Niching Down

This Company Spotlight looks at Fujitec’s largest U.S. office in NY/NJ and how the company’s high-rise/high-speed customizable products set it apart. 

While planning to attend the Elevator Conference of New York Supplier Showcase in April, your author (LF) was looking for other projects, companies or events to cover while staying in the Big Apple for a few days. A connection was made with Fujitec Regional Construction Manager Peter Jodko (PJ) thanks to an email sent by ELEVATOR WORLD Correspondent Matt Jackson. 

Your author had the chance to ask Jodko, who has been with the company for 10 years, some questions by email before arriving in NYC and was then warmly welcomed by the team at the Fujitec office in its brand-new location in New Jersey during the trip. 

The interview below sets the tone as a great introduction to the company and their specialties. Information will follow from the tour and other interviews with the various team members that so graciously gave me their time during my visit. 

LF: What is Fujitec best known for? What is your specialty? 

PJ: Fujitec provides a high-quality, high-rise/high-speed elevator product. Fujitec also has a very advanced wind/storm detection system for building sway. In addition to that, Fujitec has an active measuring system for elevator components inside the hoistway with software and mechanical countermeasures. Fujitec machines and controllers are super robust and fully customizable to suit any developer’s design intent for moving residents or commercial building employees. This is all centered around achieving the utmost customer satisfaction.

LF: What is your top-selling product(s) or service(s)? 

PJ: Fujitec’s destination-based dispatching system, EZ Shuttle, comprises almost 40% of the new installations on Class A residential or commercial buildings. The system integrates with most, if not all, security systems via software and has touchless to VIP features that are fully customizable as the building evolves. 

LF: Which geographical areas does Fujitec serve? 

PJ: In the U.S. and Canada, we have offices in Atlanta, Boston, Calgary, Chicago, Cincinnati, Columbus, Dallas, Washington D.C./Maryland/Virginia, Fort Worth, Houston, Los Angeles, New York, Orlando, Philadelphia, Seattle, Tampa, Toronto and Vancouver. Locally, we service the entire Local 1 territory, which essentially extends from Westchester, NY, down to Raritan, New Jersey. Our New York office, located in New Jersey, is the largest in the U.S. with approximately 35 employees.

LF: Any big projects or products on the horizon we can talk about?  

PJ: We currently have about 12 projects in different stages with more set to start this year and next and are starting to look to the second and third quarters of 2024. 

Fujitec was just awarded the 25 Water Street project in NYC, which is one of the first of a growing real estate trend to convert vacant commercial office space to residential space. The project is a combination of elevator modernization and new installation with 13 elevators with our destination dispatch. This interesting project is with Pavarini McGovern. 

Additionally, we will be a part of the Northwell Health medical office building at 1345 Third Avenue in NYC with seven traction elevators with destination dispatch. This is with Lendlease Construction. Northwell plans to open a new building every two years or so, and we hope to get a look at all future projects. 

Another big one is at 23-15 44th Road in Queens, NY. This is next door to another project we finished, and we will supply a 68-story residential building with 10 traction cars, two auto lifts and a hydro shuttle car. This is a pretty robust job that will take at least 18 to 24 months.

High-rise, high-speed, multiple-car projects are our bread and butter. Our equipment fits in great and is fully customizable, as hoistway sizes can change. 

I like to tell people that we are a big company with big backing, but we operate like an independent or a smaller company. We have the flexibility to maneuver and make decisions on the front lines with not as much red tape, if you will.

— Adam Buchanan, district manager, New York Region

LF: How would you say the company has fared over the last few years with the pandemic and other issues the industry has faced?   

PJ: Fujitec was fortunate enough not to experience any office staff or field staff layoffs during the past three years in the New York/New Jersey area. The area’s backlog was robust enough to get through the pandemic, and then the New York/New Jersey regional office began booking new installation and modernization projects starting in 2023-2024. 

LF: What is the biggest challenge facing the company?  

PJ: Maintaining our competitive pricing against non-union companies and navigating inflationary material markets.

LF: What is the biggest challenge you see facing the elevator industry?  

PJ: Company retention of talented and skillfully trained office employees. The elevator industry tends to recruit from other companies, creating a revolving door analogy. 

LF: Which trade shows or events does Fujitec attend? Why do you think this is important?  

PJ: In the past, we’ve been involved with many local and national trade shows, mainly those of BOMA (Building Owners and Managers Association). We also like to attend events held by industry-specific organizations. Some examples are NEII (National Elevator Industry Inc.), property management groups and other charitable organizations like Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia. These are important for networking, supporting our partners in the industry and supporting the community in their endeavors to improve the world around us.

LF: What does the future look like for Fujitec? 

