Elevator Innovations with Ziehl-Abegg: Elastomeric-Coated Ropes
A Message from our Sponsor:
This episode of Elevator Tools and Tech is brought to you by Ziehl-Abegg. For more information, please visit https://www.ziehl-abegg.com/en-us/campaign/zatop-am
Or to contact Marc Hirsch, email marc.hirsch@ziehl-abegg.us
Intro:
This episode of Elevator Tools and Tech is brought to you by Ziehl-Abegg, a company headquartered in Germany that has been in the elevator industry for about 100 years. Their core products are gearless elevator machines and frequency inverters. Today, I’m talking with Marc Hirsch, business development manager for the Americas region. Three years ago, Marc transitioned to the North American headquarters in North Carolina to locally support the market introduction of a new, very compact series of gearless elevator machines using elastomeric-coated ropes–a new, innovative rope technology for the North American market.
Summary:
In this conversation, Matt Allred interviews Marc Hirsch from Ziehl-Abegg about innovative elevator technology, specifically focusing on elastomeric-coated ropes. Marc explains the advantages of this technology, including energy savings, compact design, and its impact on modernization projects. The discussion also covers the challenges of navigating regulations in the elevator industry and the potential future of this technology in North America. Marc emphasizes the importance of being open to new technologies and the benefits they bring to the industry.
Transcript:
Marc Hirsch (00:00)
For the passenger, it’s I think, every elevator manufacturer or when there’s an elevator on the service, you want to get the best performance out of the elevator in terms of running smoothness, best passenger ride experience and the coated ropes are a factor that really contributes to that. You mentioned that with the coating around it works like a vibration isolation or a noise damping.
That improves the whole ride quality of the whole system. So there’s that huge advantage for the end passenger on the travel performance of the systems.
Matt Allred (00:39)
Hello and welcome to Elevator Tools and Tech, a special series from the Elevator Careers podcast, where we spotlight the latest innovations, tools, suppliers and technology driving the vertical transportation industry. In each episode, we sit down with the creators, engineers and solution providers who are helping elevator companies work smarter, safer and more efficiently. This episode of Elevator Tools and Tech is brought to you by Ziehl-Abegg a company headquartered in Germany.
That has been in the elevator industry for about 100 years. Their core products are gearless elevator machines and frequency inverters. Today I’m talking with Marc Hirsch, business development manager for the Americas region. Three years ago, Marc transitioned to the North American headquarters in North Carolina to locally support the market introduction of a new, very compact series of gearless elevator machines using Elastomeric coated ropes. A new innovative rope technology for the North American market. Now,
Let’s dive in.
Matt Allred (01:39)
Marc, welcome to the show.
Marc Hirsch (01:41)
Thanks for having me, Matt.
Matt Allred (01:43)
Thank you. So today we have Marc Hirsch from Ziehl-Abegg and he’s a business development manager here in the US. And Marc, today, you know, we’ve talked in the past obviously, but today we’re really digging into this technology that has allowed you to really change the size, the capacity of machines and use the, you know, the cables that are coded. And so there’s really a lot to…
to dig into. Is there anything you wanted to kind of bring up before we just dive into some of these questions?
Marc Hirsch (02:16)
Yeah, to get a full picture for our listeners. I work for the company Ziehl-Abegg. It’s a German headquartered company. We are in the elevator industry for about 100 years. We do as main components, innovative gearless elevator machines and frequency inverters. These are our two core products and a lot of system components around that. And in my current role as a, as you mentioned, a business developer,
business development manager for the Americas region. About three years ago, I transitioned to our North American headquarters, which is in North Carolina, to at that time, locally support the market introduction of a new gearless elevator machine that was designed for only the North American market using elastomeric coated ropes. The elastomeric coated ropes at that time were something new and very innovative for the North American market.
It’s a steel core rope with an elastomeric plastic coating around. And that gives us huge advantages as a machine manufacturer, but for the design of an elevator system, for the performance of an elevator system as well. yeah, advantages even in service aspects as well. And I think that’s what we are going to discuss in the next minutes.
Matt Allred (03:38)
Yeah, absolutely. Thank you for kind of giving that high level intro because exactly, right? We’re going to dig into some of these details and obviously why is this matter? Honestly, the fact that it’s known technology has kind of surprised me. You mentioned that for 10 years, This technology was used in Europe and it’s only been in last few that it’s come to North America. Why do you think now is the right time?
and especially for independent elevator companies to pay attention to this technology.
