Latest / The Elevator Careers Podcast / The Critical Role of Preventative Elevator Maintenance | Johnny LeSalle

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The Critical Role of Preventative Elevator Maintenance | Johnny LeSalle · The Elevator Careers Podcast

0:00
SPEAKER_02: And then you really end up with this thing where you think you fixed it, but you really didn't spend the quality time there to fix it.
0:07
SPEAKER_02: So it's a repeat copy, you know?
0:08
SPEAKER_02: So there's only so much that someone can do.
0:11
SPEAKER_02: So in order to avoid a lot of that, you just really have to do a lot of minutes.
0:14
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
0:15
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
0:15
SPEAKER_00: Hello and welcome to the Elevator Careers podcast brought to you by the All Red Group.
0:20
SPEAKER_00: I'm your host, Matt Allred.
0:22
SPEAKER_00: When talent is mission critical, call the All Red Group.
0:25
SPEAKER_00: With industry expertise, tough talent, and exceptional customer service, you need the All Red Group on your side.
0:32
SPEAKER_00: Your priority is our priority.
0:34
SPEAKER_00: Call now 404-890-0445.
0:39
SPEAKER_00: Today's guest is Johnny Lassan, COO of Microsoft Elevator, and an industry leader with experience both in the field and in management.
0:48
SPEAKER_00: In this interview, we dove into current issues surrounding preventative maintenance, from overloaded service route and growing financial pressures to why some modern elevators require modernization so soon.
0:59
SPEAKER_00: We also discussed essential steps to strengthen the partnership between property managers and elevator contractors.
1:06
SPEAKER_00: Johnny, welcome to the show.
1:08
SPEAKER_00: Thank you for having me.
1:09
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, no, I'm excited.
1:10
SPEAKER_00: I always enjoy the conversations and uh just kind of wanted to pick up on a on a conversation you and I had recently.
1:17
SPEAKER_00: And you know, you made the statement that really caught my attention.
1:19
SPEAKER_00: You know, what happened to preventative maintenance, kind of as a maybe rhetorical question, but what what do you think has changed in the industry over the last 15, 20 years?
1:28
SPEAKER_02: So from a manager's point of view, I believe that there's a financial thing going on there.
1:34
SPEAKER_02: Companies are looking for more margins, things are getting difficult with maintaining the elevator because technology changes really fast.
1:43
SPEAKER_02: So the culture of learning how to deal with these new products, you know, uh are much more difficult.
1:50
SPEAKER_02: So you have an old school guy that works on generators and stuff like that, and that stuff is no longer around.
1:56
SPEAKER_02: I know a mechanic that goes, I'm not gonna use a laptop.
1:59
SPEAKER_02: You know what I mean?
1:59
SPEAKER_02: I just don't know how, right?
2:01
SPEAKER_02: It's just not with it.
2:02
SPEAKER_02: Uh, but then there's guys that are just, you know, they just embrace it.
2:05
SPEAKER_02: At the end of the day, it's it's a financial thing.
2:07
SPEAKER_02: Somehow the companies, not everybody wants to have more and more margins for whatever reason.
2:14
SPEAKER_02: So things that happen is that you get more units on a route, and there's just uh a certain amount of maintenance visits that you can do in a month.
2:24
SPEAKER_00: When do you feel like that started changing?
2:27
SPEAKER_00: Was there a turning point that you saw?
2:31
SPEAKER_02: For me, uh I I think it was little by little, but there is a big turning point around uh like financial crisis around 2007, 2008.
2:42
SPEAKER_00: Okay.
2:42
SPEAKER_02: That's where it got worse.
2:44
SPEAKER_00: Right, from from your perspective.
2:46
SPEAKER_00: Were you in the field at the time?
2:47
SPEAKER_00: Were you in management, I guess, weren't you?
2:48
SPEAKER_02: I was just transitioning.
2:50
SPEAKER_00: Okay.
2:51
SPEAKER_02: I was going from the field into management right around right around 2009.
2:55
SPEAKER_00: Right.
2:56
SPEAKER_00: You mentioned that uh a lot of building owners feel like they never see their mechanic, and it sounds like that's obviously part of the the same thing.
3:03
SPEAKER_00: Um is that perception fair?
3:05
SPEAKER_00: Are customers missing part of the story there when it's like, hey, where's our guy?
3:11
SPEAKER_02: You know, I run into that a lot, and most of the time it's uh tied to the amount of units the guy has, right?
3:18
SPEAKER_02: So if the guy at eight o'clock in the morning already has seven calls, he's up against the clock, right?
3:25
SPEAKER_02: He's gonna try his best, hopefully, to get to all those calls.
3:30
SPEAKER_02: Even if you take an hour, right, per call, that's that's your whole day.
3:37
SPEAKER_02: You're not gonna have enough time for maintenance, much less time to like wait for to be able to meet somebody, you know, go find them.
3:45
SPEAKER_02: Sometimes they want to talk to you, so you have to wait for them.
3:48
SPEAKER_02: They're not in their office.
3:50
SPEAKER_02: And the way you really want to deal with a customer on a service call is you want to meet them twice.
3:55
SPEAKER_02: You want to meet them coming in and when you're leaving.
3:57
SPEAKER_02: But the guys are pressured to get to the next call, right?
4:00
SPEAKER_02: You know, God forbid the next call is an entrapment.
4:03
SPEAKER_02: So they've got to go, right?
4:04
SPEAKER_02: So it's a lot of pressure on them, I believe, when they they have that kind of setup.
4:08
SPEAKER_02: I'm sure not everybody has that setup, but that's the common denominator when we hear that complaint from customers.
4:15
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah.
4:16
SPEAKER_00: So I want to kind of throw in a question here that uh again, we we talked about this, and that is that you know there's kind of a market price, right?
4:23
SPEAKER_00: And so it feels like the routes are getting bigger, and yet the cost to the to customer to take care of their elevator has kind of stayed the same.
4:32
SPEAKER_00: How long has it stayed the same?
4:35
SPEAKER_02: How long?
4:35
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah.
4:37
SPEAKER_02: It fluctuates, the bigger companies tend to have these battles over price, and there's like a price war going on, and it's market to market.
