Cloud Monitoring: Smarter Elevator Maintenance
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Intro:
This episode of Elevator Tools & Tech is sponsored by Cloud Monitoring, a cloud based remote monitoring systems that offers hosted, all in one monitoring of your equipment – 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, and accessible from anywhere. Now, let’s dive in.
Summary:
In this episode of the Elevator Tools and Tech podcast, host Matt Allred engages with industry experts Angelo Mottola, Bali Harmath, and Anthony Marchese to discuss the transformative impact of AI and IoT on elevators. They explore how intelligent elevators can enhance urban mobility, improve user experiences, and provide predictive maintenance to reduce downtime. The conversation also delves into energy efficiency, cybersecurity concerns, and the importance of integrating smart technology into building management systems. The experts share insights on the industry’s technological advancements and the necessity for building owners to adapt to these innovations for better operational efficiency and tenant satisfaction.
Transcript:
Matt Allred (00:00)
Hello, I’m Matt Allred, the host of Elevator Tools and Tech. And today we have with us Angelo Mottola, president of Claddagh Electronics and Claddagh Controls, Bali Harmath, managing partner at Cloud Monitoring, and Anthony Marchese, vice president of technical services at VDA, a member.
of the VDA New Product Committee. Today we’re talking about intelligent elevators integrating AI and IoT for smart urban mobility. And this is a continuation, Anthony and I actually had a conversation just a couple of weeks ago about this very topic. And Anthony, I just want to invite you to talk about some of what really sparked this conversation.
Anthony Marchese (00:42)
Yeah, Matt. Hey, it’s great to be back and I’m thrilled to be with such innovative guests today. So real happy to be here. But yeah, my last appearance, you know, we talked about how I’m part of this committee for VDA and I have the privilege of getting introduced to new products and companies in the industry ahead of the curve and
what we do at VDA is we write specifications to include these technological advances to our clients. And recently we worked on one which included these technological breakthroughs, being able to monitor machine room sounds and temperature levels, hoist machine vibration, brake coil temperature.
Main power itself, the feed monitoring the line. Car top sensors to monitor ropes and door operation, water intrusion. In the pit, you know, we’re monitoring run by clearances and, you know, elevator rope stretch, comp shivs. And then of course in the hoist way.
air velocity, you know, that’s measured and important as well. So, you know, at VDA, we have this great program and service that we provide to our clients called Verify, where periodically, quarterly, for instance, we’ll need to review the elevator performance and track inspections that have occurred and the deficiencies that have been written up.
You know, and we’ll also require call-ups submitted by the maintenance companies where we’ll categorize the type of shutdowns that have occurred. And I’m hopeful with the direction that we’re headed with the use of new technology that, one day all this data that we’re harvesting, you know, in the new installations that these can be instruments for predictive models.
which will allow us to be proactive on maintenance and troubleshooting. So you know, elevated control manufacturing, as part of the foundation of my career, this really excites me. And I’m happy to be able to open the pipeline of technology to the end users of my clientele. It’s an exciting time.
Matt Allred (03:07)
Awesome. No, thank you. And I could tell that from our conversation that you were very excited. And so obviously we’ve invited Bali and Angelo to enlighten us on some of this. I know you guys have been working on this for a long time and speaking about it. And here’s another chance to talk about it again. But I’m excited to be able to talk a little more in depth. So let’s start with the kind of the big picture. What exactly are
intelligent elevators, and how do AI and IoT change the game for building owners?
Bali Harmath (03:43)
Hey Matt, thanks for having us. This is indeed a very intelligent topic and it’s right in our wheelhouse. This is what we breathe every day and we kind of love this idea of creating intelligent elevators. So if you think about it, what’s an intelligent elevator? So it just represents a fusion of AI and IoT technology that’s utilized.
in the elevator space in the vertical transportation industry that really has the benefit of really creating a different aspect for the elevator the way it’s perceived by the customer, by the tenant, by the passenger in the elevator. If you think about elevators, well, you had traditional elevators and now you’re to have intelligent elevators. It’s going to be night and day if we can leverage these technologies and really
create that predictive maintenance, that traffic management, that personalized service that can be provided for the passengers just by utilizing technology.
