Schindler has just teamed up with GE Digital to connect some one million elevators, escalators and moving walkways to the Industrial Internet and use Predix, GE's cloud-based software and analytics platform, to securely connect and analyze the data. "Schindler’s partnership with GE is a game changer," says Schindler Group Chairman Alfred N. Schindler. "It will boost Schindler’s digitization strategy and reaffirm our innovation leadership.”
Schindler is already gathering data from service calls and from sensors that keep track of how well its products are moving. The partnership with GE will help the company take digital monitoring to a higher level.
The data flowing from Schindler’s connected elevators and escalators will help the company identify, analyze and resolve possible service issues before they happen. That kind of predictive analysis helps reduce downtime, lower the chance you have to walk up a flight of stairs because an escalator or elevator is out of service, and even improve design.
GE has spent over $1 billion to develop Predix, the backbone for the Industrial Internet. GE estimates that the convergence of machines, data and analytics could contribute $10 to $15 trillion to the global GDP in efficiency gains over the next two decades. That’s about the current size of the U.S. economy.