When people scurry through New York's Penn Station during rush hour or marvel at the breathtaking sights at Paris' Eiffel Tower, they rarely notice what transports them up and down those buildings. Otis Elevator Co., of Farmington, Conn., installs elevators, escalators and other horizontal transport systems throughout the world so that people can experience the daily highs and lows in life. These small components display three lines of text along with the page, according to Zinn. Those paged can respond with short typed messages sent to an IBM Corp. 9021 mainframe. OtisLine software centrally tracks this information and logs it to the mainframe database.
Mechanics can access service histories on clients and report details of that day's visits.
XcelleNet RemoteWare Communication Management System and Application Management System provides t he access to files and applications, such as Microsoft Office. OMMS lets employees schedule elevator maintenance and develop manpower schedules. Folio Views houses all documents in an easily searchable document management system. Otis' Remote Elevator Monitoring lets modems placed in elevator machine rooms dial into OtisLine, according to Zinn. If there's a breakdown, an alert is immediately forwarded to the IP server.