Matt Allred (04:50)
Yeah, even in my own life, I’m seeing that the ⁓ AI is changing the way that so much is done. And I’m probably a very late adopter, but just anything from writing a resume. So I know that it can change a lot about elevators. Let me ask this question. What are some of the common elevator problems like downtime or long wait lines? Can these smart systems actually solve those problems?
Anthony, want to take a crack? go ahead.
Angelo Mottola (05:20)
Yeah,
If knowing what the problems are with the cloud monitoring, if it’s a door problem or if it’s a brake problem, we can get to it ahead of time before they actually fail and shut the elevator down. So with the cloud monitoring, we’ll see those faults coming in and we can take care of it before it becomes a problem or shut down.
Matt Allred (05:44)
Awesome, probably save a lot of money in the process then, right?
Anthony Marchese (05:44)
Yeah.
Yeah, to add to that, you know, we could we could head off potential shutdowns that are about to occur. But furthermore, you know, of course, these are mechanical devices with normal mechanical wear and tear. So to be able to anticipate this so we could shut down or plan elevator shutdowns.
when these repairs need to be made, not that it’s occurring at a surprise at the wrong time for a building when they need the elevator service the most. And also to be able to predict ahead of time to get ahead of, the inspection services that need to be provided, you know, to cut down on that, on what will be
found in an inspection. So if we could get ahead of that, repair it before the inspection occurs, obviously that’s going to save the client money in the end.
Matt Allred (06:48)
Absolutely, yeah. Well, I mean, predictive maintenance sounds promising. Can you explain how it works and what kind of ROI a building owner might expect?
Bali Harmath (06:59)
Yeah, so predictive maintenance, as I alluded to that, it’s going to be part of the intelligent elevator. So with predictive maintenance, as Anthony said it, you’ll be able to predict when there’s going to be a shutdown. So if we think about it, downtime just on its own, it’s not definitely a bad thing. Unplanned downtime, that’s really the one that’s causing the disruption in the building.
So if we’re able to gather data from the elevator, analyze that data, we can really make smart decisions of when maintenance should be done, when different components should be repaired and scheduled for repair, ⁓ if we can detect when there’s different kind of components, especially overheating or creating excessive vibration.
That will definitely give us an indication that repairs should be done there. And even if we don’t consider just predictive maintenance, just usage monitoring will give us enough data to create a much better experience for the passengers and much less disruption in service in the buildings. It’s basically that’s the one that the majority of the buildings are really complaining about disruptions.
Matt Allred (08:16)
Sure, sure. Well, and that kind of leads us to the next question. Angelo, I’ll point this one at you. How does this technology improve the everyday experience for tenants or guests in a building?
Angelo Mottola (08:29)
What it does, it doesn’t the elevators won’t shut down and they won’t have that interruption. We can schedule at a time when the elevator is not being used and go in and do the repairs or schedule the mechanics to go to the repairs when the elevator is not in use late in the evening or very early in the morning so the tenants are not inconvenienced by not having service.
Matt Allred (08:56)
So they may not even know. The only time they do know is when it’s super painful, right? They get home from work or they’re showing up, but you know, whatever, and they just can’t use the elevator at all or it’s, you know, maybe they got to do more stairs than they want to.
Angelo Mottola (09:10)
Yeah.
Bali Harmath (09:11)
Yeah, absolutely. And the other thing is like just by us constantly monitoring like the ride quality aspect of that elevator, which only gets monitored from time to time. If somebody gets called in into the elevator, we can do that 24/7. So we can really see the trend on the ride quality, how it’s getting worse and worse. And we can just put a threshold on that trend and create a warning level. And just by that being fixed, that’s going to give a
way better ride quality to the passenger. So that’s going to be something that’s going to improve the experience for the tenants. Not even talking about the wait times. If we consider intelligent elevators, how they are constantly connected, we have a backend system that’s aware of usage throughout all the elevators. We can pinpoint if there’s dispatching ⁓ problems in the building, why one elevator gets 5,000 calls a day and the other one only 2,000 and they’re in the same bank.
Matt Allred (09:46)
Absolutely.
