On January 30, 2009, the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy transferred the elevator-related laws and regulations, which had been under the control of the Ministry of Technology and Standards, to the Ministry of Safety and Public Administration. This was because the Ministry of Safety and Public Administration, which is in charge of disaster and safety affairs, was deemed to be more efficient in ensuring the safety of elevator facilities and users. After the transfer, the Ministry of Safety and Public Administration amended the 'Elevator Manufacturing and Management Act' into the 'Elevator Facility Safety Management Act' and separated the manufacturing field from the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy.

In order to ensure safety at the manufacturing stage, the Technical Standards Institute of the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy conducts safety certification for some parts that require safety by applying the laws related to industrial and electrical goods.

As such, the government has been focusing on safety management policies for elevator users, but in terms of fostering the elevator industry, the market has been restructured after the IMF, centering on the four major multinational companies and Hyundai Elevator, and small and medium-sized enterprises, which are the main beneficiaries of the government's policies, have made relatively few requests for industrial policy support, such as developing new technologies through advanced R&D, developing technologies to improve safety, and supporting market development and exports.

 

Elevators are public facilities used by an unspecified number of people. As it is an amenity that people ride, it must be safe and convenient like airplanes and automobiles. Therefore, the steps such as design, manufacturing, process control, inspection, installation, and maintenance must be established reliably before it is installed in a building.

As mentioned earlier, the domestic elevator market has been dominated by multinational companies, which have moved their production lines to China and other countries. Domestic SMEs are doing their best under difficult conditions, including technology, price, market development, and maintenance issues, to survive the market competition.

The government has established an elevator center in Geochang, Gyeongnam, to help ease the difficulties of elevator-related SMEs and startups and support them in securing competitiveness. The center will continue to provide infrastructure for SMEs to conduct corporate activities such as new product development research, test and evaluation, marketing, and standard model development, and is expected to provide some support from next year.

In the future, if the elevator industry development policy of the Geochang region is linked to the safety management system improvement of the safety administration and the elevator industry development policy of the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy, the elevator industry, which has been somewhat hesitant, is expected to be revitalized and become a benefactor industry of the national economy.

 

It is difficult to single out the biggest problem in the elevator market because the nature of the business is diverse, including manufacturing, installation, and maintenance, and the interests of multinational companies and domestic large and small companies are different.

If the market is created where there is profit, and it is the government's job to maintain a healthy market order, I believe that for the safety of elevator users, stakeholders in the elevator industry should have a minimum level of operational competence in the eyes of the public. Of course, the ministry in charge of the elevator industry will also enact and support policies to foster the elevator industry.

Currently, the development of the elevator industry is hindered by the dualization of the ministries in charge of elevators. What policy measures can be taken to unify them?

The elevator industry can be broadly categorized into manufacturing and installation and maintenance, with the former being closer to the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy and the latter being closer to the Ministry of Safety and Administration.

In the past, the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy integrated manufacturing and facility management, but since 2009, it has been separated from the Ministry of Safety and Security Administration to minimize unnecessary regulations and manage public safety management more efficiently.

In close consultation with the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy, MOTIE will review the system to ensure quality safety from the design and manufacturing stages of elevator parts and to ensure that the safety standards for elevator parts are compatible with the inspection standards for finished elevators and that duplicate inspections are excluded, while providing policy support to ensure that products that are basically equivalent to the safety standards for elevators are developed, produced, and sold.

 

This was a service project to identify the actual situation of the elevator industry and to refer to policy formulation, and we are currently considering measures to address the problems. In the future, we plan to finalize the policy in consultation with the industry and related organizations.

In addition, the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy is working on a roadmap for industrial technology R&D strategy through the Industrial Technology Evaluation Management Institute and the Strategic Planning Group, and the elevator sector is included as one of the industries. The Industrial Technology R&D Strategy is an annual implementation plan of the Industrial Technology Innovation Plan, and is a strategy to identify industry-specific and cross-industry convergence themes in order to set the direction of R&D investment and plan mid- to long-term tasks.

The first phase of this work will be completed by the end of this month, followed by detailed planning work from September, and then the business plan will be announced for projects planned since 2014, and the selection and development of host organizations will begin.

 

In a system industry such as elevators, collaboration between customer and supplier companies is important, and they must understand and respect each other's needs. If any one part fails, the entire finished product becomes a problem, so I think it is also important to have a sense of community between the system company that synthesizes the whole and the partner companies for each part.

The government is promoting policy directions for such a collaborative system to be established, and is setting and promoting policy directions for SMEs manufacturing elevator parts to strengthen their R&D capabilities and market development capabilities.