4:44
SPEAKER_02: You know, Miami's different than Broward, which is just 30 miles away, completely different than Atlanta, and completely different than New York, right?
4:53
SPEAKER_02: So the prices can change from geographical area, but if there's competition and competition is good, that competition is going to drive prices down, right?
5:07
SPEAKER_02: And there is a floor and there's a somewhat of a ceiling, okay.
5:12
SPEAKER_02: So in that area, it's what I believe is that that that space, um, the cost has outpaced that.
5:23
SPEAKER_02: Okay, so now companies have to do things different in order to meet expectations financially, right?
5:29
SPEAKER_02: So when companies in order to get more market, they'll go on the lower of that spectrum, even though it's not cost effective, right?
5:39
SPEAKER_02: Like you'll get the contract already at a loss.
5:41
SPEAKER_02: For example, when a company uses like uh this thing where they where they say, okay, we're gonna do a one visit a month, X amount of hours, one repair, one test, add all that up, add all the other expenditures, margins, and then okay, that's that's the amount that we want this job at, right?
6:05
SPEAKER_02: But that's a lot of assuming, okay, because what if you have two repairs?
6:11
SPEAKER_00: Well, and what if what if one's an expensive repair?
6:13
SPEAKER_00: I mean, you can't not all repairs are are created equal, right?
6:16
SPEAKER_02: Correct, correct.
6:17
SPEAKER_02: You know, uh, you try to do your best with a survey and not include certain things that you see that are gonna go bad, but with the equipment that's being produced in the last 15 years, there's less and less and less that's in your control as far as being able to tell what is going to be needed to be done as a repair in the next five years, okay?
6:38
SPEAKER_02: And then the inspection.
6:40
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, you do an inspection, and on one particular elevator, you may need two guys.
6:48
SPEAKER_02: You may need four hours, right?
6:52
SPEAKER_02: So there's a lot of details in there that that people might miss.
6:56
SPEAKER_02: What about the re-inspection?
6:58
SPEAKER_02: What if it failed?
6:59
SPEAKER_02: What if it fails twice?
7:02
SPEAKER_02: So everything that I just mentioned is going to blow you out of the water.
7:06
SPEAKER_02: Okay, as far as profitability.
7:09
SPEAKER_02: I didn't even mention service calls.
7:11
SPEAKER_02: How many service calls are you gonna absorb?
7:13
SPEAKER_02: And that's that's where really get it gets bad, right?
7:16
SPEAKER_02: Because now you're talking about not just regular time calls, but overtime calls.
7:23
SPEAKER_02: God forbid it's an MRL.
7:25
SPEAKER_02: Now you need two people to maintain it.
7:27
SPEAKER_02: Because how are you gonna check?
7:29
SPEAKER_02: Well, the the biggest the biggest um problem in our industry with MRLs, in my opinion, is is the brakes, okay?
7:38
SPEAKER_02: The brake switch.
7:39
SPEAKER_02: You can't get up there, do anything by yourself, right?
7:42
SPEAKER_02: Safely.
7:43
SPEAKER_02: I really don't recommend that.
7:44
SPEAKER_02: Guys need to be with somebody, you know.
7:46
SPEAKER_02: I've gotten stuck up there, right?
7:48
SPEAKER_02: You're dealing with something that's malfunctioning, and you're gonna go into on top of a car, into an overhead where there's barely any space, crawl on top of the machine, look at this little microscopic little switch with your flashlight, try to adjust it, run the elevator.
8:03
SPEAKER_02: It wasn't done right.
8:05
SPEAKER_02: You're shut down.
8:06
SPEAKER_02: Now you can't move the elevator.
8:07
SPEAKER_01: Right.
8:08
SPEAKER_00: And you're by yourself with no cell signal.
8:11
SPEAKER_00: Uh yeah, yeah.
8:12
SPEAKER_00: So, I mean, and part of what I'm hearing you say is that there's there's some major pressures going on between you know market expectations with price and then costs rising, but there's also expectation from customers, hey, I want to see you so often, or I want you to solve all my problems, right?
8:28
SPEAKER_00: Maybe, and maybe there's an expectation that, hey, if I sign this agreement, I'm not gonna have elevator problems.
8:34
SPEAKER_00: And so when there are elevator problems, it's like, hey, you know, you promised.
8:39
SPEAKER_00: You know, there's there's again, there's kind of that expectation that it's gonna cover everything and everything's gonna be gonna be okay.
8:45
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, it's really important to set proper expectations, right?
8:48
SPEAKER_02: And and break the myth up front and let them know look, this is a partnership and this is where your elevators are at right now.
8:57
SPEAKER_02: And here's the evidence.
8:58
SPEAKER_02: One, two, three, right?
9:00
SPEAKER_02: Uh, we need to work together, you need to have some patience, and you may need to invest into these things in order to get to where you want it to be, right?
9:09
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, we want it to be there too, but sometimes it's you know, it's not just uh one-sided effort.
9:15
SPEAKER_00: Sure, sure.
9:16
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
9:17
SPEAKER_00: Um, well, you um you mentioned, you know, that the mechanics kind of start with, you know, maybe got service calls already, and so so maintenance kind of falls by the wayside because that's that's proactive preventative, you know.
9:29
SPEAKER_00: Like say if you've got an entrapment, if you've got something that's that's broken, obviously that's gonna take higher priority.
9:34
SPEAKER_00: And it almost feels like in a lot of these agreements, maybe there's just not enough wiggle room to actually get out there and proactively maintain.
9:42
SPEAKER_00: And I'm not saying it's just all the agreement, right?
9:44
SPEAKER_00: There's obviously the the companies have to make choices, right?
9:48
SPEAKER_00: How much margin do they want?
9:49
SPEAKER_00: And yet it seems like some of the customers maybe get caught in the in the crossfire.
9:56
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
9:57
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
9:58
SPEAKER_02: It depends on what the company wants to do, right?
10:00
SPEAKER_02: One thing is the contract, and the other thing is what's happening in the field, right?
10:03
SPEAKER_02: Because, you know, it's a the business, you're in a van, you're by yourself, you have the company shirt on, but it's your responsibility, right?