Bali Harmath (10:07)
So this way they’re not gonna be used at the same rate. If you just use a regular maintenance cycle on it, they will probably allocate the same resources for all the elevators in the bank where in the reality, one is overused in the whole bank. So just by being able to leverage that data, you can make these smart decisions and improve the experience for the passengers.
Matt Allred (10:30)
Yeah, that makes a lot of sense that something like usage, maybe it’s just not being watched at all, right? And so with these systems, not only are seeing the heat or the vibration, you’re also seeing, this usage is a little out of whack, we can fix that.
Bali Harmath (10:47)
Yeah, for the building it’s painful enough just to be able to work with multiple systems and check the paperwork and follow the paper trail for all these different critical equipment in the building. They’re really not going to be able to watch the usage or ride quality or noise levels or temperature levels or excessive wind in the shaft way. So they’ll never know these…
these things until they really cause a disruption in the building.
Matt Allred (11:17)
For sure. Well, and I’m sure one of the people that feels that the most intensely has got to be the facility manager and they probably have, they’re juggling multiple systems. How does integration with building management platforms actually work? So I imagine they have multiple systems they’re looking at.
Bali Harmath (11:35)
Yeah, I think best case scenario, they already have a system that they need to manage on multiple systems. A lot of times they don’t even have systems in place and they still do things on paper. So in case they do have multiple systems, what’s the best solution? The best solution is to find something that’s really gonna consolidate all these platforms, bring all the data, all the information into one platform and just create an
enterprise level asset management platform. So we really can do that through our platform. So our platform started as a monitoring platform, but it was driven by the customer into this direction where we needed to include items related to inventory management or maintenance control program or dispatching. So this really is a pain point for facility managers, building owner.
institutions that multiple systems they really do eat up a lot of man time and it’s a laborious experience for them.
Matt Allred (12:37)
I’m sure, I’m sure. Well, and sounds like you can help them whether they have just a pen and paper, you can give them a system to start with, or if they’ve got multiple other systems, you can integrate directly with whatever other systems they’re monitoring. Is that correct?
Bali Harmath (12:52)
Yeah, that’s very accurate.
Matt Allred (12:55)
Yeah. So Anthony, I wanted to just ask energy efficiency, it’s got to be a big deal for both sustainability and cost. What are some the measurable gains that are possible with intelligent elevators?
Anthony Marchese (13:09)
So as far as what we install nowadays compared to yield geared machines, we’re putting in now gearless machines with regenerative drives. So that’s basically pumping energy back into the building for energy savings.
By being able to be more precise in the operation, for instance, the monitoring the wind speed. So as seasons change, pressure will build up and it’ll inhibit doors from fully closing and operate multiple times. So by being able to monitor these types of situations,
you know, less door operations, just less is being used in order to complete an elevator run from floor to floor.
Matt Allred (14:12)
Yeah, I love that. It’s something I honestly hadn’t thought about, that the wind’s gonna affect it, but just being able to watch it and see what’s going on definitely helps there. So go ahead.
Bali Harmath (14:24)
What also can help in these kind of situations? Like a lot of buildings, they might have line voltage power issues. So just simply monitoring the tree phase going into the building, being able to detect brownouts in the building, and you could see excessive usage from the elevator. So just the excessive…
power usage from the elevator could be an indication that there’s something wrong with that elevator. That could be related to bearing, lack of lubrication on the bearing, rope issues. Probably Anthony can elaborate more on these kind of things that are really affecting the energy usage of elevators. So we can offer the technology to be able to detect these kind of excessive
power usage on the elevators and probably Anthony knows much better what’s leading up to excessive energy usage on these elevators related to these mechanical issues.
Anthony Marchese (15:21)
Yeah, certainly, you know, as time wears on, again, these are mechanical devices with natural wear and tear. So, you know, by being able to pinpoint
these issues going on, and getting ahead of it, it’ll allow for greater efficiency for the equipment. Greater efficiency is just less power consumption. It’s flat out just physics.
Matt Allred (15:53)
For sure, yep, absolutely. So what kinds of risks like overheating, vibration, voltage spikes can these smart sensors catch? I mean you kind of talked about that, Bali with the brownouts. So it sounds like even the energy or the electricity rather coming into the building is something that can be monitored, correct?
