Obsolete elevator equipment – What does this mean?

From time to time we as elevator contractors run into older elevator equipment or not so old elevator equipment that is not supported nor sourced any longer.  One of the hard to swallow conversations for a building owner to hear is “your elevator equipment[part] is obsolete”.  What does this mean?  And how does effect you?

Definition of obsolete – Dictionary.com

1. no longer in general use; fallen into disuse:

an obsolete expression.

2. of a discarded or outmoded type; out of date:

an obsolete battleship.

3.(of a linguistic form) no longer in use, especially, out of use for at leastthe past century

Compare archaic.

4. effaced by wearing down or away.

How this pertains to elevator full maintenance agreements – An elevator full maintenance agreement should cover your elevator system in reasonable conditions.  This would mean if a door part failed in normal operation, the elevator contractor would replace it and wouldn’t charge you.  If a solid state control board failed in normal operation the elevator contractor would replace it and wouldn’t charge you.  The obsolesce issue comes in play when a direct replacement is not available from the original equipment manufacturer

For manufactures that are still around but stopped supplying replacement parts - i.e. a R4 regen drive is replaced with a R6 regen drive and wiring changes are required, or a MCE white box requires replacement with a different solid state board set that is not a direct replacement, Virginia Controls had their electronics supplier discontinue their support of their MH2000 product line, their new solution is to install a MH3000 board set. These are three examples of companies that are still around but do not or cannot support their products with direct replacements. Or to make it more colorful, while some companies names are still on the parts, they have made financial arrangements for the warranty and technical support to be provided by a different entity.  The assumed life span of electronic parts & support should be 15-20 years. Please note to expect curve balls. [edit 6/29/17 with Virginia Controls clarification on the MH2000 control series]

For control manufacturers that are no longer around – Typically when a manufacturer “closes” its doors someone buy’s their assets.  This poses a difficult scenario where instead of a replacement of a board or drive, you may be required to replace the entire elevator controller.  In the Illinois area we had a contractor/manufacturer, Long Elevator, that was acquired by Kone.  Kone did not choose to support the Long product line for very long. Long Elevator installed many elevators in our area.  Now we are seeing board failures and replacement parts being unavailable. We typically first try to find a electronics company that can repair the solid state boards, if this is not successful or the board is not repairable the building is forced to replace their elevator controller.

 [A Long Elevator controller mounted on the elevator car top, these boards are not available nor supported, when a board goes out on this elevator it gets interesting, not a good interesting]

  [This is a very old ESCO controller, most of the parts are available with exception of the timers and relays which can be retrofitted]

 [A US Elevator with solid state boards, similar to the Long Elevator this gets interesting when a board needs to be replaced or repaired, as this was a more popular controller we have more outlets that are familiar with repairing boards, but there is no support nor has this been manufactured in many many years]

Hours of replacement - Please note that the replacement typical is covered during normal working hours unless you have a 24-hour maintenance agreement.

Why is the building responsible for paying for replacement for “obsolete” equipment – The simple answer is that is says this in your elevator maintenance contract.  The longer answer is as contractors, we have no way to predict the life cycle support for electronics or different product lines.  Contractors also do not have a way to predict what a future repair solution and cost would be if a product line is discontinued.  We know that a replacement of a power supply, microprocessor board, motor drive that is a direct replacement will have a parts cost of X and a labor cost of Y. At the end of the day while an elevator contractor does have a contractual responsibility to maintain the elevator equipment to the best of their ability, it is still owned by the building and the building does bear the final responsibility.

Planned obsolescence – Wikipedia

Planned obsolescence or built-in obsolescence in industrial design and economics is a policy of planning or designing a product with an artificially limited useful life, so it will become obsolete (that is, unfashionable or no longer functional) after a certain period of time.^[1] The rationale behind the strategy is to generate long-term sales volume by reducing the time between repeat purchases (referred to as "shortening the replacement cycle").^[2]

Producers that pursue this strategy believe that the additional sales revenue it creates more than offsets the additional costs of research and development and opportunity costs of existing product line cannibalization. In a competitive industry, this is a risky strategy because when consumers catch on to this, they may decide to buy from competitors instead.

Planned obsolescence tends to work best when a producer has at least an oligopoly.^[3] Before introducing a planned obsolescence, the producer has to know that the consumer is at least somewhat likely to buy a replacement from them. In these cases of planned obsolescence, there is an information asymmetry between the producer – who knows how long the product was designed to last – and the consumer, who does not. When a market becomes more competitive, product lifespans tend to increase.^{[citation needed]} For example, when Japanese vehicles with longer lifespans entered the American market in the 1960s and 1970s, American carmakers were forced to respond by building more durable products.^[4] A counterexample is Moore's law, stating that the rather competitive electronic industry plans for double computer capacity every 18 months, and the software industry plan for new program versions that require double computer capacity every 18 months.^[5]

Purpose of this post – The purpose of the post is to provide some additional clarity of the murky waters of “obsolesce”.  It is a word no one likes to hear, it is a word that screams expense, and it is a word we have spirited debates over.  A solution is to talk to your elevator contractor about this and have a plan of action, modernization, repair, etc in a worse case scenario.

As always feel free to contact us at www.colleyelevator.com, email Craigz@colleyelevator.com or call 630-766-7230.