In October of last year, 186 suppliers of major Korean elevator companies came together under the name of the Korea Elevator Maintenance Association (Chairman Seo Gil-soo, www.kemaho.or.kr, hereinafter referred to as the KEMA) to speak with one voice for the development of the domestic elevator maintenance industry.

After a year of sailing under the leadership of Seo Gil-soo, president of Local Elevator, the association is cruising on a ship called 'Harmony'. We met with Mr. Seo Gil-soo, Chairman of the Korea Elevator Maintenance Association, after its first anniversary event on the 20th of last month, and asked him about his impressions of the first anniversary, current issues, main business, and future plans.

I think the past year has been a year for the birth of the association and the unification of the three existing organizations, Hyunwooho, OSEP, and TKEK. There are still a lot of things that need to be done, but the most important thing now is that we need to move forward and unite for the overall development of elevator repair companies.

Especially since all three organizations are 13-15 years old and have a strong history, I think we can be a strong voice for the domestic elevator repair industry. The Korea Elevator Repair Association, which has 186 member companies, is a group of companies that are 100% specialized in the repair industry, with most of them belonging to large companies.

Therefore, they know the reality of the domestic repair industry better than anyone else, and are qualified to suggest improvements and future directions. The initial plan was to create a corporation and run a public service organization, but we have spent the past year in legislative limbo due to the issue of the proposed amendment to the Elevator Act.

It seems like a year has passed very quickly since we founded the Korea Elevator Maintenance Association. This is because the issue of the amendment to the Elevator Act came up shortly after the founding convention in October last year. We chased officials and presented the unfairness of the amendment, and in June, we blocked the passage of the amendment to the Elevator Act in the National Assembly. The amendment part is not yet finalized, but I think it is about 95% finalized.

As such, it has been a year of many contacts with the government, related organizations, and the National Assembly's Administrative Safety Committee, seeking the true development direction of the elevator maintenance industry, and making efforts to unite members. I would like to express my deepest gratitude to everyone involved for their cooperation in the development of the association.

The government submitted a bill to the National Assembly to amend the Elevator Act to prohibit subcontracting with the narrow logic that the fault of elevator maintenance lies in the subcontracting system, but the bill is currently pending in the National Assembly due to the efforts of related organizations such as the Conservation Association.

According to Article 11.5 (Restriction on Subcontracting) of the partial amendment to the Elevator Act, 'A repair contractor shall not subcontract the repair work of the elevator he has contracted to another repair contractor, etc. However, this shall not apply if the elevator management entity (meaning the owner of the elevator or a person prescribed as the elevator management entity under other laws and regulations if the elevator management entity is the elevator owner) consents in writing to the subcontracting of the repair work of the elevator for which the repairer is contracted. The "to the extent of not more than 50 out of 100" part is the reason why the association took a stand after months of persuasion from the authorities.

The reality is that retainer subcontracts are usually awarded at 70/100. Subcontracting currently accounts for 40% of the domestic elevator maintenance market, which is a lot of business, and it makes sense to improve what is wrong.

We believe that elevator maintenance should be carried out in an enterprise-wide system. The Association is also applying the elevator informationization support project, please give us a specific explanation.

The Small and Medium Business Administration is implementing the 'SME Informatization Support Project' to foster productivity innovation and competitiveness through IT convergence at SME production sites and to foster leading informationization companies based on new informationization. This project supports software to handle single functions such as management and accounting management, sales, marketing and customer management, homepage and email management, tax and accounting management, and security management, and provides an infrastructure environment for SMEs that cannot use standardized solutions.

Since last year, the Association has been participating in the informationization support project to improve the quality of elevator repair companies. There are three companies that have been in progress since 2010, five companies selected this year, and three companies in reserve. Although there were difficulties in the implementation, such as updating the initial data, we plan to analyze this year's performance and increase the promotion power next year so that more companies can benefit from it and build an elevator management information system.

Currently, the average repair fee does not represent the appropriate repair fee. It is not an easy decision as there are many factors that vary from site to site. However, we believe that it is very difficult to maintain an appropriate repair fee in the current reality where the repair unit price is simply a competitive bidding system.

The appropriate maintenance fee should be determined by researching and creating a table based on many cases, and then supplementing it annually. For the safe operation of elevators and for the maintenance industry to become a stable business, the appropriate maintenance fee should be standardized, and in the long run, a policy should be established by the authorities.

The government should prepare policies to improve the shrinking elevator industry from the current orientation of safety enhancement to the direction of elevator industry development. In particular, it should support the development of the industry to compete with foreign countries. Currently, the domestic elevator industry is almost completely dominated by foreign affiliates. In a place with a small land mass, this is not a very pleasant situation. It will be necessary to create a policy that allows both large and small companies to win together.

Looking at the elevator repair industry, it is time to come up with an improvement plan for price dumping and excessive competition due to the lack of small businesses. In the case of Gwangju, Jeollanam-do, the fee is currently down to 9,000 won, which not only lowers the morale of repairers but also weakens the existence of the repair industry itself. We need to think about the safety of people using elevators through standardization of repair fees.

In terms of the future goals of the Association, we would like to directly operate education-related items such as training for self-inspectors, such as maintenance personnel, that are currently conducted by inspection agencies. Inspection agencies will have to work hard to improve technology and safety in order to develop the elevator industry. I believe that the quality will be improved by conducting practical training by the Association, which actually performs the repair work.

In the future, the Association plans to strengthen the regional councils of the Association, such as Gangwon-do and Jeolla-do, and operate them as branches. As it is a gathering of three partners, we will become a conservation association that can be a big yard and fence for people who do conservation nationwide, while attaching the utmost importance to the unity of the current members. It will also be an organization that learns good methods from each other, rather than pursuing private interests.