10:11
SPEAKER_02: You're running the company in a sense.
10:13
SPEAKER_02: So now you you have to make a personal choice, right?
10:16
SPEAKER_02: What are you gonna do?
10:17
SPEAKER_02: Right now, now it's it's the pride, right?
10:20
SPEAKER_02: Like the pride of uh the culture.
10:23
SPEAKER_02: Are you are you gonna do the right thing?
10:24
SPEAKER_02: Are you gonna try to do the right thing?
10:26
SPEAKER_02: At least get as far as you can, you know, like we talked about the one service call with the money bump.
10:32
SPEAKER_02: If you find one in a twin-story building, more than likely there's nine more.
10:38
SPEAKER_02: Okay, it takes seconds, right?
10:40
SPEAKER_02: So it may take, let's say, a minute.
10:44
SPEAKER_02: That's nine more minutes, ten more minutes that it would take to go to floor to floor and just clean those off.
10:52
SPEAKER_02: That's where that makes the difference, a big difference, okay.
10:56
SPEAKER_02: Uh, in a obviously in a 30, 40-story building, you know, you might have to like break it up, right?
11:02
SPEAKER_02: It might take longer, but it's still doable, it's still 30 minutes on a 30-story building.
11:09
SPEAKER_02: It's really not a lot, and that's 30 service calls that you removed from the next six months.
11:18
SPEAKER_02: Um, that's huge, right?
11:20
SPEAKER_02: So, as a mechanic, you really want to have the pride and think about what I can do better, what can I do now in order to improve upon this, right?
11:31
SPEAKER_02: And every little thing just exponentially mounts up.
11:35
SPEAKER_00: So it sounds like even within those constraints, there's a lot of discretion, right?
11:40
SPEAKER_00: As to, you know, do I go the extra mile and and take care of these things that I I know are going to show up again?
11:46
SPEAKER_00: If I can, then it seems like that would alleviate a lot of callbacks and and issues, and so you can take care of other other things.
11:55
SPEAKER_02: Absolutely.
11:56
SPEAKER_02: Absolutely.
11:57
SPEAKER_02: And and it's uh chain reaction.
11:58
SPEAKER_02: So if you see one thing, there's other things you can expect that are just low-hanging fruit, like I say, right?
12:05
SPEAKER_02: Sure.
12:05
SPEAKER_02: Easy things that you can take care of virtually very quickly.
12:09
SPEAKER_02: It's not hard, it's just a lot of cleaning, just regular basic maintenance, you know.
12:15
SPEAKER_02: The happiest customers are the ones that get the maintenance when it's needed, and that's something that's been lost, right?
12:21
SPEAKER_02: I remember I learned under a mechanic that had a little notepad, you know, this is before cell phones and stuff, and he had a little calendar, and he knew exactly to the day when the brushes on a particular motor or generator were going to be halfway used up.
12:43
SPEAKER_02: And, you know, there's a lot of things involved with that because how much is that building running?
12:48
SPEAKER_02: One building is different than another building, right?
12:51
SPEAKER_02: The occupancy and all that, and if it's an office building versus a condo, but in that particular building and every other building that he had, he had a different timeline.
13:01
SPEAKER_02: So it's so six months for this job, a year for the motor, you know, a service car was every two months.
13:10
SPEAKER_00: So he really observed enough to kind of dial those numbers down and and to where he he just knew based on usage and and all of that.
13:19
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, and no matter what, he would go do that because if he didn't, it's just gonna eat his lunch, you know, it's gonna start giving you service calls and leveling issues, and then there's other problems, right?
13:33
SPEAKER_02: You know, if you let a a brush go bad, now you have commutator problems.
13:38
SPEAKER_02: Now you're gonna have to repair the commutator, you know, it's just a domino affair.
13:42
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
13:43
SPEAKER_00: I hear people talk about you know, number of units per route, but you brought up the 60-story building a minute ago, and and obviously the big difference between a two, three, four-stop and a and a sixty-stop unit.
13:55
SPEAKER_00: I assume that that goes into the calculations, but I just don't hear it referred to that way, right?
14:00
SPEAKER_00: It's uh it's almost like we've got X number of stops per unit, but unit count is seems to be the driving force.
14:07
SPEAKER_00: How does that figure out?
14:09
SPEAKER_00: You know, as far as um, you know, we talk sometimes about overloaded routes, is it just usually counted in units, or do you look at the stops?
14:18
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, you know, the rule of thumb, right?
14:20
SPEAKER_02: Because there's an there's an average.
14:22
SPEAKER_02: So if you take any type of elevator, even contractually from like the consultant's point of view, the average amount of elevators, not including an ultra high rise, okay?
14:34
SPEAKER_02: Uh, but just the majority of elevators out there is going to be two-stop to like a 15-stop, right?
14:41
SPEAKER_02: Or and then there's your 25, 30, and 40, right?
14:44
SPEAKER_02: But the majority is going to be an hour to two hours a month.
14:50
SPEAKER_02: The the two-stop hydros, you know, there, you know, there's a lot of companies.
14:54
SPEAKER_02: I remember where they were all monthly visits, and then all of a sudden, you know, they were like, well, let's make it every other month.
15:01
SPEAKER_02: Um, let's make it quarterly.
15:03
SPEAKER_02: But in reality, you can visit every month for a half an hour, right?
15:09
SPEAKER_02: On a two-stop hydro quiet job.
15:13
SPEAKER_02: And your mid-rise, even the beginning of a high rise, you can do you know, two hours a month.
15:22
SPEAKER_02: Real maintenance, okay.
15:23
SPEAKER_02: You know, and that's good.
15:25
SPEAKER_02: Okay, so if you use that and you have that matrix and you start adding units to it, and you have a mix, let's say you have a 50-50 mix, you're going to get to a number, right?
15:37
SPEAKER_02: And that number is gonna fall anywhere between 80 and 100 units, okay?
15:43
SPEAKER_00: Maybe a little bit more, realistically be maintained, is what I'm hearing you're saying.
15:46
SPEAKER_00: Correct, correct, right?
