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equipment[part] is obsolete”.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of a discarded or outmoded type; out of date: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
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.