PJ: We’re going to stay at the customizable, luxury, class-A buildings as far as new installs and modernizations go, so our growth is going to be steady. We know the construction market goes up and down, so we want to be sizeable where we can weather a storm and weather the nice days. Our next two-to-three-year forecast is just steady. 

LF: What do you think sets Fujitec apart from other companies in the space? 

PJ: It’s the small nuances that set us apart. We can store our customer’s material in this large New York/New Jersey warehouse for up to 60 days, so we can weather the supply chain issues. Our project managers watch the construction and modernization schedules very closely so they can move material and it doesn’t sit in the back and collect dust for six to nine months. Our communication with our customers is good. We know how to change material dates and what to ask for based on what they give us. We’re intuitive, and we can feel where the building is going based on that. 

Office Space and Warehouse

The New York/New Jersey employees moved into a smaller facility in December 2022 and are waiting on the full buildout of the office space, which is expected to begin and be completed this year. 

The warehouse provides storage for the inventory of all the company’s rails and cabs. The lead time to get them to the U.S. from China can be anywhere from 16 to 26 weeks, so they like to keep a solid supply on hand in the U.S. 

This is especially helpful for larger jobs that might need, say, 16 cabs. This way, they don’t get behind. The warehouse uses a typical warehouse wrapping and labeling system to stay organized as items go in and out frequently. 

The Imperial machines come from Fujitec’s North American headquarters in Ohio and are piecemeal but built up in the warehouse as well. “We have weekly meetings with our vendors to get a feel for the backlog and plug holes as needed,” Jodko said. For the machines, he added: 

“We build them up and get them ready for the project. They can sit for up to 60 days. If we have another Suez Canal issue, I don’t have to worry about that. General contractors always ask about lead times and supply chain. This is how we bridge that gap. We have the storage space, and we don’t charge them for it.” 

The warehouse also houses the group’s fabrication shop with two employees who can help fix quality issues with miscellaneous steel, ladders, pit ladders and special platforms so they don’t have to wait on outside shops. “A lot of what we see in my contracts, we can do here,” Jodko said. 

In moving to the new warehouse, Fujitec lost about 40,000 ft² that included some overhead rigging and a few cranes, but the smaller space has helped them be more organized. “Things are where they should be,” Jodko said. “The system is better, and now, we’re more disciplined.” 

Additionally, the Fujitec fleet in New Jersey consists of two open body trucks and a box truck. 

Service

The service department handles all the service operations for New York and New Jersey, providing maintenance and repair. The field technicians perform monthly preventive maintenance (PM) on Fujitec’s approximately 1,350 units. The team is made up of two superintendents, three sales representatives, two people in testing, a dispatcher and 58 technicians between service and repair. 

Service Manager Anthony Sabanos said the size of the team has grown organically through jobs, and the plan is to continue to grow as needed, with a goal of 4-5% every year through its own construction teams turning over units, recoveries, as well as knocking on doors and generating business that way. 

Sabanos joined Fujitec in late 2022 and said he spent many years at a competing company that would work on other manufacturer’s products but typically stayed away from Fujitec products. He said: 

“We have a niche here with the Fujitec equipment. Where I came from, we respected Fujitec because it’s specialized. I see it now. It’s what Fujitec does.”

Big Picture and Growth

Adam Buchanan, district manager for the New York Region, said the new space in New Jersey, though quite a bit smaller than the old space, is “very sufficient for what we do.” The New Jersey office does quite a bit of construction — “more than any other office in the country.” 

Fujitec has been in the U.S. since 1997 and in New York since around 1981 or 1982 building the financial towers downtown with 18 total offices in North America. About the company, Buchanan said: 

“Fujitec is more of a niche elevator company in that we don’t do the pre-engineered thing; we engineer every single job. We specialize in high-rise, high-speed, special-application type of units. I think that’s one thing we do differently on the construction side of things. I like to tell people that we are a big company with big backing, but we operate like an independent or a smaller company. We have the flexibility to maneuver and make decisions on the front lines with not as much red tape, if you will.” 

In looking at growth, Buchanan said the focus is on service. “We have lots of room to do it; we have one of the lowest unit counts per mechanic at about 60 units per guy,” he said. He knows that some of their competitors are doing super routes, but Buchanan wants to leverage Fujitec’s position to “show that if you actually do maintenance, they [the units] will stop breaking down as much.” 

We know the construction market goes up and down, so we want to be sizeable where we can weather a storm and weather the nice days.

 — Peter Jodko, regional construction manager

He continued: 

“We are at a good place in our construction business. There is opportunity in modernization: We’re going to use that as one of the avenues to grow our service base. We’ve done a lot of hiring in the office in the last two years, and we now have some pillars in leadership positions in repair/service and construction that will hopefully really drive this.”