The email from my VP arrived at 3:47 PM on a Tuesday. "What's the plan on the elevator at Liberty?"
I'd been sitting on three quotes for two weeks. Our building at 200 Liberty Street—a five-story commercial property built in 1998—needed a full elevator modernization. Breakdowns were happening every couple weeks by then. Tenants were grumbling. One dental practice had already threatened to break their lease if we didn't fix it.
I manage procurement for a mid-sized property management company—three buildings, roughly 400 employees across locations, about $650,000 annually in vendor contracts. Elevator maintenance and upgrades fall under my scope. I report to both Operations and Finance, which means I'm constantly balancing uptime against budget.
The three quotes on my desk:
- Independent local vendor: $42,000
- Regional company: $47,500
- Kone (DX Class elevator with Ecodisc®): $51,200
My VP had given me a soft cap of $45,000. Kone was over by $6,200. The local vendor was under by $3,000.
"We can save over nine grand going local," I told my team.
That sentence aged about as well as milk.
The Installation That Wasn't Four Weeks
The local vendor quoted four weeks for installation. It took six and a half. They blamed supply chain delays (this was mid-2022, so that excuse worked everywhere). But the real cost was downtime.
Our tenants—a law firm on floors 3–4 and a dental practice on floor 2—lost elevator access for 18 days beyond the original timeline. The law firm's managing partner sent an email to my VP that I still cringe thinking about. We ended up issuing $1,800 in tenant credits to keep the peace.
So before the elevator even ran, we'd eaten up 60% of the supposed savings versus the Kone quote.
Month Five: The First Breakdown
The new elevator started having issues around month five. Faulty leveling—it would stop about two inches above or below the floor. Minor, until you're moving office equipment or a patient in a dental chair.
I tracked every service call (this is the kind of thing you do when you're covering your back). Between month five and month twelve, we logged 14 calls. Average response time from the vendor: 4.7 hours. Kone's standard service guarantee is 2 hours—something I'd dismissed as "marketing language" when comparing quotes.
Each service visit came with a trip charge of $185 plus parts. Total repair spend over those seven months: $4,790.
Plus, I was spending roughly 3 hours per month managing escalations—calling, emailing, chasing status updates. Time I could have spent on the other 80+ procurement orders I handle annually. That time has a cost too (roughly $1,200 in lost productivity, conservatively).
The Breaking Point
Month eleven, the elevator was down for three full days. The vendor couldn't source a control board. Kone, ironically, had the part in stock. I had to call them anyway and pay expedited shipping plus a premium: $650.
That was the moment I realized the $51,200 quote—the one I'd rejected as too expensive—would have actually been cheaper.
Let me be clear: the Kone quote wasn't cheap. But total cost of ownership (i.e., not just unit price but everything that comes with it) was lower. Way lower.
The Switch to Kone DX Class
We replaced the system with a Kone DX Class elevator in May 2023. Installation took five weeks—in line with what they quoted. There was one hiccup (a sensor misconfiguration that caused a two-day delay), but their project manager called me before I had to call them. "We found an alignment issue. Here's the fix timeline." That transparency alone was worth something.
The DX Class unit has been running for 18 months now with one scheduled maintenance visit per quarter. Zero unscheduled downtime. The Ecodisc® system uses less energy than the old unit—saving about $340 annually in electricity costs. Not a game changer on its own, but it adds to the TCO picture.
What I Learned (the Hard Way)
I still kick myself for not calculating total cost of ownership upfront. If I'd factored in:
- Installation delays: $1,800 in tenant credits
- Repair calls: $4,790
- My time managing issues: ~$1,200 in lost productivity
- Emergency parts premium: $650
...the $42,000 quote was actually $50,440. More than the Kone quote I'd rejected.
People think expensive vendors cost more. Actually, vendors who deliver reliability and service can charge more because they're worth more. The causation runs the other way.
The "local is always faster" thinking comes from an era when remote support was slow and parts were localized. Today, a global company with a local service network—like Kone—can often respond faster than a small independent shop.
So here's my rule now: I calculate TCO before comparing any vendor quotes. Base price plus shipping, installation timeline, service response guarantees, parts availability, energy efficiency. The lowest unit price rarely wins on total cost.
This was true in 2022 when I made that mistake. As of January 2025, it's still true. The elevator at 200 Liberty Street runs smoothly. My VP doesn't get emails from angry tenants anymore. And next time I see a Kone quote that looks expensive on paper, I'll know better than to look away.
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