15:47
SPEAKER_02: Because if you take, you know, there's like this all this math, there's only X amount of workable hours in a year, right?
15:54
SPEAKER_02: Minus vacations, minus holidays, minus all this stuff, okay?
15:59
SPEAKER_02: Um, so it's like, you know, close to 2,000 hours or something.
16:05
SPEAKER_02: And you take that, and you should be removing from those hours the average amount of call hours that you're spending on the calls.
16:15
SPEAKER_02: Okay.
16:15
SPEAKER_02: So how many hours are you spending a year on those units on calls?
16:21
SPEAKER_02: Is it 1,800 hours?
16:24
SPEAKER_02: A thousand right?
16:28
SPEAKER_00: Then there's no maintenance being done, right?
16:29
SPEAKER_00: Because you're just running calls all the time.
16:31
SPEAKER_02: Correct.
16:32
SPEAKER_02: Is it 50 hours, 100 hours, right?
16:35
SPEAKER_02: So let's take it the other way.
16:37
SPEAKER_02: Let's assume that you got an amazing route.
16:40
SPEAKER_02: Okay, how many hours do you need in order to do maintenance?
16:43
SPEAKER_02: You just start taking that number down per per month, and you're gonna end up with around 80 to 100 units, okay?
16:51
SPEAKER_02: Because there's no way to go to all those units to more than that, right?
16:56
SPEAKER_02: Sure.
16:56
SPEAKER_02: And still do service calls, right?
16:59
SPEAKER_02: Okay, we dial in depending on on that unit, you know, somebody else needs to take up the maintenance if somebody's busy taking calls.
17:08
SPEAKER_02: Okay, it's really important because if not, you're never gonna control the calls.
17:12
SPEAKER_01: Right.
17:13
SPEAKER_02: I've seen really, really good mechanics, you know, but they get burnt out.
17:18
SPEAKER_02: I used to have a competition with a friend of mine in the field, and we used to just be the ones to only take calls when they did the super route thing, right?
17:25
SPEAKER_02: We were one of the guys that that would only take calls and everybody else was doing maintenance.
17:30
SPEAKER_02: We loved it, right?
17:31
SPEAKER_02: In a sense, because we were competing with each other in order to see who fixed the most amount of elevators in a day, right?
17:37
SPEAKER_02: Sure.
17:38
SPEAKER_02: But but there's only so much you can do, you know, and then you really end up with this thing where you think you fixed it, but you really didn't spend the quality time there to fix it.
17:50
SPEAKER_02: So it's a repeat call.
17:51
SPEAKER_02: Right.
17:52
SPEAKER_02: There's there's only so much that someone can do.
17:54
SPEAKER_02: So in order to avoid all of that, you just really have to do a lot of maintenance.
17:59
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah.
18:00
SPEAKER_00: Which and it sounds like somebody has you know that their unit count's not too high that they can keep up and they it can be profitable.
18:07
SPEAKER_00: You tell me you're the business owner.
18:09
SPEAKER_00: Um, is it possible to be profitable with given the kind of the ceiling of this is what the market rate will pay for for maintenance?
18:17
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, uh it's profitable.
18:19
SPEAKER_02: I mean, there's a lot of companies out there, right?
18:21
SPEAKER_02: Now everybody's going out of business or being sold.
18:23
SPEAKER_02: Um, so you just gotta want to do it right, and you have to have the culture and the relationship with the customer, be able to tell them, hey, look, this equipment, it's aged, there's only so much we can do.
18:40
SPEAKER_02: We really need to increase.
18:42
SPEAKER_02: And the customer, if you're taking care of them, the customer is happy to pay more.
18:45
SPEAKER_02: You know, they're paying a lot more somewhere else, and they're not getting the service.
18:52
SPEAKER_02: That ceiling is flexible, right?
18:54
SPEAKER_02: You can push on it, but you have to prove it, right?
18:56
SPEAKER_02: The customer is not gonna pay more for nothing, right?
18:59
SPEAKER_02: But if they're getting good service, you know, we have somewhat of leverage, right?
19:04
SPEAKER_02: And be able to say, you know, this is not working out as far as a business is concerned, you know, we really need to increase the monthly payment, right?
19:13
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah.
19:14
SPEAKER_00: No, it's an interesting thought.
19:15
SPEAKER_00: This question's gonna be a little bit blunt, but I, you know, as we talk about you know, service and maintenance and callbacks, are some elevators breaking down sooner because they're not being maintained properly and therefore driving more mods, in your opinion?
19:27
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, for sure.
19:28
SPEAKER_02: If all the elevators were working, you know, really well because they're being maintained well, the customer's not gonna even consider a mod until it's absolutely necessary, right?
19:41
SPEAKER_02: Because for them, it's also a financial thing, right?
19:45
SPEAKER_02: It's a huge investment, okay?
19:47
SPEAKER_02: I I worked in management in New York, and you had elevators there and machines there from the 20s, the 30s, you know, these things that are just ancient and they still they're still going.
19:59
SPEAKER_02: Some of the New Yorkers that come to Miami, um, oh, in New York we don't have to do mods, the older equipment's better.
20:09
SPEAKER_02: But there are issues with that, right?
20:12
SPEAKER_02: There are issues like being able to get these components, people that know how to work on that stuff, like that's a specialized thing now, right?
20:20
SPEAKER_02: To compound the generator.
20:22
SPEAKER_02: I don't remember the the last guy that I've met that remembers how to do that.
20:27
SPEAKER_02: They're all retiring.
20:29
SPEAKER_01: Sure.
20:30
SPEAKER_02: Wow, I haven't even seen a generator in the last two years.
20:34
SPEAKER_02: So they're still out there, but uh there's not too many guys that are working on that or remembering how to work on that stuff, right?
20:42
SPEAKER_02: Sure.
20:43
SPEAKER_02: So if you absorb a building like that, you know, you got to be ready.
20:48
SPEAKER_00: Right, right.
20:49
SPEAKER_00: You know, you you had mentioned again a previous conversation that the older equipment was built super robust, like a tank, and yet uh, you know, it was value engineering came in and and things aren't necessarily designed to last as long or to to be as robust.