Marc Hirsch (04:09)
Yeah, yeah. I mean, it’s a good point. I think we saw that many times in the past in the elevator industry, for example, with MRL, machine roomless applications, they started installing MRLs in the European market at a larger scale at the mid to the end of the 1990s, where in the North American market, they introduced these systems almost about 10 years later. So it’s about the same.
now introducing that rope technology in the North American market where we were using that kind of rope technology in the European market about 10 years earlier. Overall, I have to say that I think it’s a great timing when we entered the market with that technology and our machine range for these ropes because we got the feedback from the market that over the last couple of years, the market opened up more towards
innovations, new technologies, especially coming from from overseas.
Matt Allred (05:11)
That’s fascinating. And you mentioned the MRLs and it’s interesting that this technology, not only does it kind of follow it, but it really is kind of complimentary to it, right? That now you have maybe a smaller space or a different space. And so you also now have a machine that will actually fit in that space better perhaps than some of the old, you know, much larger machines.
So Mark, you mentioned the smaller sheaves and lighter components mean less torque and less power needs. How much less energy or how much energy savings can building owners realistically expect from these systems? You have a guess on that?
Marc Hirsch (05:50)
Yeah, I mean, the huge advantage of using these elastomeric coated ropes for us as a machine manufacturer is that it allows us to use a smaller traction sheave diameter. And to a complete the big picture here is as a machine manufacturer, you want to use a smaller traction sheave diameter because the smaller traction sheave diameter means the machine or the motor needs less torque to operate the system. And with less
torque needed, the motor can be smaller, more compact and more efficient. And good that you asked about the energy savings. We did a recent study with a customer only a few weeks ago. It was a job, I think 21 elevator systems between 2500 and 4500 pounds. They did a complete modernization, meaning change of mechanical components, but electronic side as well with
region drives and so on. And the whole modernization package using new technologies, innovative technologies resulted in energy savings of 80%. That’s a tremendous number and a huge achievement for that customer. In average, I would say it’s more like 30 to 60%, something like that depends on what you really change for modernization.
Matt Allred (06:59)
Wow.
that’s huge.
Marc Hirsch (07:12)
But that was really an impressive number to achieve 80 % energy savings. And they used, of course, our machines with the elastomeric coated ropes.
Matt Allred (07:22)
Yeah, that is a huge number. my brain starts to wonder if that’s, just because an elevator is gonna use a lot more electricity, I assume, than the lights or certain other parts, right? And so if you’re cutting down that portion of the electrical bill by 80%, that’s gonna affect everything. I mean, it’s huge. Very cool. So you mentioned…
that the size of the machine was actually able to be reduced by 80 % as well. What would you say are some of the design innovations that make it possible to actually shrink it by 80 % without really sacrificing performance or safety?
Marc Hirsch (08:09)
Yeah, you’re right. When you compare our machines for a typical application of 3500 pounds, compare a geared machine that uses conventional steel ropes and our machine using elastomeric coated ropes, our machines are about 80 % more compact than the geared machine. And as mentioned earlier, it comes down mainly because of the traction chief diameter. As I said, it allows us
to use the smaller machine because less torque is needed. But it only works in combination with the right suspension means. And that’s always that part where I want to highlight our compact machine, but also the rope technology, because that really allows us to build these compact machines and use small traction sheave diameters. Because when you reduce the traction sheave diameter on a machine,
you usually have a less rope lifetime. You need more ropes. The ropes gets stressed more at the end. You need a more aggressive groove profile, for example, to get the traction and so on. But that’s not the case with the elastomeric coated ropes because one, they have a higher friction coefficient. So you need a less aggressive groove profile. We only use a U-groove. So there’s
there’s basically no wear on the rope or the sheave. Yeah, as the plastic coating also works like a protection of the rope or of the sheave. So that’s a huge advantage in terms of the rope lifetime and still getting the huge advantage to use smaller traction sheave diameters.
Matt Allred (09:56)
Yeah, that is fascinating because I guess instead of steel on steel, you’ve actually got the elastomeric against elastomeric. So it’s more of a rubber type of or plastic type of coating and it can keep very resilient. It’s not going to wear out and get metal filings all over the place.
Marc Hirsch (10:13)
Yeah, right. That’s exactly the point that there is basically nowhere on the row or on the sheave as well, because it’s not a metal to metal contact.
