Hyundai Elevator cuts breakdowns with AI prediction technology

South Korea’s No. 1 elevator maker Hyundai Elevator Co. said on Monday it had reduced the number of stoppages and breakdowns of its elevators by 43% with a new technology developed under a national project.

The project, which ran from Apr. 2020 to Dec. last year, aimed to minimize passengers’ inconvenience by detecting failures in advance using big data and artificial intelligence (AI) prediction technology.

Hyundai Elevator led the project, which also involved Inha University, Chung-Ang University, the Korea Institute of Machinery and Materials, the Korea Elevator Safety Agency and ERC Co. Ltd.

The main technologies developed include a component life measurement model, a fault detection and classification service, a fault pre-detection alarm service and an elevator-specific Internet-of-Things (IoT) gateway.

These technologies enable customers to recognize the optimal component replacement cycle and prepare countermeasures for problems when abnormal signals were detected.

They also allowed service engineers to obtain information on what problems were at the site at the same time as receiving a breakdown report, shortening repair time.

A Hyundai Elevator official said the company applied the technology to 1,010 elevators in 47 sites nationwide and reduced the number of stoppages and breakdowns by 43% compared to a year ago. He also said the company plans to introduce a service that applied achievements made in the national project in June this year.

Write to Jang Seo-Woo at suwu@hankyung.com