21:03
SPEAKER_00: Um, I hear about you know the the mod window used to be longer, it's getting shorter.
21:08
SPEAKER_00: What is assuming maintenance is happening, what's a reasonable mod window to say, hey, yeah, you need to modernize, you know, is it is it 20 years, is it 25?
21:19
SPEAKER_00: Is it 15?
21:20
SPEAKER_02: That that's changing from year to year.
21:23
SPEAKER_02: So it used to be 25, okay, then you know it's around 20.
21:27
SPEAKER_02: I'm modding out buildings that are 17 years old, you know, and the biggest driving factor on that, besides the value engineering, which is like the most disgusting word I've ever heard, circuit boards, for example, or semiconductors, the IGBTs, you know, you can't get them anymore.
21:46
SPEAKER_02: And that's not even the manufacturer or OEM's fault, right?
21:49
SPEAKER_02: That's just technology.
21:51
SPEAKER_02: And the manufacturing of these things are not happening.
21:55
SPEAKER_02: You went through a phase of a lot of production because all these companies.
22:00
SPEAKER_02: We're buying this equipment and that technology changed.
22:05
SPEAKER_02: Okay.
22:06
SPEAKER_02: So the IGBT and the chipsets changed, right?
22:10
SPEAKER_02: How they make it, the factory no longer makes that particular chip or IGBT.
22:16
SPEAKER_02: It's more expensive now to make it because they're only making special runs.
22:20
SPEAKER_02: At some point, the factory is not going to make them anymore.
22:23
SPEAKER_02: So then what happens is that now the board can't be manufactured the same way.
22:28
SPEAKER_02: So it's more expensive to redesign the board.
22:32
SPEAKER_02: They're forced to, in a way, obsolete that board, make a new board, or make a whole new controller, right?
22:39
SPEAKER_02: Um, and that's happening like almost every seven years.
22:44
SPEAKER_02: So let's say seven years ago, the XYZ controller was the top of the line for this company, right?
22:54
SPEAKER_02: They're already making something else.
22:56
SPEAKER_02: Okay.
22:57
SPEAKER_02: So that's this whole 25-year or uh 20-year window, it's like out the door.
23:03
SPEAKER_02: There's machines out there that are being installed with a X amount of cycle life that doesn't even reach 15 years if that elevator's in the wrong building.
23:14
unknown: Okay.
23:17
SPEAKER_02: It's done.
23:18
SPEAKER_02: Done.
23:18
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
23:18
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
23:19
SPEAKER_02: So I don't know if you know, like the phone, you know, there's like somewhat of uh planned obsolescence built in.
23:26
SPEAKER_02: You know, you hate to be pessimistic like that, but maybe some of that, some of that is true.
23:31
SPEAKER_02: But there is supply constraints, you know, that's a real issue.
23:35
SPEAKER_02: All the devices we're probably using to talk on are probably absolute already.
23:39
SPEAKER_02: There's something 10 versions already newer, you know.
23:41
SPEAKER_02: At least I know my computer.
23:43
SPEAKER_02: Right.
23:43
SPEAKER_00: Well, and to your to your point as far as obsolescence, I mean, you know, got a new iPhone not that long ago, just because, hey, the old one's three years old, time to upgrade.
23:54
SPEAKER_00: Um obviously an elevator is much more expensive, but it is electromechanical, it's got all the the chips and and things, and so it makes sense, you know, when you look at a 20-year-old automobile, and I have one, right?
24:05
SPEAKER_00: It's like, oh wow, you know, that thing's super old.
24:08
SPEAKER_00: It uh doesn't surprise me that that technology is kind of driving some of that that change at such a rapid rate.
24:16
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, it's scary, you know, even the design of the elevators themselves, MRLs, the tanks, and all this stuff in the pit, right?
24:27
SPEAKER_02: You know, all these things are basically really new and it's changing the industry, right?
24:34
SPEAKER_02: It's changing how you do maintenance, it's changing how you train the guys, it's changing safety protocols.
24:41
SPEAKER_02: Uh, it's complicated.
24:42
SPEAKER_02: And all of that at the end of the day means you might need more time to do maintenance or more time to figure out what the problem is.
24:52
SPEAKER_02: And that turns into cost that you have to somehow bring to the customer so you don't end up with a problem, a financial problem, right?
25:00
SPEAKER_00: Right, right.
25:02
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
25:02
SPEAKER_00: I mean, it sounds like there's uh there's a lot going on, right?
25:05
SPEAKER_00: There are a lot of different forces, and maintenance obviously is is an important part of that.
25:10
SPEAKER_00: But it sounds like even even with proper maintenance, you're still gonna run into those technology issues where, hey, this board just does not exist anymore.
25:17
SPEAKER_00: I'm curious, just your opinion.
25:19
SPEAKER_00: Like, how much does proper maintenance affect that that mod cycle percentage-wise, I guess.
25:24
SPEAKER_00: Just let's say you don't maintain something and it's it's totally trashed.
25:30
SPEAKER_00: How much sooner is it gonna need to be modernized versus something that's well maintained?
25:35
SPEAKER_02: Man, I've seen some incredible things out there.
25:37
SPEAKER_02: I've seen buildings, they want to get rid of that equipment as soon as possible.
25:42
SPEAKER_02: It might be as soon as two or three years into it, right?
25:45
SPEAKER_02: If they have enough money and they hate it that much, they don't want that proprietary equipment, they're they're ripping that sucker out.
25:54
SPEAKER_02: And somebody's paying for it.
25:55
SPEAKER_00: Oh, wow.
25:56
SPEAKER_00: You know, yeah, that's that's super expensive.
25:58
SPEAKER_00: So you bring up an interesting point.
25:59
SPEAKER_00: And I guess my question is if they hate the equipment and proprietary piece of it, does non-proprietary equipment tend to last longer and and not have to be modernized as quickly?
26:11
SPEAKER_02: No, well, there's there's good equipment and there's good equipment, right?
26:15
SPEAKER_02: So we started with the idea that uh equipment's not being maintained, right?
26:20
SPEAKER_02: It's trashed.
26:21
SPEAKER_02: So there's a way to get out of that, okay?