Matt Allred (10:25)
Right, right. And you mentioned the size of the machine could be reduced. I think you had said before that a typical sheave could be, what, 24 or something inches and you’ve reduced it to six or?
Marc Hirsch (10:39)
Yeah, 20 to 25
and we’re using 6.3 inch sheave diameters.
Matt Allred (10:45)
Yeah, which, mean, again, it’s just physics, right? It’s a lot easier to turn this than to turn something like this. so you don’t need all.
Marc Hirsch (10:54)
Yeah, right. It’s
a simple physical principle. And of course, that’s used already in the industry. But to get a better lifetime out of the rope, it’s only possible with the elastomeric coated rope.
Matt Allred (11:07)
Yeah, yeah. So I’ve understood that a lot of modernization projects get delayed because of space or costs. How does this technology simplify the modernization process and can contractors really replace a motor without tearing up the shaft?
Marc Hirsch (11:24)
Yeah, that’s a good question because of course it has a huge advantage in new installation with MRL systems to build very low overhead systems, but it has great advantages in modernization as well. Because one of the major challenges in modernization projects is that you want to achieve the same rope drop as it is with the existing installation. That means when you replace a
geared machines with a large traction sheave diameter by a gearless machine with a smaller traction sheave diameter, you need to find a way to achieve the same rope drop. Therefore, you have to work with a deflector sheave. And that means that you have less of an wrapping angle on the traction sheave. And with that, you’re losing traction. At the end, with conventional steel ropes, you have to use small ropes and so on.
But with the coated ropes, as it has a higher friction coefficient, it can be up to six times higher. You don’t necessarily need more ropes because the friction or the traction is way better and that allows us to use that technology in modernizations when working with a deflector sheave and a small wrapping angle and ensuring still enough traction.
That’s a huge advantage just by the design, what is possible with that rope, but also in terms of handling of the rope. I got so many stories where customers are installing big geared or even big gearless machines, need to lift it in, they need to book a crane that the machine and all components can be lifted in through the roof. But with the smaller, more compact machine, they’re
easier ways where you don’t need a crane or heavy and expensive rigging material makes the whole process way simpler, faster, more cost effective.
Matt Allred (13:27)
Yeah, absolutely. Well, it sounds like it gives you some flexibility with deflector sheaves and just how you need to position it because it’s smaller, because it has the ability to still have enough traction with the lower wrapping angle.
So you mentioned some noise reduction that, you know, the vibration, the damping, less wear. Of course, we talked about that. What’s the real world difference for a passenger or a service tech once these ropes are in place and being used?
Marc Hirsch (13:55)
Yeah, good, good question. For the passenger, it’s I think, every elevator manufacturer or when there’s an elevator on the service, you want to get the best performance out of the elevator in terms of running smoothness, best passenger ride experience and the coated ropes are a factor that really contributes to that. You mentioned that with the coating around it works like a vibration isolation or a noise damping.
That improves the whole ride quality of the whole system. So there’s that huge advantage for the end passenger on the travel performance of the systems. Then it’s about limited downtime for service technicians. We always, with our products, ensure the highest quality materials, for example, brakes that don’t need to be adjusted on our machines.
The service technicians have less to do, less to worry about. Another factor is, for example, with conventional steel ropes and people in the industry obviously know that, that you have to lubricate them from time to time. There are service technicians team out there. Their main job sometimes is only to go from side to side and lubricate the ropes. And that’s a whole task that’s not necessary with the coated ropes anymore because they don’t
need to be lubricated or actually it’s not allowed to lubricate them.
Matt Allred (15:21)
I was going to say, lubrication on the last America would be a disaster.
Marc Hirsch (15:25)
That’s
why it’s not allowed.
Matt Allred (15:28)
No, that’s amazing that it not only affects ride quality, but actually reduces some of the maintenance and, you know, it’s, I mean, I don’t understand the brake thing, but that would be fascinating to understand how the brakes just don’t need to be adjusted. And maybe it’s because, is that because of the friction in the system, I guess?
Marc Hirsch (15:49)
mean,
that’s a part that’s not related to the suspension mean we are using. That’s just for our machine and all of our machines are equipped with that brake technology that these brakes don’t, they are factory adjusted and don’t need to be adjusted in the field.
Matt Allred (15:53)
Okay.
