Kone: The Finnish lift company quietly reshaping cities

“We talk about thinking outside the shaft,” says Jussi Herlin, vice-chair of Finnish lift-engineering firm Kone’s board of directors. He is the fifth genaration of his family to help steer the company; his father, Antti Herlin, is chairman of the board and former long-time CEO. “We build lifts and maintain them – but our real job is designing how people move through built environments,” says Jussi.

Founded in Helsinki in 1910, Kone now operates in almost 70 countries and employs more than 60,000 staff. Its products move a staggering two billion people every day. When Monocle visits Kone’s high-rise headquarters in Espoo to meet 41-year-old Herlin (pictured), we’re told that he is waiting for us on one of the building’s upper floors. So we take one of the company’s signature lifts, which glides silently up 16 storeys and politely pings before its doors slide open. Beyond the HQ’s plate-glass windows are sweeping views of the Baltic Sea and Finland’s coastal archipelago.

Herlin’s great-great-grandfather bought Kone more than 100 years ago, when it was just getting started in the business of lifts. The Herlin family, one of northern Europe’s wealthiest dynasties, has been associated with Kone ever since, both for being its biggest backer and for running the firm for most of its history. The company, which has an annual turnover of about €11bn, manufactures and services lifts, escalators and automatic doors, and prides itself on being a Finnish export. It has continued to service Ukraine’s lifts in metro stations, hospitals and residential buildings throughout the country’s war with Russia. “Functioning lifts are essential infrastructure, especially when cities are under stress,” says Herlin.

The increasing digitisation of how buildings operate is Kone’s next frontier and the firm is hoping to rise to the challenge. Its elevators now connect to the cloud and communicate in real-time with building systems, maintenance teams and, increasingly, with users themselves, to help anticipate maintenance needs, shorten wait times or even turn on the air-conditioning in your office as you enter the building. Sensors monitor everything from vibration and temperature to acceleration and door cycles to ensure smooth travel and to optimise energy use.

These inputs help predict breakdowns and optimise performance. “We can see how a lift behaves over time,” says Jussi. “We use AI to predict issues before they happen and make maintenance proactive. This improves reliability and reduces downtime.” Kone has also opened up its systems to third-party developers, allowing smartphones, delivery robots and more to interact with its lifts.

Elevators are often described as the world’s safest form of public transport. Kone’s business has hinged on providing reliability at scale. Its systems operate in the background of daily life, helping billions of people to get around without thinking twice. But the company’s ambition goes beyond just being dependable behind the scenes. “Our one clear aim is to shape the future of cities,” says Antti Herlin. “We know cities and have enabled them to grow taller, more energy efficient and more accessible for more than a century.”

According to UN projections, by 2050 about two-thirds of the world’s population will live in urban environments. Kone sees plenty of opportunity in helping this mass of people to go about their lives smoothly. One of the firm’s flagship products is Office Flow, which offers touch-free access through turnstiles, mobile elevator calls (allowing users to summon and control lifts using a smartphone app) and real-time wayfinding. Meanwhile, Kone’s Residential Flow similarly connects doors, lifts and intercoms of homes via an app, simplifying tasks such as letting in guests and receiving parcels. In mass transit, Kone is piloting digital modelling software in metro stations in Helsinki, blending sensor data from escalators and corridors to model crowd patterns. This works to prevent bottlenecks and improve commuter experience at peak hours. “AI is revolutionising urban infrastructure and services,” says Antti Herlin. “We are constantly looking at how we can add technology to what we sell and our ways of working.”

He points to milestones such as the development of the “machine room-less” elevator in 1996 and the company’s 3,000-plus patents as evidence of Kone’s ability to lead, not just follow. One of its latest innovations is Ultrarope, a carbon-fibre hoisting solution that reduces the weight of elevators and allows them to travel further using less power. Another example is energy recovery, in which lifts are equipped with regenerative drive technology, which can recover up to 40 per cent of power used and put it back into the building’s electrical grid.

As cities become more vertical and digital, the way that people move within them is becoming increasingly important – and complex. Kone’s answer is to build tools that are elegant, intuitive and all but invisible. Its products seek to make movement feel seamless, whether you’re stepping into a metro station, navigating an airport or returning home at the end of the day. “That we move two billion people per day is not just an abstract statistic,” says Jussi. “It’s a human reality. And our job is to make every one of those journeys feel effortless.”