Gearing Up for the Future

China’s Ningbo Xinda Group builds on past major developments to continue bringing advanced products to the world.

Elevator and escalator manufacturers in China have been confronted with unprecedented challenges due to the global economic slowdown, as well as the present restructuring and growth-maintaining stages in the nation’s economic development process. Competitive companies have been taking measures either to enhance their leading edge in products and services in varied demanding market sectors, or to try to find new niches in other industries by harnessing the manufacturing processes of the elevator industry to make good use of its surplus-producing capacity.

Ningbo Xinda Group researches and develops products based on the changing demands of the market with noticeable achievements. Its continual innovation efforts have led to novel products such as steel-belt traction machines for home lifts and advanced door operators for passenger lifts. These enabled the company to produce its EMA-2 Series residential lifts, which entered the market via Hosting Elevators in 2014. (Ningbo Xinda is the brand for elevator and escalator components, while Hosting is the brand for installation, supply and contracting services.)

Ningbo Xinda, located in Dongwu Town east of downtown Ningbo, will soon have a new look. Ground was broken on the Hosting Industrial Park in 2014, and construction is well underway. The new facilities under construction cover an area of 8 ha. and will add 50,000 m2 of floor area, including a new 165.2-m-tall testing tower catering to high-speed lifts up to 10 mps, to its existing space of 300,000 m2. With estimated annual sales exceeding US$80 million, it is busy filling orders for government-financed, real-estate and hotel projects. More than 30% of its products are exported overseas, primarily to the Middle East and South America.

In addition to producing complete elevators, escalators, moving walks and parking systems, Ningbo Xinda manufactures geared traction machines, permanent-magnet synchronous gearless traction machines, elevator cars, elevator door, door operators, landing doors, door motors, overspeed governors, oil buffers, safety gears, rope gripping devices, car-operating panels, calling boards and push buttons. It sources products for a variety of applications and can provide up to 100 production lines for large orders.

In 2015, the company released more market-oriented components developed on its own. These included the WWTY8 gearless traction machine with front-mounted decoder; cost-effective WWTY5A gearless traction machine; and door drives with PMS motors, specialized for firefighting installations. Also that year, Hosting was awarded a contract to install 18 heavy-duty escalators in South Ningbo Station on the High-Speed Railway Line. The company developed public traffic escalators with an incline of 27.3° specifically for this project.

Founded in 1972, Ningbo Xinda has been playing an active role in the development of the Chinese elevator industry. In 1990, it patented the PB16A interlock, the first of its kind in China. Hosting Elevators was founded in 1993, and three years later, it had developed the first domestic escalator traction machine in China, ET160. In 2000, the first permanent-magnet synchronous gearless traction machine from a Chinese developer was created by the company. In 2012, Hosting was awarded jobs from Ningbo Subway Systems for the second phase of its Line 1, where 17 elevators and 160 escalators were delivered, and the Luoshiwan Central Business District in Kunming, which it provided with 306 elevators and escalators