By Su Lin

The development report of elevator industry for the first half of 2006 showed that more than 250 Chinese elevator manufacturers had been licensed for production and manufactured 85,000 elevators. All the international famous brand elevator manufacturers have established production enterprises in China, and the biggest ones include Shanghai Mitsubishi Elevator Co, Ltd, Guangzhou Hitachi Elevator (China) Co, Ltd, Xizi OTIS Elevator Co, Ltd, Huasheng Fujitech Elevator Co, Ltd, Toshiba Elevator (Shenyang) Co, Ltd and Schindler (China) Elevator Co, Ltd. With its production capacity over 150,000 elevators, China has become one of the biggest elevator manufacturers in the world. According to the statistics from China Customs, China has exported 3,200 elevators to 97 countries and regions, as well as 4,100 escalators and moving sidewalks.

Attracted by the vast market potential, the world famous brands moored in Chinese market one after another and gradually extended in scale. At the 10th anniversary of production by Huasheng Fujitech Elevator Co, Ltd, Fuji Technology System Co, Ltd declared to increase investment on Chinese market and expand the production scale and logistical system in North China. Recently, the largest individual production workshop in Chinese escalator industry has been established in East China, which laid the foundation to become a leading group in the industry.

The reporter has learned that the current output by multi-national companies had exceeded 80 percent of the output by Chinese elevator manufacturers, among which 13 large foreign-invested companies such as American OTIS Elevator Corporation, Switzerland Schindler Elevator Corporation, Finland KONE Elevators Co., Ltd, German ThyssenKrupp Elevator Corporation, Japanese Mitsubishi Corporation, Hitachi Ltd, Toshiba Corporation and Fuji Technology System Co, Ltd etc. took 74 percent market shares. Huasheng Fujitech Elevator Co, Ltd entered into Chinese market for only 10 years; however, it has appeared in over 20 symbolic buildings such as Beijing Capital International Airport, Beijing Subway, Shanghai Commercial City and Beijing International Trade Center etc.

At the moment, more and more manufacturers have noted that they were not only expected to develop new products and expand marketing channels, but also to provide instant, standard and proper after-sales services. They began to attach great importance to installation, repair and maintenance. The repeated construction only for increasing manufacturing capacity was reduced, while the service network near to the places where elevators were used increased, which improved the reliability of use, narrowed the gap between enterprise and users in service and laid the foundation for enterprises' long-term development.

Meanwhile, the domestic elevator manufacturers were seeking breakthroughs actively. In the fierce market competence, the introduction of advanced technology and management played an important role in driving the development of domestic manufacturers. They explored advantages from independent brands and developed new products meeting market demand to fill in the market vacancy. Shenyang Brilliant Elevator Co., Ltd under Shenyang Yuanda Enterprise Group invested largely on a great deal of advanced equipments such as Italian Salvagnini production line, German digital hydraulic shearing center, laser cutting center and Japanese digital laser processor, and continuously accelerate its scientific and technological development capacity, thus it successfully developed passenger elevators and sightseeing elevators in KS type and QS type, medical elevators, freight elevators, automatic sidewalks, hydraulic elevators and non-machine room elevators. In order to expand the market coverage, Yuanda proposed "price of passenger elevator and configuration of business elevator" in its slogan in order to increase the ratio of performance to price of products by large scale.

As the domestic and foreign elevator manufacturers wrenched for Chinese market, the prospect and trend of elevator industry were changing silently with social demands. The market called for new generations of green, energy-saving and intelligent elevators. To meet the market demand, the domestic and foreign elevator enterprises increased investment on R&D, preparing to take the lead in the future elevator industry with new concept.

Domestic enterprises have achieved enormously on technological R&D of green, environmental-friendly and energy-saving elevator. In 2004, Shanghai Mitsubishi Elevator Co, Ltd launched the LEHY serial small-room elevators, which combined the latest concept on development and design, applied gearless permanent magnet synchronous traction machine with outstanding performance, increased the system efficiency by 30 percent to 50 percent, largely reduced power consumption, and through the gearless traction technology, traditional worm speed reducers were saved and the noise was decreased by over 10 dB in contrast of previous ones and thoroughly solved the pollution problem, meeting the environmental requirements more than prior products. The 3-MAP300ESK energy feedback elevator by Shanghai Yangzi 3-Map Elevator Co., Ltd. adopted the first domestically innovative energy-saving technology, which saved energy by 60 percent at maximum in comparison with elevators used trailing method with same energy demand. Its main part does not have traditional decelerator and does not need lubricant, really realizing green environmental protection. In June of 2005, the gearless permanent magnet synchronous traction machine developed by Shenyang Brilliant Elevator Co., Ltd passed in the appraisal by expert team organized by Shenyang Science and Technology Bureau, the machine was endowed with two patents of invention, which could increase efficiency by 30 percent more than the traditional traction machine and save energy by over 30 percent. Also, it had the characteristics of small size, low vibration and low noise and its main technological performance index lived up to the standard of international parity products.

Thanks to the technological innovation and market competence by domestic and foreign elevator enterprises, the elevator industry will be continuously improved in each and every field such as the technology, the market, the service and so on, and China's elevator industry will provide more job opportunities and better economic returns in the new round of industrial development.