zun, which employs between 2,000 to 4,000 at peak times, the JumpLift system was the need of the hour. “Thanks to JumpLift, we only need to use about 10 elevators now during the construction phase,” says Wuren. Chan Kwok Leung , project director, Major Projects, KONE China is very pleased with Wuren’s choice. “The JumpLift is indeed a very efficient solution for high-rise buildings such as “My calculations show that we are saving about 320,000 work hours per year at China Zun, which is a big saving.” I 32 China Zun – China