Thyssenkrupp is expanding its relationship with Vodafone to provide connectivity to its fleet of elevators.

Using the telco’s global M2M communication platform and SIM cards, the company is hoping to spread the reach of its ‘MAX’ predictive and pre-emptive maintenance service for elevators.

Based on Microsoft’s Azure platform, MAX is capable of transmitting reports on the elevators’ technical condition to the cloud for evaluation, providing service engineers with real-time information on necessary repairs and predictions of which components will require future maintenance.

With this technology, the company is hoping to halve elevator service disruptions, which currently stands at 190 million hours of downtime across its global fleet.

Thyssenkrupp plans to connect approximately 180,000 units in the United States, Germany and Spain during the pilot phase, expanding to other European nations, Asia and South America in the future.

The company hopes to achieve global coverage in two years, connecting 80 percent of its elevator fleet worldwide.