On January 25, the Korea Elevator Safety and Technology Institute held an inauguration ceremony for its 12th chairman, marking the beginning of a new three-year period. Mr. Kim Yoon-bae, the new chairman, has accumulated professional knowledge and experience in the field of occupational safety and health policy over the past 30 years, having served as an officer in the Occupational Health Division of the Ministry of Labor, head of the Occupational Safety and Health Policy Division, and director of the Occupational Safety and Health Agency.

His mindset as the new chairman of the KITA is one of humility, aiming to improve the technical skills related to elevators that only KITA has, and to establish itself as an organization that serves customers.

Rather than being an organization that manages and supervises elevators, he will provide a 'smile service' that can casually scratch uncomfortable places and feel good when undergoing legal inspections. Rather than discussing the elevator industry in a grandiose way, he said he would prioritize the safety of elevator users and build the best and most professional technology in terms of safety technology.

However, when a reporter asked him what he felt during his first month in office, he showed insight into the current reality of the elevator industry, including the disappearance of indigenous companies, labor shortages, declining quality growth due to price competition, and lack of industry promotion and development measures. 

We interviewed the new chairman, Mr. Kim Yoon-bae, who is open-minded, determined, and passionate, about his ambitions and determination to lead the institute for the next three years, as well as the institute's long-term plans.  The following is a one-on-one interview with our reporter.

Based on my work experience and knowledge from the past 30 years of public service, I will do my best to establish the KIT as the best comprehensive safety service organization that is trusted by the public and consumers.

To achieve this goal, I have selected four major tasks that I will pursue together with the KIT family. The first is to strengthen institutional capabilities. We will strive to strengthen our capabilities through development-oriented innovation, motivational performance management, and customer-centered operations. Second, we will cultivate business capabilities by expanding and efficiently performing safety certification and safety inspection services, improving the reliability of statutory inspections, and spreading safety culture.

The third is to expand business areas. We will expand our business scope by expanding the scale of existing businesses, pioneering new business areas, and operating efficient organizations. Lastly, we will create an atmosphere where all employees work in unison by providing fair personnel, evaluating and rewarding contributions, and creating an atmosphere where employees feel proud to be a place where they can work hard and fulfill their dreams.

In these days when the desire to improve the quality of life is getting higher and higher, I believe that the primary duty of care of individuals and social awareness of safety issues are important. While the government does its best to prevent disasters, it is essential that people have the right awareness of safety and a strong will to prevent disasters voluntarily. However, it is even more problematic when people are not aware of safety issues and do not take action.

Safety is directly related to people's lives, and I believe that if everyone in Korea develops the right safety awareness and understands and follows basic safety rules, it will be a shortcut to becoming a safe and livable country.

Although the domestic elevator industry has achieved external growth, ranking fifth in the world in terms of new installations and eighth in terms of number of units, accidents due to user carelessness and poor management due to lack of safety awareness continue to occur. In response, the government is revising the Elevator Facility Safety Management Act and elevator inspection standards, which will drastically change the market environment. In 2012, the domestic elevator industry will have to prepare for a new transition period.

In response, KITI will analyze the elevator industry through an accurate survey and share the problems that may arise in applying advanced inspection standards with manufacturers through various networks and provide maximum support to help domestic companies become more competitive and gain a foothold in overseas markets.

Sustainable management has been in the spotlight recently. Do you have any sustainable management strategies other than the mid- to long-term strategy 'New ASBS 2015' that the institute is currently promoting?

'New ASBS 2015' contains the goals, vision, and future blueprint of Woori Institute. Therefore, as the chairman of the board, I would like to enhance the execution of 'New ASBS 2015', the mid- to long-term strategy for sustainable management, with systematic performance management.

To this end, we will establish specific business goals by understanding and grasping the government's policy direction, including the direction of the safety certification and inspection system and the trend of business accidents, and broaden the communication system within the organization to form a consensus on business goals and mid- to long-term vision. In addition, through field-oriented management, such as regular and continuous visits to business sites and active opinions on the government's safety and health policy formulation and enforcement, we will stand out as the No. 1 customer-satisfaction organization responsible for preventing industrial accidents and securing the safety of elevator users.

Established in July 2009, the labor union went through a period of conflict with the management in the early days, but in January 2010, the union signed the first collective bargaining agreement in the institute, as both sides realized that a crisis must be averted for the sustainable development of the institute.

As a result, in 2010, the labor and management worked closely together to improve the working conditions of employees, but unfortunately, in 2011, an unsavory incident occurred, which proves that labor-management relations have not yet been established in accordance with the law and common sense.

We will now move away from the past paradigm of cordiality and human relations to a labor-management relationship of responsibility and cooperation based on common sense.

In order to achieve our goal of becoming a comprehensive safety organization that specializes in 'securing the safety of elevator users' and 'preventing occupational accidents for workers', Wooriwon is striving to strengthen the capabilities of its employees by graduating a large number of PhDs, Masters, and technicians based on the achievements of acquiring the first and second qualifications that we have been promoting for many years.  In addition, we have acquired patents and utility models for elevator safety, including 'Apparatus and Method for Verifying Braking Force of Elevator Brake' and 'Jig for Tensile Measurement of Escalator Movable Handrail', and are accelerating R&D to develop vibration measurement equipment and provide differentiated technical services using advanced equipment such as thermal imaging cameras.

As if in response to this, Wooriwon was recently awarded a contract for technical supervision of ultra-high and ultra-high speed elevators for Lotte Super Tower in Jamsil, and has been recognized for its technical capabilities by performing overseas precision safety diagnosis for Samsung Electro-Mechanics in China and Southeast Asia.

In order to improve elevator safety and failure reliability, Wooriwon will take overall responsibility for new and replacement elevators from the product design stage to the completion of installation, and will continue to provide the best technical services to ensure that users can install the elevators they want. In addition, we will become a nationally accredited organization responsible for 'safety' in all aspects of people's lives, such as being responsible for the safety of dangerous machines and devices in workplaces.

It is encouraging to see that the institute is performing better than before in the Public Integrity Survey and Customer Satisfaction Survey, but we should not be satisfied with this. When everyone is applauding, we will take a step forward and prepare for another tomorrow.

To do so, we will first strive to create a clean and transparent institution by providing in-depth integrity education through specialized educational institutions and securing various channels for public reporting.

This year's plan to improve customer satisfaction is to expand the Happy Call customer satisfaction survey, which has been applied only to the elevator sector, to dangerous machinery. In addition, we will conduct customer satisfaction integration workshops for receptionists, who are the highest point of contact with customers, and CS leaders, who were introduced to hub customer satisfaction, to further develop customer satisfaction services by sharing and studying experiences of practitioners as well as customer satisfaction education.

Finally, as an alternative to systematic customer satisfaction research and exchanges to solve past and present problems as well as to accept the strengths of other organizations and companies, we will join the CS Wise program, which is implemented by leading domestic companies with the highest customer satisfaction ratings, such as Samsung, Lotte, and Hyundai, and participate in various seminars, benchmarking at the Leaders Club, and customer satisfaction management innovation conferences. Through this, we will continue to seek ways to improve customer satisfaction by accepting what is good and boldly improving what needs to be discarded.