26:25
SPEAKER_02: Um, which is maintenance.
26:27
SPEAKER_02: But if the customer has, you know, they're up to here with all the problems and not being able to get a board from the manufacturer for months, then they may have to do something drastic.
26:40
SPEAKER_02: They may have to do a mod and just go with something that's more accessible.
26:45
SPEAKER_02: From our experience, you can get non-proprietary equipment quicker than you can get the proprietary equipment.
26:55
SPEAKER_02: I mean, that's been of our experience, right?
26:57
SPEAKER_02: It's kind of weird, but sometimes you can get, we as an independent, can get uh the parts quicker than the OEMs.
27:06
SPEAKER_02: Oh wow, right?
27:06
SPEAKER_02: Right, you know.
27:08
SPEAKER_02: Um sometimes it's just not in stock or whatever.
27:12
SPEAKER_02: A lot of times it's the OEMs are overwhelmed, right?
27:15
SPEAKER_02: You know, they get out the part, but they can't send anybody to put it in.
27:19
SPEAKER_02: Why?
27:19
SPEAKER_02: Because that guy's got 10 calls, you know, right?
27:22
SPEAKER_00: There's nobody, right?
27:24
SPEAKER_00: I think what I'm hearing you say is it's not that the equipment is is better or worse.
27:28
SPEAKER_00: It's but you said more accessible, meaning maybe pull this out if if it's non proprietary, then I can find more people to work on it, and therefore I'm not locked in.
27:37
SPEAKER_00: If the company's just not providing the service I need or meeting my needs, then I may have to spend a million dollars to to pull out the equipment so that I can change the equation.
27:48
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yeah.
27:49
SPEAKER_02: So you know how much pain do you want, right?
27:51
SPEAKER_02: Let's say this is a big issue here.
27:53
SPEAKER_02: Let's say the ropes, okay?
27:56
SPEAKER_02: The design on these ropes, no matter how much maintenance you do, okay, because that's maintenance is a big thing, right?
28:02
SPEAKER_02: It's the core problem.
28:04
SPEAKER_01: Sure.
28:04
SPEAKER_02: So you can overcome a lot of things and a lot of problems with maintenance, but they're just no matter how much maintenance you do in a hotel with a particular machine and with a particular set of ropes, you're only gonna get two years.
28:20
SPEAKER_02: Wow.
28:21
SPEAKER_02: That's crazy, okay?
28:23
SPEAKER_02: But there's no way around it.
28:26
SPEAKER_00: I I've got to poke at that a little bit.
28:28
SPEAKER_00: Two years, is that because of the shape of the shift?
28:30
SPEAKER_00: Is it because the the ocean breeze that that rusts the ropes?
28:35
SPEAKER_00: I mean, what's going on there?
28:37
SPEAKER_00: All of the above.
28:39
SPEAKER_02: But in a lab on a test tower, it'll last two years, right?
28:45
SPEAKER_02: Why?
28:46
SPEAKER_02: Because mathematically, in perfect conditions, you're only gonna get, let's say, a million runs.
28:56
SPEAKER_02: In a hotel, you're gonna get a million runs in two years.
29:01
SPEAKER_02: Okay, so what do you do?
29:04
SPEAKER_02: What does the customer do?
29:06
SPEAKER_02: They've already exhausted everything they can, they got rid of the company.
29:10
SPEAKER_02: Well, first they get rid of the tech, then they get rid of another tech, and then they get rid of another tech, and you know, because it's all the tech's fault, right?
29:17
SPEAKER_02: And then they they bring in engineers and they do all these things, and you still only get in two years.
29:24
SPEAKER_02: Then you bring in another company, they tell you you're only gonna get two years, and you're like, so then what do you do?
29:30
SPEAKER_02: These elevators are 10 years old, okay?
29:33
SPEAKER_02: It's the wrong machine, it's just the wrong design, you know.
29:38
SPEAKER_02: Um well, prove it.
29:40
SPEAKER_02: Okay, no problem.
29:42
SPEAKER_02: Let's do one, right?
29:44
SPEAKER_02: Let's put a different design machine with the right ropes that, as a matter of fact, is much more similar to what you had before.
29:54
SPEAKER_02: Okay, the mod, right?
29:56
SPEAKER_02: 10 years ago.
29:57
SPEAKER_02: And how long did those ropes last?
29:59
SPEAKER_02: Oh, never, we never had to change ropes.
30:01
SPEAKER_02: There you go.
30:03
SPEAKER_00: Interesting.
30:04
SPEAKER_00: I'm just curious what kind of machine.
30:06
SPEAKER_00: Maybe we shouldn't say this out loud, right?
30:08
SPEAKER_00: But what are we talking about?
30:09
SPEAKER_00: Is this an MRL or something?
30:11
SPEAKER_00: Because I've heard that they're harder on ropes.
30:13
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
30:14
SPEAKER_02: So mathematically speaking, what happens is that I like to call it the Toyota effect, right?
30:19
SPEAKER_02: You know, Toyota crammed a lot more stuff in the little, little space.
30:22
SPEAKER_02: The the elevators went through the same thing, okay.
30:26
SPEAKER_02: Where the shiv size used to be 40, 50 inches, okay.
30:32
SPEAKER_02: Um, massive shivs, right?
30:34
SPEAKER_02: So that circumference of the shiv allows for the bend on the rope to be much more gradual, right?
30:42
SPEAKER_02: Okay, now you're getting into 15-inch shives doing the same thing, and on top of that, it's it's double wrapped, two to one.
30:53
SPEAKER_02: So the the RPMs are double of what it used to be.
30:57
SPEAKER_02: Wow.
30:57
SPEAKER_02: So imagine that rope, that steel cable around a smaller radius.
31:02
SPEAKER_02: The the bend is much more aggressive, the RPMs are much higher.
31:07
SPEAKER_02: Not only that, get this.
31:09
SPEAKER_02: They went from a rope that is a size of a quarter diameter-wise, right, down to something that's closer to a dime or smaller.
31:19
SPEAKER_02: Right now, all of that weight, the speed, the heat, the friction, that the rope sits in an undercut U like this, right?
