Lifting maintenance performance Back in 1853 Elisha Graves Osis introduced the world's first safety elevator in Yonkers, New York. It was to have a remarkable impact on the world's skylines. Without elevators, the skyscraping buildings that dominate most modem cities would probably never have been developed. Given the number of elevators in regular use throughout the world and the Otis Company's position as a leading supplier, Otis is the world's leading people mover. And Otis is very much aware that every time we enter an elevator we are trusting our lives to the people who designed and made it, and more immediately, the people who maintain it Without effective maintenance the elevators which are often on duty every minute of every day would literally be death traps. Central to the Otis philosophy of maintenance is its "Otis Maintenance Management System" (OMMS), a programme that takes into account its clients' elevators' maintenance needs. Using this system, Otis can customize inspection and maintenance schedules for up to twelve years of operation or five million trips in advance. Maintenance procedures are determined by each elevator's individual pattern of use. Frequency of trips, the loads carried by the elevator and conditions of use, are all incorporated to determine the frequency and nature of maintenance activities. Because no component part of any equipment is perfect, Otis also monitors the life cycle characteristics of all its elevators' components. This information on wear and failure is made available to its customers via its twenty-four communications center and web site. This ongoing understanding of component life also is used to update maintenance schedules. With Otis's call service, when an elevator has a problem, a technician can be on their way to a customer's facility within minutes. Its twenty four hours a day, seven days a week service which handles over 1.2 million calls a year can get the elevators back in service on average within two and half hours. Also the Osis on site monitoring equipment system is a sophisticated and interconnected system of sensors, monitors, hardware and software that collects, records, analyses and communicates hundreds of different system functions. If the system detects a problem it automatically makes a service call, calling out a technician who has been provided with the information collected by the system and that will be used to help identify the component causing the problem. "Around the clock response is important", says Otis, because problems don't keep office hours.... (the remote sensing)....system detects deteriorating components, identifies intermittent anomalies, notes the small nuisances that.... Would have gone undetected.... It identifies most potential problems before they occur." Source: Nigel Slack, Stuart Chambers, Robert Johnston. Operations (2010) Management, (6 edition). Page 592 1.1 What could be the effects of failure in elevator systems? How does this explain the maintenance service that Otis offers its customers? (10 marks) Page 7 of 8 1.2 How would you convince potential customers for these services that they are worthwhile? (10 Marks) 1.3 Define TPM. (5 Marks)