Al Nahda School, Abu Dhabi, U.A.E.

The project “Public Schools in U.A.E.” started in 2015 when the local Ministry of Education announced the addition of 68 external elevators to existing schools in U.A.E. “What a great opportunity”, we thought, when the first contact came at the end of 2015. During a meeting held in Dubai, we got together with Massaed, our local partner there, to gather all the necessary requirements to participate in the upcoming public tender.
Ministry’s intention was to upgrade the access and services offered in public schools, serving the vision of H.E. Hussain Ibrahim Al Hammadi, for an innovative Educational System that would build a competitive global society to meet the future market demand.

The tender, in February 2016, included fireproof external shafts to ensure passengers’ safety even in case of fire, additional monitoring systems, cameras and screens inside the elevator cabins in limited external dimensions. Additionally, for security reasons, distance between the electrical board and the elevator itself should have exceeded 10m distance.

The fireproof external shafts have been a challenge for Metron’s engineering department to solve. Therefore, we worked closely with metal sheet and powder coated suppliers to achieve the prescribed result. The chemical composition of the sheet used for this special project was certified together with the special powder applied to Metron’s powder coated department, the biggest and most modern in the elevator sector. As a result, Metron achieved a powder coated colour with 400 oC thermal exposure without cracking or dangerous deformation.

Besides this significant quality result, Metron with the flexibility of its products and customization capabilities of the Engineering Department, offered a solution that reduced the external metallic shaft by 150 mm and reduced the overall cost of the elevators by 5%. After 2 rounds of competition with all elevator multinational companies, Metron was declared finalist.

Next step was the inspection of production facilities in October 2016 from 3 engineers of the Ministry. After 3 days of diligent research in Metron Facilities and a detailed review of production processes, materials, certifications, elevator documentation and Quality Control Processes. , Metron and Massaed were declared approved elevator suppliers for  the Ministry of Education of U.A.E.

At the end of 2016, Metron and Massaed were declared winners of the tender for 68 machine roomless traction elevators in Rak, Abu Dhabi, Dubai and Al Ain.The execution phase started in September 2017 with all the necessary civil work preparation of the buildings. As Jumah Al-Mazrouie, Massaed CEO, notes:

 «The project was indeed very demanding and we had to meet the Ministry’s requirements for the elevators. Installation was held only in the afternoon because schools were operating in the morning and we had to adjust the external elevator to the existing building.Complexity for such a public project becomes even higher because of security measures to protect students, teachers and parents as the installation is running in many different locations simultaneously, however, Metron and Massaed had the know-how to accomplish this mission.»

After a period of 7 months, all 68 MRL Traction elevators together with the external shafts were succesfully installed and certified and the final result speaks for itself!

Congatulations to everyone involved!