Bali Harmath (16:13)
Yeah, absolutely. So we kind of advise all clients to have like the basic set of sensors that should be deployed around the elevators. one of them, it’s automatically monitoring the temperature and the humidity in the machine room. Those kind of environmental factors are really affecting the life expectancy of the equipment in the motor room. And 99 % of the time,
that monitoring it’s non-existent in motor rooms. So that could be one thing, vibration, absolutely. Anything that’s related to vibration sooner or later will lead to a shutdown. So by placing intelligent vibration sensors on the machines on top of the car, you’re able to detect ⁓ misalignment, you’re able to detect bearing degradation.
lack of lubrication, bearing overheating. Anthony mentioned in the beginning monitoring temperature of the brake coils, monitoring vibration on the door operator. Water, water it’s always an issue, doesn’t matter if it’s in the elevator pit or if it’s down the shaft way by just simply deploying water detection devices. You can prevent that elevator
to really going into the elevator pit and creating excessive damage for both the counter weight and the elevator cab. If we’re talking about power as we were talking about before, the main line coming in, we do have a of buildings where it’s really, they need to control the usage of the elevators, especially on the summertime when they have multiple banks and the city requires them to shut down.
one or two banks in the building or switch to generator power. So in this case, it’s essential for us to monitor the incoming main line, to monitor the main line coming from the generator, to help them do the transfer from the main line to the generator power, bring these elevators back in service. So all this without properly monitoring the units would not be possible.
Matt Allred (18:27)
Right, that makes sense.
Bali Harmath (18:28)
So
there’s over 30 types of sensors that we really can deploy around critical assets. And if we just talk about elevators, these are like the most important basic sensors that would be a no-brainer to be included with any elevator modernization or new construction.
Matt Allred (18:48)
For sure, for sure. Let’s talk for second about some of the concerns that perhaps building owners have. I’m curious, how do you address concerns about cybersecurity or privacy when elevators are now connected to the internet?
Bali Harmath (19:03)
Yeah, that’s a super important topic. 10 years ago when we started developing this technology and deploying it for elevators, customers were super hesitant in adopting this technology. Everybody was scared when you mentioned that, we’re just going to connect your elevator to the cloud. But as we see that right now, there’s provisions in the elevator code related to cybersecurity
whenever there’s an elevator connecting to the internet. So for us, it was a big challenge and us, by working with city, state, federal agencies, their cybersecurity requirements are super stringent. So it took us a couple of years, multiple cybersecurity consultants and multiple iterations to rework our whole thinking around cybersecurity, how we apply it in the…
in the elevator space, how we can really mitigate breaches, how we can really limit control that’s being given over remotely connected elevators.
These are topics that were extensively touched with these city-state agencies, which commercial buildings were really not applying years ago. But what we saw as a trend in the last one or two years, even smaller clients, they really do raise that question. Like, how is your cybersecurity? What do you do? How do you handle if somebody breaches the system? Like, what controls can you
cut down. Who owns the data? That’s the other big question that always comes up. Who owns all the data that comes from the elevators? Is there any sensitive data that’s being sent from the elevators? So the elevator industry really got educated in the last couple years related to IT and cybersecurity needs.
I don’t know who really drove this trend. It might have been the consultants because they are the ones who are really representing the buildings and setting the direction for these new technologies and how really code is enforced on it, even related to the cybersecurity aspect.
Matt Allred (21:19)
Yeah, I mean, sounds like obviously a lot of lot of concerns, a lot of questions. I mean, technology, as we see, is just growing rapidly. being deployed in places that we never, ever thought it would be, could be, should be. And boom, here it is. So figure out how to make it safe.
Bali Harmath (21:35)
We’re still behind, we’re still definitely behind, especially in the elevator world compared to other technologies, compared to other critical equipment where they’re probably 10 years ahead, especially on the predictive maintenance aspect part of it. We really were pushing for this technology to be adopted on the…
on the elevators because we saw the benefits that really facilities got once they applied it on the other critical equipment.
Matt Allred (22:08)
Yeah. So just to clarify, you’re saying that as an elevator industry, we’re behind in adopting some of this equipment that maybe people in the generator industry or the power production industry have already been doing. Just curious, what do you think’s driving that? What’s behind that?
