Following the opening of its first and second technical training centers in Xiangtan, Hunan province and Zhengzhou, Henan province this year, Otis will build another three in Hangzhou, Zhejiang province, Huaian of Jiangsu province and Tianjin by the end of 2017.

These institutes aim to develop professional service mechanics to meet growing demands in the Chinese elevator market. In the long term, Otis will be able to train more than 4,000 new engineers and current mechanics each year by working with more than 20 institutions and academies across the country.

Otis currently has more than 1,500 service mechanics and more than 400 service depots in China. It also operates spare parts centers, which can ship parts within 24 hours anywhere in the country.

The US company announced earlier this year that it has built a strategic technology partnership with AT T and Microsoft to better connect its products and customers to one another - in an increasingly urban world.

Under the plan, AT T will be the primary mobility provider for Otis field operations and will provide technology to aggregate data from multiple cell networks creating a "conduit" to an Otis data cloud. Microsoft will provide its cloud technology, data analytics and a CRM system. Philippe Delpech said the new technologies derived from this partnership will be deployed in the Chinese market.

The US company will also invest in an engineering center in Shanghai to further deepen its localization strategies and improve research and development in China - its largest market by sales. The construction work will start in 2017.

China Daily

(China Daily 10/25/2016 page14)