31:30
SPEAKER_02: Okay, it's more like this, right?
31:32
SPEAKER_02: Right, right, right.
31:33
SPEAKER_02: And then what happens is that friction on that undercut, you have to have the undercut in order to get traction.
31:40
SPEAKER_02: To get enough traction, sure.
31:41
SPEAKER_02: So that weight on a small rope going that fast, that many cycles, just adds more and more pressure.
31:50
SPEAKER_01: Just choose it up, yeah.
31:51
SPEAKER_02: And choose it up, exactly.
31:53
SPEAKER_02: Right?
31:54
SPEAKER_02: Exactly.
31:54
SPEAKER_02: The design is not right for the application.
31:58
SPEAKER_02: That design is great for a very quiet, low occupancy building, right?
32:04
SPEAKER_02: Right.
32:05
SPEAKER_02: But for a hotel, it's a disaster.
32:07
SPEAKER_00: Gotcha, gotcha.
32:09
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, obviously, design plays a huge part, and it sounds like they had something that worked, they changed it out for modernization and put the wrong thing in.
32:17
SPEAKER_02: Correct.
32:18
unknown: Correct.
32:18
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, now you know, on paper, everything works, but they don't put on paper is uh how long it will last, right?
32:24
SPEAKER_02: So I remember when this stuff started to fail on us, and my boss at the time had me be the subject matter expert or whatever, right?
32:36
SPEAKER_02: On this, so I was chasing engineers from different rope manufacturers.
32:40
SPEAKER_02: You know what's going on here.
32:41
SPEAKER_02: We're losing ropes every day.
32:43
SPEAKER_02: I remember there was a cold snap in Miami, and we had 186 shutdowns in one day.
32:50
SPEAKER_02: Okay.
32:50
SPEAKER_02: Wow.
32:51
SPEAKER_02: All because the ropes stretch.
32:53
SPEAKER_02: 186?
32:55
SPEAKER_02: 186 elevators shut down because the rope stretched too much because it got cold.
33:01
SPEAKER_02: Okay, and a lot of people kind of like oh, it gets cold in New York, that doesn't happen here.
33:06
SPEAKER_02: It's just different, right?
33:08
SPEAKER_02: The amount of humidity in Miami is just off the charts 100% of the time.
33:13
SPEAKER_02: And the minute you get into the 30s and that humidity is drawn out of the rope, something's going to happen.
33:21
SPEAKER_02: You know, talk to any rope engineer and they'll tell you the same thing.
33:25
SPEAKER_02: But whatever, it happened, right?
33:26
SPEAKER_02: So we had that many failures, and like, why are we going through this?
33:31
SPEAKER_02: And then why are we losing ropes and losing ropes and all these problems?
33:35
SPEAKER_02: Basically, it's just that's the design.
33:37
SPEAKER_02: And there was a company that made a rope calculator.
33:40
SPEAKER_02: You put in the shift size, you put in the groove profile, you put on how many ropes, the rope size, the speed of the car, the weight of the car, and it'll spit out how long that rope will last.
33:53
SPEAKER_00: Interesting.
33:53
SPEAKER_00: Okay.
33:54
SPEAKER_02: Okay.
33:55
SPEAKER_02: And it's just no denying it, right?
33:57
SPEAKER_02: That's the science.
33:58
SPEAKER_02: Okay.
33:59
SPEAKER_02: So what do you do at that point?
34:00
SPEAKER_02: You know, you got to let the customer know.
34:02
SPEAKER_02: Hey, look, this is what you're going to be living with until you can change it.
34:06
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
34:06
SPEAKER_00: Well, and and hopefully, unlike the hotel you talked about, you got to change it for the right design because it uh sounds like an expensive mistake to make.
34:15
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
34:16
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
34:17
SPEAKER_00: And if you um, you know, if you were a property manager inheriting a building tomorrow, what are three questions you would ask your elevator contractor immediately?
34:26
SPEAKER_02: Well, I don't know if I'd ask the elevator contractor, but I'd ask the route guy that they're gonna assign how many elevators do you have on your route?
34:36
SPEAKER_02: Okay, I'd interview the mechanic.
34:38
SPEAKER_02: How many calls do you have average every day, first thing in the morning?
34:43
SPEAKER_02: And that's really important, right?
34:45
SPEAKER_02: And then the contractor, give me the reality.
34:49
SPEAKER_02: What is the condition of my elevators?
34:52
SPEAKER_02: What do we need to do in order to get to a better place?
34:55
SPEAKER_02: You know, those are the things that I'd ask, right?
34:58
SPEAKER_02: And then from that, hopefully we get some honest answers and some proof behind it, right?
35:02
SPEAKER_02: I mean, you can say a lot of stuff, but you know, show me, right?
35:05
SPEAKER_02: What is it that's wrong on my elevator and what do we do about it?
35:10
SPEAKER_02: You know?
35:11
SPEAKER_00: No, and those are very insightful questions.
35:12
SPEAKER_00: And um, like you say, if you if you're getting the right answers, you know, at least you've got something to go with, right?
35:18
SPEAKER_00: And and who knows, maybe you need to get a different service provider, or at least you got some some insights.
35:24
SPEAKER_00: Part of what I'm hearing you say is it's a partnership between ownership, between property management, between the elevator contractor to make sure that elevators run, right?
35:33
SPEAKER_00: It's not just a one-sided story of, hey, I paid you X number of dollars and you just have to do it all.
35:39
SPEAKER_00: I like the way you you kind of look at that as a partnership.
35:41
SPEAKER_00: Um, and if you could change one thing about that partnership, what would you do?
35:46
SPEAKER_02: So there has to be a plan.
35:48
SPEAKER_02: Okay.
35:49
SPEAKER_02: So, you know, once we get to understand what's the baseline, what's the reality of where we're at right now, how do we move forward?
35:56
SPEAKER_02: What is the solution here, right?
35:58
SPEAKER_02: Is it is it going to be, you know, X amount of maintenance?
36:04
SPEAKER_02: You know, maybe we can take these repairs and segment them over time.
36:08
SPEAKER_02: What's the path to being at a good place?
36:11
SPEAKER_02: Do we start working on a two-year plan to mod your elevators?
