Lifthub’s transformation into a Smart Vertical Transportation provider

Lifthub started in 1996 as a small company dealing in lift repair, maintenance and modification works. Believing that transformation and upgrading of capabilities is key to retaining the competitive edge, they expanded their service offerings to include lift installation, supply, design for lift and apparatus as well as other vertical transportation areas such as dumb waiters, travellators, escalators, chairlifts and platform lifts.

It is this belief in evolution and growth that spurred them to take the next step in service improvement, and that is to adopt Internet of Things (IoT) applications to provide better and more responsive services for their customers.

Challenges

With the shortage of skilled manpower in the industry and the high cost of maintaining large teams, Lifthub wanted to look at digitalisation and IoT adoption to enhance their activities and move up the value chain.

Traditionally they collect their maintenance data manually, as and when they are activated for data collection. This can result in longer lead times to prepare reports and human error which impacts their ability to provide timely and accurate recommendations to their customers. This mode of operations is also not scalable as it is manpower intensive.

Lifthub was driven to look at smarter ways of collecting data in a timely manner. This will enable them to provide predictive maintenance, scale their solution across multiple sites as well as reduce manpower costs by providing insights for the maintenance crew so that work can be completed faster.

However, they were faced with the challenge of creating a platform that can perform to their requirements. Besides having to invest in equipment and manpower, the time to market will be delayed due to research and development to create their own solution.

Solutions

SPTel was able to help Lifthub bridge the gap with our ready IoT as a Service (IoT-a-a-S) platform.

With SPTel, Lifthub was able to leverage an IoT platform to quickly connect up their wireless sensors and conduct a trial. Upon successfully onboarding an initial set of sensors, Lifthub was convinced that the solution could support their full requirements. This enabled faster go to market without Lifthub having to invest in building and maintaining their own solution.

The scalable nature of SPTel’s IoT platform also allowed Lifthub to turn on additional sensors and roll out across multi-site use cases as needed. This room for growth provides them with the ability to tender for larger projects while lowering their total cost of ownership through a subscription-based model.

Value Created

By choosing SPTel as their IoT enablement partner, Lifthub not only found the right technology for their needs, they also found a partner in their transformation journey. Mr. Peh Ah Kee, Founder of Lift Hub, shares more.

“SPTel is very cooperative in helping us to understand more about how technology can help enable us to deliver more services for our customers. We are lucky to have chosen SPTel because when we share our problems with them, they listen and work together with us to come up with a solution. I am happy to say that we have also been able to upskill ourselves in terms of understanding IoT technology, through our interactions with SPTel’s service delivery and engineering teams.

This upgrade in Lifthub’s service offerings have quickly borne fruit,

“Once we successfully onboarded our IoT sensors on SPTel’s platform, we were able to bid for larger tender exercises. We have seen increased interest from Government and larger enterprises who are keen on working with us because of our IoT capabilities. This is great for us as it means more business opportunities and greater value creation. It has definitely set us apart in the highly competitive vertical transportation market.”

Today, data collection and reporting can be carried out much faster and more easily by Lifthub. Their stakeholders can receive timely information to make decisions on predictive maintenance and troubleshooting resulting in improved safety and service assurance.

“With IoT we are more productive. We can move faster and minimise the incidents of breakdowns. It has helped to drive cost savings as our maintenance teams are more efficient and effective when supported by our new alert system helping them to monitoring thresholds. We are also better able to meet BCA’s stringent regulations in terms of identifying and rectifying defects fast. Ultimately, everything we do is for the safety of the passengers.”

Key takeaways

Challenges

• Hefty upfront investment to build and manage their own IoT platform
• Long lead time needed for R&D

Solutions

• SPTel’s multi-protocol IoT-a-a-S platform for users to easily manage and deploy sensors
• Subscription based model to lower hefty upfront investment
• Scalable solution to deploy across multiple sites

Value Created

• IoT Technology partner ecosystem that allows collaboration and co-innovation on a single platform
• IoT technology adoption increases Lifthub’s credentials in the industry and enables Lifthub to bid for larger tenders
• Improved reliability and productivity