KONE is a global leader in the elevator and escalator industry, offering innovative and durable new equipment solutions, ensuring the safety and availability of equipment in operation, and offering customized solutions for the modernization of existing equipment.
An article part of the cover story in TB 111 magazine – “Oradea: Business Next Level & LifeNouveau”, Expo Real Munich 2022 edition, available here.
KONE ASCENSORUL SA was established in Romania in 2008 but has been active on the market through distributors since before 1990. The elevator that serves the control tower of Henri Coandă Airport was manufactured by KONE more than 30 years ago. Currently KONE ASCENSORUL SA has 85 employees and operates on three main lines: sales, installation, and maintenance of equipment.
“We are part of the Balkans-Adriatic-Mediterranean (BAM) cluster, together with Croatia, Greece, Cyprus, Bulgaria, Serbia, Montenegro and Bosnia. KONE Romania is the only company in the region created on the greenfield model and is currently considered a driver of it due to the profitable economic context, the rapidly developing market behavior, and the ever-increasing interest of investors in innovative, reliable solutions and of high technological quality. Our portfolio includes projects from all sectors, throughout the country: residential, office, commercial, infrastructure (metro stations, railway stations, airports), as well as increasingly popular mixed-use projects. The city of Bucharest is the main center of our activity, half of the fleet under maintenance being deployed here, followed closely by the other points of interest such as Cluj-Napoca, Timișoara, Brașov, Constanța and Iași”, explains Cătălina Dragomir, Managing Director, KONE Romania .
In recent years, the company has given special importance to infrastructure projects, managing to convince the biggest players in the market to implement KONE solutions.
“One of the projects we are proud of is the Brașov Airport, where we produced, delivered and installed 10 vertical transport equipment, namely elevators and escalators. The “greenfield” project in which we delivered and installed 6 MonoSpace elevators, 2 EcoSpace elevators, 1 Transys elevator and 1 TravelMaster escalator proved KONE Romania’s ability to get involved in projects with a major impact on the community. The implemented solution was a customized one and complies with the standards applicable to infrastructure projects, namely anti-vandal solutions intended for heavy traffic”, Cătălina Dragomir added.
Another landmark project is the modernization of Terminal 1 of the Henri Coandă – Otopeni International Airport, a project won in 2021. Within this project, KONE will replace the vertical transport equipment that has reached the end of its life, offering a new experience to users. The project includes the replacement of 17 elevators and 2 escalators (Mono500, Mono700 and TM120).
The replaced equipment includes the KONE elevator serving the control tower, 7 elevators in the Arrivals terminal area, 4 elevators in the Departures terminal area, 5 elevators in the logistics and transit areas as well as 2 escalators in the Arrivals terminal area. State-of-the-art solutions are incorporated into the equipment to be delivered, including connectivity solutions and integration with existing equipment, so that there is real-time monitoring of their activity.
In addition, all equipment is part of the DX generation – Digital Experience that allows 24/7 monitoring, predictive maintenance, and pre-event intervention. Regular equipment maintenance—and smart, preventative maintenance—helps minimize and even eliminate equipment downtime. This revolutionary solution is based on the Cloud connection that uses data collection through dedicated sensors, a series of equipment performance parameters series of equipment performance parameters and real time analysis to identify possible deviations. The service can improve people’s safety, in most cases reducing the number of stops and other major incidents by up to 60%.