Fascinating, great. So one of my favorite parts of your story is you mentioned, and we talked a little bit about this, but that these machines can actually be carried up a stairwell. It still sounds, how many people would it need, would you need to actually do that?
Marc Hirsch (16:14)
I mean, machines
are about, I mean, between 450 and maybe 650 pounds. So they’re not like super light, right? There are machines for actual elevator systems up to 5,000 pounds capacity at a two to one suspension. It’s not for small home lift applications or something like that. It’s for actual passenger elevator, as I said, up to.
Matt Allred (16:31)
for sure.
Marc Hirsch (16:43)
5000 pound capacity. But still as they are more compact and lighter, you often don’t need an expensive rigging material and you can use alternative ways as for example, compared to lifting the equipment in with a crane or the roof. They’re ways because you fit through doors, stairways, and so on. So that whole
process is usually a lot simpler and more cost effective than with big heavy older equipment.
Matt Allred (17:18)
Yeah, thank
For years, proprietary belt systems have given the big manufacturers an edge. How does this more open, coated rope system change the game for independent elevator companies?
Marc Hirsch (17:30)
Good question. First of all, yeah, it’s non proprietary means the independents can like source the products from wherever they want, whether it’s the machines or the coated ropes. So that’s a huge, huge advantage. The technology really allows us to, I’m speaking about new construction now, new elevator designs with the compact machine design.
it allows them with simple technologies without changing their system, their existing system too much to get the best out of the shaft utilization. With the more compact machine, they can reduce the overhead, for example. That’s a huge factor where in the past, a lot of my customers now had issues bidding on projects or winning on projects where the
the overhead requirement was very low. So it was only the majors that could win these projects because they are matching these overhead requirements. And now with our machines and the coated rope technologies, it allows the independent manufacturers to bid on these projects as well and win these projects because now they are matching all the requirements that are specified for these jobs.
Matt Allred (18:53)
Nice, nice, kind of a game changer and maybe, I guess what I’m thinking of is kind of leveling the field in that regard that they can go into those spaces and still have enough room to do what they need to do.
Marc Hirsch (19:06)
Yeah, right, right.
Matt Allred (19:07)
Great. So you had mentioned that one of the toughest parts of introducing a product and bringing it to the US, even though it’s been used for years in Europe, was kind of working through the patchwork of city and state jurisdictions. What did that process teach you about bringing innovation into such a regulated industry?
Marc Hirsch (19:28)
That’s true. Sometimes it can be really challenging to navigate that patchwork of regulations and all the different jurisdictions in the US. It’s not like when you have a certification and approval for North America that you can use your product and it gets approved everywhere. But what we learned and what we really noticed in that whole process, if you
start the communication early. If you get in contact with the local jurisdictions, share documentations, approvals to ensure the compliance and the safety and just talk to them early within the projects together with your customers, with the manufacturers or the contractors. They are really open to see that, to discuss that and usually approve it and accept the technology then. But that was definitely my
key take away to get them involved as early as possible and share all the documentation needed and discuss this technology.
Matt Allred (20:35)
Yeah, I’m just curious, how long does that process usually take to actually get the approval? I mean, obviously it’s going to vary depending on…
Marc Hirsch (20:43)
I mean, it varies. We started early, as I said, and some were like only one meeting where we just submitted the documentations about the compliance and then we get the confirmation that they confirm it, that it matches all the requirements. Sometimes it was a little bit of a longer process where we had to like more present that technologies maybe give
case studies and so on. So took a few meetings, but overall it was quite a good process and all of them were really open to listen and discuss that.
Matt Allred (21:15)
Right, so I’m curious just a little bit more on this process. Do you, I imagine, you know, as you’re launching this in the US and three years ago or whatever, on one hand you’ve got customers, right? You’ve got to sell the customer, but then you’ve also got to sell the jurisdiction, the municipality. Do you walk both of those paths or do you kind of find a customer first and then say, now let’s go meet the, you know, the AHJ?
Marc Hirsch (21:42)
We did both, honestly. As you mentioned, we approached customers. They got very interested in the technology. They saw the advantages on how they can improve their design or what benefits they get out of that rope technology and the compact machines. And then we together approached the jurisdictions, the AHJs, and sometimes to open new markets before we approach customers.
We went straight to the jurisdictions and discussed with them as well.
