Chinese-style modernization pioneer | With 20 years of experience, she is a rare female leader in the elevator inspection field.
“On sunny days, one is covered in dust, and on rainy days, one’s feet are muddy,” is a common depiction in the elevator inspection field. Fang Liangyi has resolutely dedicated herself to the front line, striving to be the “Iron Lady” of elevator inspection, safeguarding the safety of mega cities, and has persisted for 20 years.
As the Party Branch Secretary and Director of the Elevator Inspection Institute at the Shanghai Special Equipment Supervision and Inspection Technology Research Institute, Fang Liangyi is also a rare female practitioner and leader in the elevator inspection field. She has silently contributed to elevator safety, leading her team to receive honors such as the “National Youth Civilization Unit” and “Advanced Collective of Volunteer Service in Shanghai.”
Rejecting Gender Labels
“Before I arrived, there were no female inspectors in this department. The Elevator Inspection Room Four is mainly responsible for supervising and inspecting newly installed elevators in Shanghai. Due to the nature of the work, which requires visiting various construction sites, the working environment is harsh. At that time, most colleagues in the department believed I could not last long in this position.” In 2004, after graduating with a master’s degree, Fang Liangyi joined Elevator Inspection Room Four at the Shanghai Special Inspection Institute, beginning her journey with elevators.
Fang Liangyi does not believe in gender labels and has persevered on the front line with determination. When restroom access was inconvenient at construction sites, she controlled her water intake; she never hesitated to climb machine rooms or jump into pits that male colleagues could manage.
Starting in 2007, she participated in the supervision and inspection of elevator installations at the Shanghai World Financial Center, the tallest building in Shanghai at the time. While on maternity leave, she ended her break early to be assigned to the work site. Due to the advanced technology of the elevators at the World Financial Center, the inspection was challenging and required overcoming numerous technical difficulties. She was fully engaged in the work, from drafting inspection plans to issuing inspection reports, overseeing the installation and acceptance of every elevator. In the summer, she often spent half a day in machine rooms exceeding 50°C, with her work clothes drenched in sweat.
“On the eve of the 2008 Spring Festival, Shanghai experienced rare rain and snow. While it looked like rain on the ground, we found large snowflakes falling from the sky on the 88th floor. At that time, the building above the 88th floor was not fully enclosed, and the stairs leading to the machine room were covered with thick ice, posing a risk of falling from a height. The pit for the high-speed elevator was over ten meters deep, and entering it required climbing a fire escape ladder over ten meters high, with an unfinished water well below. If one lost grip on the ladder, they could fall into the foul-smelling water well.” Even more than a decade later, Fang Liangyi vividly recalls her experience inspecting the elevators at the Shanghai World Financial Center.
From Elevator Inspection Room Four to the Elevator Safety Risk Assessment Research Center, Fang Liangyi has worked as a front-line elevator inspector for ten years. Today, she still leads her team to complete over 130,000 elevator inspections annually. To date, she has participated in the security assurance for seven consecutive China International Import Expos, completing over 3,000 elevator safety inspections for the main venue, two major international airports in Pudong and Hongqiao, major transportation hub subway stations, and several key hotels and hospitals, identifying and eliminating over 1,000 safety hazards, achieving the goal of “zero errors and zero malfunctions” for the elevators at the expo venues.
Participating in the Formulation of Elevator Installation Standards
In recent years, as the proportion of elderly and single elderly residents in Shanghai has increased, the demand for installing elevators has become particularly urgent. However, the installation of elevators often faces numerous challenges and must fully consider the safety needs of elderly passengers. The process of standardizing elevator installations is also pressing. To effectively address the mobility issues of “suspended elderly,” and ensure that elevators in old residential buildings are put into use as soon as possible, Fang Liangyi led over 30 experts and technical backbones from her unit to visit residential communities and construction units to gather opinions, providing technical consultation and services throughout the installation process, opening green inspection channels that benefit hundreds of communities and thousands of residents.
