🔒In CT, engineers shape key part of Otis’ future business — modernizing the world’s aging elevators, escalators

In the lobby of Otis Worldwide’s elevator test tower in Bristol sits a vintage machine, in front of a huge aerial photo of the Empire State Building.

This hulking green piece of metal is the drive for the original elevator inside the iconic building’s mast — installed by Otis in 1931.

It was removed in a renovation project finished in 2021.

Now it’s on display not just as a reminder of the company’s storied past, but as a clue to its future. Just like the Empire State Building, much of the world’s built infrastructure is aging — including a lot of elevators.

“Everywhere around the world there’s a big need for modernization now,” says Otis spokesperson Katy Padgett. “You’ll see that in our earnings reports. We’ll report on service, but also modernization. That’s an important and growing part of our business.”

By the company’s estimates, around 8 million of the world’s 22 million elevators are more than 20 years old — the age at which building managers might consider investing in modernization. That number is expected to rise to 15 million elevators in the next decade.

Otis currently maintains and services some 2.4 million units.

It’s what the company’s CEO Judy Marks has spoken of as a “flywheel” business model. Every elevator the company installs can yield years of revenue from servicing and eventually, modernization.

And that’s evident in Otis’ income statement: the company makes more than 60% of its revenues and 90% of its profits from servicing elevators. Modernization is currently growing even faster than service — orders were up 18% in 2024.

The aftermarket business is increasingly profitable. The company’s operating margins are around 6% on new installations, compared to close to 25% in its service business.

The emphasis on aftermarket also insulates Otis from fluctuations in new construction, which it has seen most notably in a years-long slowdown in the hugely important Chinese market.

The publicly traded company — which employs 72,000 people worldwide, including almost half in Asia and 21% in the Americas — reported $14.3 billion in revenue and a $1.7 billion profit in 2024.

New technologies

Modernization of an aging elevator can be addressed in a number of different ways, depending on a client’s needs.

“The minimum is replacing the computer, the controller. That’s the way it starts,” Otis spokesperson Ed Jacovino said. “You can add into that the aesthetic pieces, the buttons, the rope or the belts, and even the full motor. And even at that point, you’re coming short of a full replacement.”

Elevator technology is always changing, too. The vintage elevator in the Empire State Building was replaced by Otis’ latest Gen2 model.

“We’ve come a long way with motion control, smoothness, safety, serviceability, predictability, life — all those things,” said Otis engineer Russell Gottlieb. “Just like in the car industry.”

The pandemic sped up adoption of some of the other new technologies that Otis had in development, like integration with a phone app that will hail an elevator and direct it to the correct floor, making the experience touchless.

Elevators are also now part of the internet of things, connected devices that are continually feeding back data about their operation to service technicians — who often can be informed about faults before a building manager is aware of them.

“There’s been situations where the mechanic has woken up, checked their phone, called the customer and said, ‘hey, looks like elevator number four isn’t working. You mind if I come by at 7:30?’” said Jacovino.

Also on the innovation front, Otis recently debuted a new, floor-to-ceiling glass, double-decker elevator for Seattle’s iconic Space Needle.

The first of three custom Otis SkyRise sightseeing elevators debuted in May at the 605-foot tall high-rise structure.

The elevators — which provide stunning views of Seattle, the Puget Sound and nearby Mount Rainier — are the first in North America, and only the second in the world, to use Otis’ most powerful SkyMotion 800 machines.

Quality assurance

Otis’ modern history as a standalone company is very recent. It was spun out of its parent company United Technologies in 2020. Marks had been CEO for only a year at the time.

“There’s growing pains involved in that and a lot of benefits, a lot of making things more efficient,” Gottlieb said. “There’s a lot of opportunity to really do new things and try new things.”

At the Bristol test tower, located at 99 Century Drive, Gottlieb is in charge of 13 engineers. The facility is divided into two sections.

On one side, the quality assurance center houses an enormous variety of machines testing elevator components. Those tests take place in a number of temperatures, humidities, vibrations and even in dust chambers, to mimic real-world conditions.

In the actual 28-story, 383-foot tall tower, entire elevator systems are tested in one of 14 different hoistways. Here, the team might take a system through half-a-million test cycles to see how it performs.

Otis’ global engineering team is based in the nearby Farmington headquarters, at 1 Carrier Place, where they develop products for any one of 200 countries where the company’s elevators are installed.

“We could be developing something for China, or for Japan, or for Europe out of Farmington where the product is going to land, to meet their code, their needs and so on,” Gottlieb said.

Those products then go to the Bristol tower for testing, and it’s Gottlieb’s job to make sure the facility has the capacity on hand to quickly turn around testing jobs.

Another big need that the Bristol facility fulfils is testing and verifying parts and materials made by Otis’ supply chain companies.

“With COVID and drying up supply chains — small mom-and-pop shops going out of business — we were having a hard time getting a hold of parts and keeping production running. So, we do a lot of supply chain verification,” Gottlieb said.

That turnover in the supply chain may also be intensified by the recent imposition of tariffs. All of that poses some interesting challenges for the engineering team.

“The components being tested have to last 20 years. And we don’t have 20 years to test the product,” Gottlieb said. “We take the component out of the system and we design high stress tests so we can get to answers quicker.”

But it’s a challenge he enjoys.

“It’s a fun place to work,” he said. “You get to break stuff and get paid for it.”