Matt Allred (22:12)
That makes sense. Yeah, especially in larger markets. If you go do that homework up front, well, then you can talk to everybody and say, hey, you know all these potential customers, we’ve already created this bridge, so there’s nothing holding you back.
Marc Hirsch (22:26)
Correct.
Matt Allred (22:28)
Awesome, awesome. So if you were to look ahead five years, do you think elastomeric coated ropes will become the new standard for MRLs and modernizations, or are we just seeing the beginning maybe of something even bigger?
Marc Hirsch (22:42)
Yeah, I mean, since now, since we introduced that technology, we see a steady growth. We see that it definitely gets accepted very well in the market. As in other markets, I believe that there will be all technologies in the market. There are advantages using a conventional steel rope still. There are advantages to use belts and there are huge advantages to use elastomeric coated ropes.
So for MRL systems, I think as we see that in other markets, it will be a mix of technologies depending on the details of the application and where each suspension means has its strength at the end.
Matt Allred (23:26)
Sure, and it sounds like, mean, the thought that’s coming to my mind is just that it’s a matter of educating everybody out there so that they understand whatever advantages that they’re looking to achieve. And so if conventional ropes have the advantages, then they know to choose that, or if they see Elastomeric as an option to achieve other advantages, then they can make the best educated decision.
Marc Hirsch (23:52)
It depends on the project or the field where our customers, whether it’s manufacturers, contractors are focusing on and the types of applications and what kind of advantages they want to get out of the system. So we see that quite strongly, especially fast growing in new installation, MRL, very compact, efficient systems.
Where in modernization, usually takes a little bit longer to introduce new technologies. Maybe one of the reasons could be that with new installations, customers maybe can do test installations, test the product more to get convinced that everything works correctly. Where in modernization, they usually need a fast, quick solutions and
maybe a little bit more resistance to trying out new products and innovative technologies.
Matt Allred (24:45)
Sure.
Right. I mean, if you’ve already got something that works, then it’s really easy to just, let’s just go with what works, right? We’ve been doing this, done a lot of times, let’s just do it again. So, makes sense.
Marc Hirsch (24:56)
Right,
right. Sometimes they use the easier path, but at the end, it’s no rocket science. And we have so many case studies where it was actually simpler to use a new technology because of the installation advantages I mentioned earlier.
Matt Allred (25:11)
Sure, absolutely. Well, and you mentioned the electrical savings, right? If a building is looking to go green, I mean, here’s one way to really affect your power bill.
Marc Hirsch (25:21)
Yeah, absolutely. And we’re thinking ahead about more and more regulations and building certifications needed. so using innovative, efficient machine technologies in the elevator industry allows here as well to match these requirements and being able to have that certification at the end.
Matt Allred (25:43)
Yeah, yeah. So Marc, if someone’s interested in learning more, maybe they’re not familiar with this concept or these products, or where would they start?
Marc Hirsch (25:54)
the best would be to reach out to us, either directly to me or to my team here at Ziehl-Abegg North America. I’m sure we can somehow share our contact information in the info box of that podcast or somewhere. And then we are here to discuss projects to give more details on the technologies on our products. And yeah, I’m really looking forward to that.
Matt Allred (26:19)
Great, great. Is there anything else you’d like to share before we wrap up?
Marc Hirsch (26:24)
I really want to encourage the industry to be open towards new technologies, towards innovations, to really listen to that and see the advantages that it brings to the whole industry.
Matt Allred (26:39)
Yeah, absolutely. Well, and that’s one of the fun things about these interviews is we get to talk about, you know, what is the technology and what is the impact that it has. And it sounds like this is one place where it sounds like there’s a lot of wins to be had, you know, whether it’s maintenance, whether it’s saving electricity, whether it’s, you know, space utilization. So a lot of things to talk about there.
Marc Hirsch (27:01)
Exactly, exactly. You summarized that quite well, all these advantages.
Matt Allred (27:04)
Awesome.
Well, Marc, thank you. I appreciate you being with me and look forward to talking with you again down the road.
Marc Hirsch (27:12)
Thank you. Thank you very much.
Matt Allred (27:14)
Thanks again for listening to Elevator Tools and Tech from the Elevator Careers Podcast. Please remember to visit Ziehl-Abegg and you can find them at ziehl-abegg.com and that’s spelled Z I E H L dash A B E G G.com. You’ll see the link in the description below. You can also reach out to Marc. His information is also below in the description until next time. Stay safe.