36:15
SPEAKER_02: Does the customer buy extra components to keep on site, whether that's ropes or shivs or whatever?
36:20
SPEAKER_02: How do we go about this?
36:21
SPEAKER_02: So it's not a surprise, right?
36:23
SPEAKER_02: I mean, customers really don't want surprises, you know.
36:26
SPEAKER_02: That's what gets companies in trouble.
36:27
SPEAKER_02: I really do think that honesty is better, right?
36:30
SPEAKER_02: And and like you said, you know, you have that partnership with them and let them know this is what's going on.
36:35
SPEAKER_02: A lot of times customers get turned off by all of that, but maybe that's not the right customer.
36:40
SPEAKER_00: The question um is kind of pointing at, yeah, there is a partnership, right?
36:44
SPEAKER_00: That you've got to be able to communicate.
36:45
SPEAKER_00: And like you say, the customer may say, no, I'm gonna just pay you this amount and shut up and go fix it, right?
36:52
SPEAKER_00: And yet, if you're able to build that kind of relationship, say, listen, um, here's what's really happening, right?
36:58
SPEAKER_00: And maybe it was a bad design, and maybe it was the last service provider didn't do good maintenance.
37:04
SPEAKER_00: Whatever it is, right, this is the real situation.
37:06
SPEAKER_00: And I think the hard part for customers has got to be it's unknown, right?
37:10
SPEAKER_00: They don't see into the shaft.
37:12
SPEAKER_00: They don't, even if they could, they don't know what's going on.
37:15
SPEAKER_00: And so, you know, there's a there's a lot of uncertainty on on their part, but but building that trust so that they can hopefully work with you to maintain their own equipment is is gotta be a huge step.
37:27
SPEAKER_02: Right.
37:28
SPEAKER_02: So knowledge is key, right?
37:29
SPEAKER_02: You know, and that's why a lot of customers go to consultants, okay?
37:33
SPEAKER_02: It's like a third party, the expert, right?
37:36
SPEAKER_02: And if we go to a customer and say, hey, look, you know, this is what's going on, and the trust is not there yet, well then ask the third party.
37:42
SPEAKER_02: You know, we'll pay for the third party.
37:44
SPEAKER_02: You know, if it's a customer that we really value and we we want this building, right?
37:49
SPEAKER_02: And you don't trust what we're saying, okay?
37:54
SPEAKER_02: Then you pick a third party of your choice and we'll pay for that cost.
37:59
SPEAKER_02: Obviously, we have to back up what we're saying, right?
38:02
SPEAKER_02: It's not like, oh, you know, you need new roller guides when when you only just need rollers and it's part of your maintenance, right?
38:10
SPEAKER_02: But we're, you know, we're talking about big things, big challenges like whether your DD is right for your building or not, or if it is obsolete or it isn't obsolete, or if that design motor and rope is right for your building or not, you know, these big challenges where it's like there's no way to overcome these things, you know, unless you're making a big investment.
38:30
SPEAKER_02: Normally, buildings are already with a consultant, you know, these days, but we have seen plenty of buildings that don't have one.
38:38
SPEAKER_02: And once you tell them that, they're like, you know what, just show me, right?
38:42
SPEAKER_02: Or we've already shown them, or we'll take them to another property that has had this issue and they've overcome it, and they talk to that customer, and you know, there's more confidence that way.
38:55
SPEAKER_00: Cool, cool.
38:56
SPEAKER_00: And I really like that that solution, right?
38:58
SPEAKER_00: Because I've heard that a lot of the bigger buildings probably do have a consultant, but that there are a lot of people, a lot of units, a lot of companies that just don't yet have that.
39:05
SPEAKER_00: And so being willing to provide that, I think, is a huge step in building trust and and building the ability to move forward because hey, you need a second opinion, I get it, right?
39:17
SPEAKER_00: I totally understand, respect that, and I'm willing to put my money where my mouth is so that we can move you forward.
39:24
SPEAKER_00: I think that's great.
39:26
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yeah.
39:27
SPEAKER_02: It it does build a lot of trust.
39:29
SPEAKER_02: Um, and once the customer sees the confidence and like you're talking to them in a way where they can understand, and you're breaking it down, even like on a scientific or just you know, this is why it's happening, and they get it, then there's some trust there, you know.
39:49
SPEAKER_00: Good, yeah, absolutely.
39:50
SPEAKER_00: Because you're educating them, right?
39:51
SPEAKER_00: And they can they value that and feel like okay, I have a little bit more knowledge, awareness to direct the path of my my maintenance or my equipment.
40:01
SPEAKER_00: So very cool.
40:02
SPEAKER_00: Johnny, I appreciate you being with me.
40:03
SPEAKER_00: We're out of time today, but it's been great as always.
40:06
SPEAKER_00: Uh, anything you'd like to say as we wrap up?
40:09
SPEAKER_02: I thank you for this opportunity.
40:12
SPEAKER_02: It was great.
40:13
SPEAKER_02: I'd like to say that, you know, just the guys to be out there, be safe, take one at a time, right?
40:18
SPEAKER_02: Take the extra effort, have pride in what you're doing, and you know, make sure you're going home, you know, with all your fingers and toes and you're doing the right thing.
40:28
SPEAKER_02: And then, you know, keep learning, right?
40:30
SPEAKER_02: And everybody will be okay.
40:32
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, the customers will be happy with you, right?
40:35
SPEAKER_02: Because you did your best.
40:37
SPEAKER_00: Yep, agreed.
40:38
SPEAKER_00: Well, thank you again.
40:39
SPEAKER_00: I've enjoyed it and uh appreciate you being with me today.
40:42
SPEAKER_02: Thank you.
40:43
SPEAKER_00: Appreciate it.
40:44
SPEAKER_00: Thank you for listening to the Elevator Careers Podcast, sponsored by the Allred Group, a leader in elevator industry recruiting.
40:51
SPEAKER_00: Please visit our YouTube channel at Elevator Careers or check us out online at elevatorcareers.net.
40:58
SPEAKER_00: Please like and subscribe.
41:00
SPEAKER_00: And until next time, stay safe.