The Otis company was founded in 1853 after Elisha Otis invented catchers, thereby giving rise to a modern city, changing the way people live and work and revolutionizing architecture itself. Our history includes a whole series of industry developments that have steadily improved the performance of elevators, enriched the quality of passenger service and allowed architects to design buildings in completely new ways. The gearless winch overcame the previous height restrictions. A two-storey elevator has increased the usable area of buildings. Automatic elevators eliminated the need for human escort. Computerized controllers have reduced travel time. Our flexible steel belts last twice as long as steel ropes. And our remote elevator monitoring technology is one of the first applications of big data and predictive analytics to improve productivity.