6 Every time we enter an elevator, we are trusting our lives to the people who designed, made and maintain it. Without effective maintenance, elevators would literally be death traps. Otis, the elevator company, has its ‘Otis Maintenance Management System’ (OMMS), a programme that takes into account its clients’ elevators’ maintenance needs. Maintenance procedures are determined by each elevator’s individual pattern of use, such as frequency of trips, loads carried and conditions of use.

Otis also monitors the life cycle characteristics of all its elevators’ components. This information on wear and failure is made available to its customers and is used to update maintenance schedules.

When an elevator has a problem, a technician can be on their way to a customer within minutes, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. The service can get the elevators back in service within two and half hours on average. Otis monitors, collects, records, analyses and communicates hundreds of different system functions. If it detects a problem, it calls out a technician. ‘Around-the-clock response is important,’

say Otis, ‘because problems, don’t keep office hours. The remote sensing system identifies most potential problems before they occur’.

(a) What could be the effects of failure in elevator systems? How does this explain the maintenance service that Otis offers its customers?

(b) What approach(es) to maintenance are implied by the services that Otis offers?

(c) How would you convince potential customers for these services that they are worthwhile?