Who is allowed to maintain elevator?

Would you be comfortable when you go to the hospital for appendicectomy but the person performing the surgery is a dentist or a nurse? It is a matter of personnel who need expertise and qualifications appropriate to the nature of the job. A doctor of traditional Vietnamese medicine is prescribed under Decision 3159/QD-BYT on basic competency standards, clearly stating the basic competency framework structure including 5 areas, 27 standards and 106 criteria. Most industries with specific technical and technological characteristics or directly related to occupational safety have clearly defined human capacity frameworks. Refer to a number of fields with factors equivalent to the elevator industry Elevator Magazine mentioned (here) also shows clear regulations on the human capacity framework such as the aviation industry, the construction industry, etc.  However, the elevator industry has not.

According to a survey by Vietnam Institute of Lift Engineering Application – Vietnam Elevator Association, more than 60% of technicians operating in the elevator industry are not properly trained and tested.

This problem stems from three reasons:

Firstly, government has no clear regulations on the capacity of elevator industry personnel.

Secondly, the majority of enterprises operating in the elevator industry are fragmented, small, and spontaneously formed. There are many cases of an employee who has worked in the industry, setting up a business with friends and relatives, partly in terms of long-term thinking, management capacity and financial capacity. These businesses operate in a short-term snatch, cannot recruit qualified personnel, do not have the knowledge, sometimes the recruitment criteria is… the lower the salary the better.

Thirdly, consumers and the common sense of an easy-going society have created opportunities for the above group of businesses to have the opportunity to develop. Consumers also follow the psychology of cheapness and unwittingly entrust this demanding job to people who they don’t know are qualified to perform elevator maintenance and repair techniques for them or not. Assuming there are negligence and incidents, who will be responsible?

Therefore, the question “Who is allowed to maintain elevator?” This is an urgent problem that needs a solution.

How much does maintenance and installation cost?

In addition to the related reasons mentioned above, we have another painful cause that is the norm on the price of elevator repair and installation services. Not only individual consumers but even government agencies are very confused when the price of elevator maintenance can range from 600,000 VND to more than 8,000,000 VND each time.

Is low price cheap and high price expensive? When we buy fruit, a fruit with a lot of chemicals for only 20,000 VND / kg, eat a lot of chemicals and then develop cancer, the price of 20,000 VND / kg is too expensive, but if we buy a car costs 5 billion, if accident happens, car with advanced technology to protect us then 5 billion is still too cheap.

People tend to be willing to pay the price for safety benefits, comfort, etc. that they feel are appropriate, considered worthwhile. There are consumer-appreciated items, but some complex items like elevators are not easy. This difficulty lies in the fact that we lack a standard, a norm for consumers to understand: How many people are needed? How much time? To maintain one of their elevators and these jobs, what technicians are needed (unskilled or high-class workers…)?

Due to the lack of such knowledge, consumers are confused and entrust themselves to luck and emotion when choosing maintenance and repair services.

For government agencies, the problem is even more difficult. In process of bidding, product selection, maintenance, and replacement of components do not have a specific basis for evaluation. That is also the reason leading to the situation that many apartment buildings using government budget when the elevator fails, they all “down”. The process from surveying to planning approval to procurement does not have a norm or standard as a basis, making the appraisal agencies confused. If only the criterion of using low-cost services is selected, there is a risk that the elevator will continue to fail continuously. If you choose a service with more money, you will have to face audits and inspections without any justification.

Understanding that the authorities do not have to “turn a blind eye” to the suffering of the people, but indeed “the die is cast”, no one dares to approve and disburse funds for such groundless plans. Even with apartment buildings, the management board do not have grounds to evaluate and monitor the quality of elevator maintenance. That is also the cause of resettlement areas, public works suffering because of elevators.

People in Den Lu resettlement area (Hoang Mai, Hanoi) daily have to get under the water tank to use elevator from the neighboring building when the elevator breaks down, the repair plan is there, but the whole year has not been disbursed due to lack of evidence (Read more)

Need a solution!

It’s time to come up with answers to these questions:

– Who is allowed to do? Which level?

Elevator technicians are divided into 3 groups: installation – operation, maintenance and upgrade – repair, in addition to management – supervision. Each of these groups has its own unique requirements. Of course, in reality, there are also personnel who have the ability to learn and improve themselves and have experience working through all these groups of jobs. However, this number is certainly not much and there is no evidence to prove it is enough.

Therefore, there is an urgent need to have a clear competency framework for both workers and businesses, government, and consumers to refer to.

– How long does it take?

Periodic maintenance has been specified at least once every 1-3 months, but currently there is not a division scale on the norm of hours to perform a specific job, the number of people needed to perform it, etc. For example, how long does it take to inspect an elevator, how long does it take to replace the cabin lights, how long does it take to change the oil of the hydraulic elevator? When there are specific norms for all items of elevator maintenance and repair, then there is a basis to calculate the labor cost for the basis of setting technical norms as well as for supervision.

For example, the construction industry has a scale of measurement for human capacity, from which it is possible to estimate how long a project will be built, how long it will take to repair, etc. to serve as a basis for each actual case. As for the elevator industry, there has not been any measurement system for reference and budgeting purposes, these data are still open.

– Who manages and supervises?

Not only technicians who directly work on Site need to be trained and tested, the US elevator industry has established comprehensive elevator industry management for personnel groups: licensing, inspection, management. That means managers, supervisors have also been appointed and follow a clear competency framework. In Vietnam, the units performing the functions of management, licensing and inspection are lacking in many aspects: human resource framework, human quality standards, service quality standards, monitoring bases….

It’s time for Vietnam to consult and build those standards.