Mirror, Mirror

This month, we feature the results of an industry survey in A Mirror to the Industry, a follow-up to many surveys done in the past two years to assess the effect of COVID-19 on the vertical transportation (VT) industry. Most agreed that, while the pandemic was no longer hurting business, finding trained personnel was the number one issue facing most companies. Other issues were material costs, fuel costs and rising wages. The good news is 42% expect their profits to increase this year.

Another article this month speaks directly to the issue of well-trained, productive staff, Elevator Industry Safety Net by Lisa M. Casler. The author follows the development of the Elevator Learning Center (ELC) in Long Island City. Here, seasoned technicians teach, and the ELC offers quality training programs for any in the VT trade. The ELC uses the Certified Elevator Technician® curriculum and is training 198 students this fall. The Center also has a mobile safety unit that can bring safety Personal Protective Equipment and programs directly to companies or job sites.

I read recently that job openings in construction hit 440,000 this year, the most since 2001. According to The Week, that has opened a door for women. This summer, there were one million female construction workers, the most since the Bureau of Labor Statistics began in 1964. That gives us a perfect opening to mention a series of articles we are running on women in the industry: RISE: The Untapped Potential of Women in the Elevator Industry by Åsa Christina Magnusson. Part two of this four-part series focuses on women as elevator mechanics, how they are trained and how they are accepted by the trade.

Our focus this month is on Safety. About 20% of worker fatalities per year in private industry were in construction. More than half of the fatalities resulted from what OSHA calls the “Fatal Four” (falls, being struck by an object, electrocutions and getting caught in or between equipment or objects). Eliminating construction industry deaths from the “Fatal Four” could save more than 582 U.S. workers’ lives every year. We have five contributions this month to the Safety focus:

• Increasing Pit Safety is a product spotlight that explains the working of Pitsafe, a device that solves many of the issues involved when entering or exiting an elevator pit.

• Closing the Gap. Our Kaija Wilkinson interviews Adam Braman whose software, Helios, aids companies in online safety meetings, equipment checks and many other aspects of safety communications. 

• The Value of Industry Licensing by Amy Blankenbiller. The executive director of NEII promotes the growing trend of licensing all aspects of the VT industry in order to create a safer environment for both the technicians who work on our equipment and the riding public.

• People Selling to People by Kaija Wilkinson. This article is about the history of Quad City Safety and their unique knowledge of the VT industry and the safety equipment it needs and uses.

• A Safety Handbook for Canada by your author. ELEVATOR WORLD worked with Canadian Association of Elevator Contractors (CECA) Executive Director Catharine Bothwell and CECA board member Don Sanchez to revise the handbook with references useful for technicians working in Canada.

We have several features this month: Opening New Vistas by Jiang Liming captures the soaring scenic elevators by Suzhou Rhine Lift overlooking Wuhan Gorge in China, while Destination Doha by Wilkinson charts the growth of Qatar’s capital and the iconic Doha Oasis project, containing many different types of TKE VT equipment.

Finally, we offer a Continuing Education article, Digital Signals in Elevator Circuits, which provides 1 h of training on the ins and outs of mixed-signal equipment.

Please read, learn and enjoy!