The Otis Elevator Company is an American company that develops, manufactures and markets elevators, escalators, moving walkways and related equipment. A pioneer in its field, Otis is the world's largest manufacturer of vertical transportation systems, principally focusing on elevators, moving walkways and escalators. The company pioneered the development of the "safety elevator", invented by Otis in 1852, which used a special mechanism to lock the elevator car in place should the hoisting ropes fail.
Otis has installed elevators in some of the world's most famous structures, including the Eiffel Tower, Empire State Building, the original World Trade Center, The Twilight Zone Tower of Terror, Petronas Twin Towers, Burj Khalifa, CN Tower, the Winchester Mystery House, the Hotel del Coronado, the Demarest Building (first electric elevator), the Singing Tower at Bok Tower Gardens and the Skylon Tower.
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History
In 1852 Elisha Otis invented the safety elevator, which automatically comes to a halt if the hoisting rope breaks. After a demonstration at the 1854 New York World's Fair the elevator industry established credibility.
Otis was founded in Yonkers, New York in 1853 by Elisha Otis. It was acquired by United Technologies in 1976 and is a wholly owned subsidiary. Otis has more than 64,000 employees, with 2014 revenue of US$13.0 billion. The company headquarters are located in Farmington, Connecticut.
Otis has also dabbled in horizontal automated people-mover "shuttle" systems, such as the Otis Hovair. In 1996, Otis formed a joint venture called "Poma-Otis Transportation Systems" with the French company Pomagalski to promote these products. That partnership has since ended.
Otis Elevator Company purchased Evans Lifts in the UK when Evans Lifts Ltd went bankrupt in 1997 during its merge with Express Lift Company with the name ExpressEvans. It was the oldest and largest manufacturer of lift equipment in the UK, and was based in Leicester, England. Otis' Customer Care Centre is still based in the old Evans Lifts building in Leicester. The building has since been extended by Otis.
There are some installations of Evans Lifts in use today. Few lifts made by Otis are branded as Evans. Notably, an original Evans Lift is still in the Silver Arcade in Leicester. It formerly transported people to the upper floors. The upper floors are no longer occupied: the lift is no longer used.
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Models
Series 1
Series 1 is fairly common, and is normally seen in Otis Elevonic 401 and some hydraulic elevators in the early 1980s up to the mid-2000s. It has a very distinctive look. Older Series 1 buttons are flush with the panel. It has black plastic trim with either a silver or bronze face plate. The indicator is slanted down towards the floor. Some elevators may also have a slanted up panel with some or all of the floor buttons on it. There is also flat Series 1, with a flat panel, and no plastic around the edge of the panel. The indicator is green and is often a digital, but sometimes a segment indicator is used for buildings with four floor or less. Two vertical rows of floor buttons are used on hydraulic elevators, and three vertical rows of floor buttons, and the bottom part of the panel slanted forward are used on traction elevators, and also very rarely on hydraulic elevators. This information does not apply for flat Series 1. In the mid 1990s, Otis Series 1 fixtures were redesigned. The buttons now protrude from the panel, analog indicators were completely dropped, the door open/close buttons were made white from green, and the alarm button was made white from yellow. Otis also called these their "Advanced Fixtures".
Otis Series 1 fixtures were discontinued by the mid-2000s, but are still offered for custom installations.
Vanity
These are white round buttons that light up when pressed. These fixtures were made from the late 1980s-mid 1990s and are quite rare. These fixtures are part of the Series 1 line, and made out of Lexan.
Presidents
- Elisha Graves Otis and Susan A. Houghton, circa 1853
- William Delavan Baldwin, circa 1926
- Percy L. Douglas, ? to 1964
- Fayette S. Dunn, 1964 to ?
- Didier Michaud-Daniel, 2008 to 2012
- Pedro Sainz de Baranda, 2012 to 2014
- Philippe Delpech, 2015-2017
- Judy Marks, 2017 to present
Accidents
- On July 24, 2009, a group of 8 people were trapped for 8 hours in an Otis elevator in Toronto. A repair man who tried to fix the elevator fell 10 floors to his death.
- On December 14, 2010, an Otis escalator installed in the International Trade station of Shenzhen Metro Line 1 retrograded without notice, triggering a stampede that injured 25 passengers.
- On July 5, 2011, an Otis 513MPE escalator installed at port A of Beijing Subway Line 4 Zoo Station changed direction without notice, causing 30 people to fall. One boy was killed and 27 people injured, prompting China to halt the use of the escalator model. A Beijing official called the 513MPE escalator "defects in design, manufacturing and maintenance," and Otis had "unavoidable responsibility for the accident." Shenzhen Metro authorities confirmed that the cause of the accident was also similar to the Shenzhen accident on December 14.
- In March 2017 eighteen people suffered injuries at a Hong Kong's Langham Place shopping mall when an escalator maintained by Otis reversed direction from up to down.
Cartel
In February 2007, European Union regulators fined Otis Elevator EUR225 million for being part of a price-fixing cartel on the Belgian, Dutch, Luxembourg and German market. Competitors ThyssenKrupp, Schindler Group, Kone and Mitsubishi Elevator Europe were also fined similar amounts in the same cartel.
Biggest contracts
In October 2013, Otis won its biggest ever contract; it will supply 670 elevators and escalators to the Hyderabad Metro. Its second biggest contract was in 2012, to supply 349 elevators for the Hangzhou metro.
Locations
Otis opened a factory in Bloomington, Indiana in 1965. During the 1990s they moved some manufacturing operations from Bloomington to Nogales, Mexico. In 2012 and 2013, Bloomington and Nogales manufacturing operations were consolidated in Florence, SC. They still use some office space at the Bloomington site.
Otis had a factory in Yonkers, New York. It was closed in 1983 and is now a Kawasaki rail car assembly plant.
Otis had a large factory in Harrison, New Jersey.
In 1999, Otis acquired CemcoLift, Inc, located in Hatfield, PA. The operation was later closed in October 2012, with the remaining business being sold to Minnesota Elevator Inc.
Otis has a test tower facility in Bristol, CT and a Service Center in Bloomfield, CT that serve its businesses in North and South America. Other test towers and service centers are located throughout the world.
See also
- Otis Elevating Railway
- List of elevator manufacturers
References
External links
- Official website
Source of the article : Wikipedia
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