Bali Harmath (22:29)
Unfortunately,
Unfortunately they are probably because other critical equipment I don’t even know if they really considered the elevator as a critical equipment in a building where they do for a pump or a generator or a chiller and probably repair costs also for that equipment it’s much higher than elevators and that’s why they were more open to adopt these kind of technologies.
but they definitely moving in the right direction, definitely not fast enough. So we think it’s super important for facility managers, building owners, consultant companies to really be up to date with whatever technologies out there and how that can be applied to the elevators.
Matt Allred (23:19)
I mean elevators aren’t inexpensive by any means, right? and especially as you’re showing what can be done, sounds like it becomes more and more of a no-brainer. Like why are we not paying attention to this? Why are we not?
Angelo Mottola (23:32)
Elevators are the heart of a building they move people in and out of it and it should be one of the most important things It always gets pushed behind a little bit
Bali Harmath (23:43)
Is this ever a concern, Anthony, that consultants hear from building owners? Do they ever approach consultants like, what new technologies out there? Can you help me with this kind of issues?
Anthony Marchese (23:58)
Yeah, absolutely. We do have a certain demand on us. You know, the savvy people who are in operations running a building, and perhaps it’s because of other technologies that they’re using with other equipment. So they draw the analogy and they say, well, what do elevators have to offer?
It’s a question that’s asked often. I obviously, this is technology that, I’m looking forward to. So, you know, in favor of whatever I could do to open up that pipeline, and reaching out to technology companies,
like Claddagh Electronics and Cloud Monitoring.
Matt Allred (24:44)
Very cool. Let’s talk for a minute just about the numbers. How does the subscription model work? How does that compare to traditional maintenance costs? What are some of the offsets, if you will?
Bali Harmath (24:56)
Yeah, so definitely these cloud-based systems are always subscription-based. If we’re talking about cost, cost is negligible. So if you compare the cost of monitoring to a regular service contract and the ROI that you would get by applying monitoring to the asset, it should be definitely a no-brainer. But I still think that it should be kept…
totally separate and discussed as a separate topic from traditional maintenance costs or traditional maintenance contracts. So by adopting this technology, you definitely could be exposing things that are overdone or undone based on what the maintenance requires.
So associating the cost of monitoring with the maintenance cost should not be done. So this should be handled separately totally by the facilities, by the building owners. And if we just create a hypothetical scenario that you have an elevator outage that could have been prevented by monitoring that unit, if you put $1,000 for monitoring for five years on that asset,
and your repair costs, it’s $20,000 that could have been prevented, like we can automatically see the big difference between the cost that it can really prevent and the ROI by applying technology.
Matt Allred (26:25)
I mean, it sounds like it pays for itself, right? Especially if you’re talking overtime, you’re talking downtime, you’re talking, you know, all of the headache, the stress, the pain, you know, that could go with an unplanned, unforeseen.
Angelo Mottola (26:35)
⁓ The
One time a mechanic goes to the job to figure out what’s wrong with it, that one time would have paid for the cloud monitoring almost for the whole year.
Matt Allred (26:47)
Wow, well, Bali you told us, you know, in another conversation about a client who forced the elevator company to work with cloud monitoring, I’m curious, how did that come about? And what are some of the benefits they’re experiencing?
Bali Harmath (27:02)
Yeah, these kind of setups started happening more and more often lately. Unfortunately the building owner was more aware of the technology that’s out there than the actual elevator company that’s servicing the equipment. So like in this kind of setup, it was a high rise, high speed building with multiple elevators in there.
where they’ve been having issues from the very beginning since the building opened up, them not being able to run the cars at full speed. So because of excessive vibration that they were experiencing in the elevators, and that especially in the winter months. So whenever there’s colder temperature out there, whenever there’s excessive wind around the building, what they saw that
the elevator was creating excessive vibration, they needed to slow down those cars. So in this kind of setup, our approach was to go there and deploy different kind of sensors around the building. So first what we did, we ran on top of the building, so we deployed ultrasonic anemometers just to be able to detect wind speed and direction around the buildings, together with barometric pressure.
