"The 29 elevators included in this renovation batch are all 'Xinma' brand, but this brand has ceased production. Sourcing spare parts is extremely difficult — it takes at least two to three days, and in some cases over a week. The elevators frequently break down for long periods due to minor faults," Sun Tiejian, property manager of Xiangshui Shui'an Community, remarked with emotion.

 

Supported by policies for elevator renewal and renovation, the "breakdown" problem faced by residents in Xiangshui Shui'an Community is being fundamentally resolved.

 

After only 8 months, the old elevators in Building 9 of Xiangshui Shui'an Community, located in Kunshan High-tech Zone, Suzhou City, Jiangsu Province, were successfully renewed. This became the 2,196th elevator delivered in Kunshan's old elevator renewal project supported by ultra-long-term special treasury bonds.

KONE Elevator, a Finnish elevator giant, is the main force undertaking this old elevator renewal work in Kunshan. Zhou Fang, Vice President of KONE Elevator Greater China for Renewal and Modernization Business, said in an interview with China Business Journal that the elevators in need of renewal and renovation vary in service life, operating status and brand. KONE Elevator has set up a flexible production line at its Kunshan factory, which can design customized solutions based on residents' needs.

 

It is understood that Kunshan is the first county-level city in Jiangsu Province to seize the policy opportunity to launch the old elevator renewal project, covering 152 communities and benefiting more than 50,000 households. This is also the largest old elevator renewal and renovation project among similar cities nationwide.

 

Building a Multi-party Coordination Mechanism

Xiangshui Shui'an Community, located in the center of Kunshan, was delivered in 2008. With a large resident population and high elevator usage frequency, the supporting elevators suffered severe wear and tear. Shen Siqian, Party branch secretary of Xinghai Community, calculated that the annual maintenance cost of elevators in Xiangshui Shui'an Community is around 150,000 yuan.

 

Sun Tiejian also told reporters that the 29 elevators in this centralized renewal and renovation of the community have been in use for more than 15 years, and frequent failures have caused a lot of trouble to residents' lives.

 

"This is a common problem faced by the elevator industry. The elevators that need to be renewed and renovated vary in age, usage status and brand, and we often encounter situations where the original manufacturer has closed down or the elevator model has been discontinued," Zhou Fang said. For this reason, KONE Elevator has established an independent renewal and renovation business department that can provide diversified renovation solutions.

 

It is understood that the rapid advancement of Kunshan's old elevator renewal project is also the result of the "three-way collaboration" among the government, enterprises and residents.

 

According to the relevant person in charge of Kunshan Housing and Urban-Rural Development Bureau, Kunshan has opened up the whole chain of "policy - public opinion - capital - technology", built a multi-party coordination mechanism led by the government, with public participation, community implementation and enterprise empowerment. Relevant departments sorted out the elevator renewal reserve library in advance, and carried out the investigation of old elevators as soon as possible; the application service team composed of community grid members and property service butlers provided "one-stop" services such as policy interpretation and conflict mediation, achieving 100% response to residents' demands.

 

"Taking Xiangshui Shui'an Community as an example, at the end of 2024, it took only one week for the owners of each building to pass the elevator renewal plan through voting," the aforementioned person in charge of Kunshan Housing and Urban-Rural Development Bureau said.

 

Zhou Fang believes that the state's inclusion of elevators in the scope of ultra-long-term treasury bond subsidies sends a strong signal of attaching importance to the stock market and people's livelihood needs. Some communities' old elevators that previously relied on "patchwork repairs" can now be fully replaced with only a supplementary contribution from the public welfare fund with the support of treasury bond policies, which is beneficial to letting the people get real benefits and have more hope in life.

 

Data released by the State Administration for Market Regulation in May this year shows that by the end of 2024, the total number of elevators in China reached 11.5324 million, of which the number of old elevators in use for more than 15 years reached 900,000.

 

"The number of old elevators is growing rapidly every year, and the growth rate will get faster and faster, because 15-20 years ago was the period of the fastest building construction and urbanization in China. At present, the 150,000 yuan supported by the ultra-long-term special treasury bond can be subsidized in one go, which is the strongest support for the old elevator renewal work," Zhou Fang told reporters.

 

Ensuring All Eligible Old Elevators Are Renewed

Back in November 2024, Kunshan issued the Implementation Plan for the Renewal and Renovation of Old Residential Elevators in Kunshan Supported by Ultra-Long-Term Special Treasury Bonds, officially launching the city's "battle" for old elevator renewal.

 

It is understood that Kunshan successfully obtained 2,196 elevator renewal indicators and received about 330 million yuan in supporting funds. The number of renewed elevators accounts for nearly 70% of Suzhou's total, ranking first among similar cities nationwide. In the end, it took only 8 months for all 2,196 elevators in Kunshan to be renewed and delivered, of which KONE Elevator was responsible for 2,106 units.

 

Why was the old elevator renewal so fast? Zhou Fang told reporters that in June this year, the new document of the State Administration for Market Regulation put forward the principle of "retaining as much as possible and reasonably reusing existing parts", making elevator survey more prominent. "Our workers will use electronic survey tools to photograph components such as guide rails, doors and counterweights on site to judge whether they meet the new standard and the quality standards for reuse."

 

Zhou Fang further said that these digital information will be uploaded to the internal circulation system in real time and directly synchronized to the factory. The factory implements flexible production according to the survey results: if full dismantling and full replacement is required, production will be carried out according to the standard configuration; if only part of the components are involved, the materials will be adjusted in a targeted manner. For example, when retaining the door components, the design plan needs to be customized according to parameters such as the size of the door and the width of the ground.

 

According to the aforementioned person in charge of Kunshan Housing and Urban-Rural Development Bureau, Kunshan has adopted the "Seven-Step Elevator Renewal Method" to form a closed loop in the three links of public opinion collection, fund supervision and construction acceptance through standardized processes. The smooth process set a new record that the fastest elevator delivery from demolition and installation to use only took 13 days.

 

"In the construction process, KONE Elevator has continuously increased technological innovation, using 'scaffold-free elevator dismantling technology' and 'plasma welding cutting technology' to improve construction safety, and the overall efficiency has increased by about 30%," Zhou Fang explained.

 

It is worth mentioning that for the renewed elevators, Kunshan has set up the "One Elevator, One Unified Management" platform. After the elevators are connected to the Internet of Things, elevator enterprises will report the elevator operation status according to the requirements of relevant government departments, so as to improve the transparency of supervision.

 

Zhou Fang said that using Kunshan's "One Elevator, One Unified Management" platform, combined with KONE Elevator's artificial intelligence and big data model, it can calculate and infer potential problems of the elevator, and the relevant information will be directly pushed to the maintenance personnel's mobile phones.

 

It is introduced that through predictive maintenance, the equipment failure rate can be reduced by up to 55%, and the risk of trapping people in elevators can be reduced by about 40%.

 

The aforementioned person in charge of Kunshan Housing and Urban-Rural Development Bureau said that at present, Kunshan Housing and Urban-Rural Development Bureau has simultaneously launched the second round of old elevator investigation, and started to establish a dynamic list database of elevators that have been in use for more than 15 years. Through the rolling mechanism of "renewing a batch, reserving a batch, and planning a batch", we will strive to renew all eligible old elevators.

 

"The Kunshan project provides a referable and replicable 'KONE solution' for the national elevator renovation market. In the future, KONE Elevator will continue to deepen technological innovation, improve service quality, and apply the 'Kunshan experience' to more cities, so that the renewal results can benefit thousands of households," Zhou Fang said.

翻译

搜索

复制

翻译

搜索

复制