“Early installations of elevators lacked standards, leading to many irregularities. For example, some elevators were installed with doors opening directly into the homeowner’s residence. We found that such elevators posed safety hazards; if someone got trapped in the elevator and the homeowner was not home, maintenance and rescue personnel could not enter the elevator from the private residence to provide assistance. Additionally, some elevators were funded by residents but later fell into a management void, making it impossible to find a responsible party for annual inspections.” Fang Liangyi explained that these situations provided insights for the formulation of elevator installation standards. Based on actual conditions, the Shanghai Special Equipment Supervision and Inspection Technology Research Institute took the lead in formulating local standards for “Safety Technical Requirements for Installing Elevators in Existing Multi-Story Residential Buildings” and “Usage Management Specifications for Installing Elevators in Existing Multi-Story Residential Buildings,” providing technical support for the technical requirements and clear management responsibilities for elevator installations. As Shanghai began its old elevator renovation efforts early, it has consistently been at the forefront of elevator assessment in the country, with its experiences serving as a reference for other cities nationwide.
“In 2015, the Shanghai Special Equipment Supervision and Inspection Technology Research Institute launched the first version of the ‘Safety Assessment Technical Specifications for Operating Elevators,’ in which I served as the second drafter, incorporating many experiences from front-line elevator assessments and inspections. Additionally, our institute is also the main editor of the national standard ‘Safety Assessment Specifications for Operating Elevators’ released in 2023,” Fang Liangyi stated.
Looking Forward to Collaborating with Big Data Talents
While deeply rooted in front-line inspection work, Fang Liangyi has consistently adhered to research in inspection technology, leading her team to successfully complete the drafting of inspection guidelines for the latest types of elevators in the country, such as spiral escalators and TWIN elevators. She has presided over and participated in over ten scientific research projects, including the “11th Five-Year Plan” National Science and Technology Support Program, and contributed to the formulation of three national standards and several group and local standards.
Under her strong promotion, the elevator inspection work at the institute has also achieved online reporting and a paperless process, allowing users to handle everything from reporting to receiving reports online, effectively enhancing the digital level and work efficiency of special equipment inspections, significantly improving the elevator safety supervision and emergency response capabilities in Shanghai.
Entering the seventh floor of the Shanghai Special Equipment Supervision and Inspection Technology Research Institute, a “Smart Elevator” visualization screen integrates real-time monitoring of elevators across various regions in Shanghai, including the number of operating elevators and average health status.
“This screen acts like a cockpit, monitoring the operational indicators of elevators across the city. Sometimes, extreme weather such as typhoons and heavy rain can lead to water entering machine rooms or short circuits, causing elevator entrapments. In such emergencies, the ‘Smart Elevator’ platform will issue real-time alerts and has monitoring capabilities to display the installation address and current status of the elevator, facilitating maintenance personnel to quickly address the issues on-site,” Fang Liangyi explained.
As a key component of Shanghai’s smart elevator platform construction, the city’s market supervision bureau’s elevator emergency command center relies on the special inspection institute for operational implementation. Since 2023, Fang Liangyi has actively led her team in the construction of the Shanghai Elevator Emergency Command Center, which was established in just three months, transforming it into a platform for responding to, commanding, and dispatching elevator emergencies, ensuring around-the-clock monitoring and full-process supervision of elevator emergencies.
“Looking ahead, we also hope to collaborate with more specialized big data talents from universities to explore how to utilize elevator data more effectively to empower elevator maintenance tasks. For instance, regarding the health status of each elevator, sometimes the health score derived from algorithm models is high, but residents may perceive it as noisy and unresponsive. In such cases, we need to verify the integrity of the model when there is a discrepancy between algorithmic values and perceived health status. Furthermore, in the future, we may also leverage this model data to establish an evaluation system for elevator maintenance and inspection personnel, enhancing the overall quality of the industry,” Fang Liangyi concluded.