And the next one was us deploying vibration sensors, both on top of the elevators and both on the machines in the motor room. And what that proved, that there is excessive vibration whenever there is excessive wind outside of the building. The next step was that us going in there and deploying air velocity anemometers inside the elevator shaft way.
And what we saw after months of monitoring and data collection and analysis, that there’s a direct correlation between barometric pressure, outside wind speed, with the stack effect that’s really being created for those elevators. And that stack effect really created excessive vibration on the ropes that could be felt on the ride quality in the cab.
that vibration got propagated all the way to the machines in the motor room. So we saw these patterns on four different cars. And what ended up being is that we detected that there’s not proper sealing around the doors and in the lobby. And there’s excessive airflow through the lobby, ⁓ tenants leaving doors open on different floors that really create
the excessive stack effect in the building. So there was really nothing wrong with the elevators, but the elevators were the ones that people were in and they were experiencing these issues.
Matt Allred (30:04)
Yeah, so once you identify the airflow and this wind tunnel that’s being created, were you able to then prescribe some, I guess, measures that could kind of bring down that vibration?
Bali Harmath (30:17)
Yeah, absolutely. They were able to create extra seals around the hallway doors, break the airflow in the lobby, making sure and enforcing with tenants on the multiple floors to keep the hallway doors closed. And that really made a great impact on the whole thing and they were able to speed up the cars. So this is just one
scenario where we can really apply technology to pinpoint issues, create like a forensic level analysis around the elevator and prescribe solutions for them. Otherwise, they would not have been able to solve this problem and they were not able to solve this problem for years until they had data that really spoke volumes.
Matt Allred (31:07)
years.
Sure, so let me ask, I mean, sounds like, and we’ve kind of heard it said here, right? It’s a no-brainer, it pays for itself, but I’ve also heard that, this is a controversial subject. It brings a little bit of transparency, whether you like it or not, I think is what you said, Bali. So I’m curious, from the three of you, what’s behind the controversial nature? How would you speak to that?
Angelo Mottola (31:38)
Well, you’re kind of going against the, if elevator contractor is not doing the proper maintenance, is not doing what he’s supposed to be doing, the proper greasing and oiling and doing what needed to be done to make that elevator run smooth. Now you could be going against the service company.
That’s why for us, it’s better that the building owners or management companies order the cloud monitoring and they pay for it. This way they can control their equipment and see if the service company is providing the right service for them.
Matt Allred (32:18)
It sounds like they’re the ones that are gonna benefit too, right? It’s not the maintenance contractor that’s gonna benefit necessarily. Okay.
Angelo Mottola (32:24)
It really benefits both of them, you know, because
Now if they have cloud monitoring on there, the elevator company can see what is actually failing on the elevator or needs to be repaired. Or if they look at the usage of that elevator, they could determine which elevators need to have more maintenance done versus one that’s not being as frequent. Yeah. So there’s a lot of positive things that an elevator company can use to their advantage.
by doing the monitoring and paying attention to it.
Anthony Marchese (32:58)
Yeah, it’s about adapting to a new business model, moving with the times. Recently, I had discussions with an elevator owner. During these summer months, we have grid issues in New York City. And elevators go down frequently because of low voltage.
And it all hits at once. And the discussion was that, well, geez, you know, a lot of times, and this is union labor. So, you know, they have these contracts in place that they’re responsible. It’s a no billing type of arrangement. And they’re sending men just to find out that, well, the heat wave hit a little early in June.
And the building didn’t turn on the air conditions in the machine room yet. Now had we, in these cases, if temperature was being monitored, you know, and this is something that popped up on their dashboard in their organization that, whatever X, Y, Z address is going into an overheated condition. You know, it would be a heads up then to the building. Hey, you guys.
check what’s going on with your air conditioning because we’re seeing levels that exceed the tolerance of the equipment’s operation. So in that case, it would have been great had he known that because… And then on top of it, because of the low voltage going on, now his men are worn thin. They’re going to unnecessary calls.
So, you know, that’s like a perfect example. You know, I know that my grid provider, I may be at work and a storm may be coming in and I’ll get a text message from our utility company that, hey, service is going to be an issue in the area. I mean, it’s giving me the heads up that.
