Public Funding for Atwell International Limited

"SafeLift will be the first of its kind to react, deploy and stop the lift in freefall from a landing within a maximum of 700mm ensuring it will be the safest available. It will use multiple sensor control and integrated safety gear to stop the car. It will record and remotely report all events especially if a malfunction is detected, thus delivering real-time safety capabilities and data to key stakeholders. Two UK SME companies, Atwell International Limited and Coomber Electronic Equipment Limited have collaborated to produce this UK designed and manufactured fully certified safety system for the UK, Europe and RoW lift industry. This development will create benefits for the UK including increased revenue, job creation, including apprenticeships and graduate posts, along with supporting the government's efforts towards environment change."

Awaiting Public Project Summary

Awaiting Public Project Summary

Awaiting Public Project Summary

Awaiting Public Project Summary

Awaiting Public Project Summary

Awaiting Public Project Summary

Awaiting Public Project Summary

Awaiting Public Project Summary

Awaiting Public Project Summary

Awaiting Public Project Summary

Awaiting Public Project Summary

Awaiting Public Project Summary

Awaiting Public Project Summary

Awaiting Public Project Summary

Awaiting Public Project Summary

Awaiting Public Project Summary

Awaiting Public Project Summary

Safety gear, which prevents catastrophic accidents when lift mechanisms fail, must be fitted by law in all traction lifts. Increasingly lifts are installed without ancillary machine rooms, meaning that any maintenance must take place in the lift shaft, which means scaffolding towers must be erected. This is expensive and time consuming, and not popular with operators. When safety gears are deployed, it reduces their remaining working life. Currently deployments are not recorded and can still be in use after they have exceeded their useful life. Atwell have a prototype for a cheaper highly effective new self-monitoring safety gear – the ‘VG8’. We have been able to find a cheaper and more effective approach by adopting an innovative and unique design. We will extend the speed rating of our safety gears to 10 m/sec, and extend the rating of VG safety gears to alternative materials such as Aluminium and cold drawn steel. This will enable us to create a new brake unit for the mass market (2 tonnes at 2.5 m/sec). In addition, the VG8 will have a safety counter which will record the number of deployments, and transmit this information to Atwell for monitoring of installed units. Installation of VG 8 would not only give safety gears a significantly longer life, but the selfreading facility will enable safety gears to communicate with Atwell or facilities management operators when they are nearing end of life. The number of incidents will be recorded and preventative maintenance will be enabled. Whilst we cannot prevent accidents and activation of safety gear, we are confident that where the VG8 is installed, we can achieve 100% successful gear activation. If we can install VG8 in 50% of lifts throughout the UK, we could potentially prevent 133 injuries/fatalities in the UK per year (based on HSE statistics).