I know that it’s pointless to be making the phone call, because I see that they’re on top of it. So, if these, if this was in place and the elevator company was sending out a proactive signal, hey, we realize you’re experiencing lower power right now. And, you know, we’re working throughout the city trying to
you know, restore service to elevators, you know, in a case by case, like, this would just help alleviate a lot of the pain and suffering throughout not only from building management, but from operations within the elevator company, you know, rather than having a dispatcher up all night, expending all of this aggravation, so these are ways that that could help them. And then not to mention
Again, some of these contracts that they have, it would do them better because of the fact that they’re responsible for the repairs to head it off and take care of these issues before they grow to be greater issues and more costly to the company because they can’t bill for it. So, you you could look at both sides of the coin.
And I just think at the end of the day, technology is just benefiting us as time moves on.
Matt Allred (36:31)
Sounds like a win for everybody. Bali what do you think about that?
Bali Harmath (36:35)
I agree, this is where transparency would really benefit everybody. So when I said that it will create transparency whether you like it or not, this is the best case scenario where this really proves that everybody was doing the right thing and it was just lack of data, lack of information that was causing all the disturbances which could have been prevented with monitoring.
The other thing with transparency and for you to be able to create transparency, you have to create a system where everything is objective. So you leave no room for interpretation and for you to be able to do this, you need to have super clean, accurate data that cannot be altered by anybody. And that’s where technology comes in play. So deploying sensors, connecting directly with elevators and just having the asset.
relay that data back to the back end and analyzing that data. Nobody really ever interferes with the data and then it will always tell the truth and that will create that transparency. Which majority of the time it’s beneficial for everybody. There could be cases when it could really incriminate you if you really slack in and not doing the proper maintenance.
Just by leveraging this will definitely create a better feeling for both the service provider, both the elevator owner, and then everybody will always speak the truth.
Matt Allred (38:06)
For sure. Well, and it sounds like even if a company’s not doing the right thing, well, hey, there’s a kick in the pants to start doing the right thing, right? It’s an invitation to step up. Absolutely. Very good. So last question. If I’m managing a building today and want to future proof it for smart cities, tenant expectations, money saving, where should I start?
Bali Harmath (38:14)
Yeah, could be an incentive, yeah. Exactly.
Hmm, where should you start? I think you as a building owner, you definitely have a consultant company that’s advising you what technologies to adopt for your elevator. I think that should be the first step for building owners. They should definitely inquire from their consultant company like what’s out there? What’s gonna be the best ROI for me? What’s gonna really increase efficiency in my building? What’s gonna create…
better user experiences, what’s going to tailor user experiences for my tenants in the building? And then, yeah, they can also do their own research and see technologies out there. What sensors can be deployed? What AI algorithms can you really apply to these mechanical assets that are serving your vertical transportation needs? But definitely, the first step…
should always be subject matter experts, which in this case would be ⁓ consultants, be technology gurus like Antony, who really love technology and we’re 100 % sure that they will always advise them to do the right thing and pick the perfect application for these elevators.
Matt Allred (39:42)
What if they feel like maybe they’re not getting enough for the right answers? How can they get a hold of you and Angelo? That’s the big question.
Bali Harmath (39:51)
We’re always just an email or a phone call away. They can just simply go to cloudmonitoring.us and hit us up. We’re more than happy to help them, advise them, guide them in the right direction, and apply our multi-year experience by leveraging these technologies for the vertical transportation.
Matt Allred (40:11)
Perfect. Thank you all for being here today.
Angelo Mottola (40:12)
As a smart guy once said, was Bill Casey, you don’t work for the elevator company or for the building owner, you work for the elevator. You know, you got to make that elevator right. You know, people use it every day and you want to maintain that elevator and do the right thing. So as long as you can provide that, then you’re golden.
Matt Allred (40:34)
Perfect. Perfect. Thank you all again. I appreciate you being with me today. It’s been a lot of fun and wish you the very best.
Angelo Mottola (40:42)
Thank you, thank you for your time, Matt. Thank you. Thanks.
Anthony Marchese (40:44)
Thanks, Matt.
Bali Harmath (40:44)
Thank you for having us. Always fun.