IMEM is a company dedicated to the design, manufacture, installation and maintenance of lifts ever since 1968. IMEM is one of the most active and important manufacturers in the European market whose lifts are installed in over 65 countries across five continents, transporting hundreds of thousands of people every single day of the year.
The company’s operations include:
- The design, manufacture, installation and maintenance of lifts in Spain under its own brand and via its various commercial branches.
- The design, manufacture and sale of complete lift systems and components, acting as a global partner for lift installation companies in five continents in the development of highly competitive products and solutions with an emphasis on engineering and technological innovation.
IMEM is not only a prestigious manufacturing firm, but is also a major centre for ongoing technological innovation. Throughout IMEM’s history, research into and the development of new applications, products and technological breakthroughs have contributed to significant achievements in areas such as traffic management, space-saving, communications, energy efficiency, mechanical and electrical innovation, as well as passenger ride comfort, to name but a few.
IMEM Lifts is currently one of the top ten lift companies in Spain and is one of the very few that is still a family-owned and family-run concern and which has not been taken over by one of the big lift multinationals.
Easy Engineering: What are the main areas of activity of the company?
IMEM: In Spain, IMEM Lifts is active in all aspects of the lift industry, from the initial design to the manufacture and installation of lifts all over the country with their own network of sales teams.
Also, in the Spanish market IMEM Lifts directly manages the maintenance of thousands of lifts of all kinds in a wide range of different settings, including residential buildings, hotels, shopping centres, public buildings, hospitals and industrial installations.
Apart from the activities outlined above, IMEM Lifts is also active in the design and manufacture of lift systems on behalf of other brands. Among their regular customers are other companies in the lift sector, both large and small.
The company currently exports their lifts to sixty-five countries across five continents. IMEM lift systems are installed and operational in prestige buildings all over the world.
E.E: What’s the news about new products?
IMEM: As mentioned above, IMEM offers lift solutions in all existing product categories, even in the segment of what can be called special and one-off lifts, where the company occupies a particularly competitive position.
However, it is worth highlighting the efforts made by the company over the last three years to develop a range of lifts that represent a true world first and that IMEM considers to be different from all other products on the market: the Silens Pro Revolution lift range.
The Silens Pro Revolution is a new-generation machine-roomless lift designed for the vertical transport of loads from 100Kg to 1000Kg offering unique and technologically innovative solutions able to provide advantages in all the product’s lift chain.
Much more than a lift, a Silens Pro Revolution is an intelligent system able to provide users with experiences never seen before.
First of all, the Silens Pro Revolution has been designed from zero, achieving the easiest and quickest to install lift compared to any other in its class. All the lift parts are supplied pre-assembled with the electrical package being supplied pre-wired and tested, ready to be plugged-in.
The Silens Pro Revolution is the first lift to include state of the art programmable electronic devices (also known as PESSRAL devices in the lift sector) as standard, thus eliminating numerous mechanical components and simplifying the installation. The Limax Safe by the latest magnetic technology provides absolute precision of the lift car in the shaft with a precision of 1 mm without the need to install and adjust mechanical positioning components. The new electromechanical safety gear activates faster and is more reliable than a traditional one thus increasing passenger’s safety. Once the installation is finished the Silens Pro Revolution carries out an automatic self-learning procedure of the shaft facilitating the commissioning of the lift.
The Silens Pro Revolution is the first lift on the market capable of intelligently increasing speed also reducing traveling waiting times without renouncing the highest levels of energy efficiency for lifts of its class. Thanks to the powerful DTF (Direct to floor) technology tle lift provides a smooth and comfortable journey with perfect car levelling.
The passenger experience is unique due to the travel comfort of the lift, its smooth operation and also by the real time information shown on the exclusive Smartech car and landing indicators.
In summary, the Silens Pro Revolution is an absolutely disruptive lift both from the point of view of the lift professional who will find a much more technologically sophisticated product but at the same time easier to install and maintain than a conventional lift, as well as from the of the end user’s perspective who will access the most advanced features benefiting from technologies as advanced as machine-learning or PESSRAL devices.
E.E: What are the ranges of products?
IMEM: IMEM designs, produces, installs and maintains all types of passenger and goods lifts in a wide range of technologies, sizes, load capacities and speeds, including machine-roomless electric lifts, hydraulic lifts, home lifts, goods lifts and the most extensive range of specialty and custom designs currently available on the market. From high-specification lifts designed and made to measure for complex and demanding projects to highly competitive standardized solutions, IMEM is well-known for the excellent quality of its lifts which are safe, reliable and highly competitive in price, in delivery time and in specifications.
E.E: At what stage is the market where you are currently active?
IMEM: IMEM operates both in the Spanish domestic market as a lift company and in the five continents manufacturing lifts on behalf of other companies, which makes it difficult to issue a global assessment that serves all markets.
In the opinion of the company, the lift market is much more technological than most people know and at this time the great challenges related to technology that most economic sectors are facing do also affect the elevation industry. Product life cycles are becoming shorter and do require stronger technological expertise and greater engineering and innovation.
Fortunately for IMEM, they say that they are fully prepared to take on the technologies that are coming as they are already doing in fact today.
E.E: What can you tell us about market trends?
IMEM: At IMEM we consider R&D+i departments in the lift sector are focusing their efforts on significant improvements in the following areas:
Lift systems energy consumption. The priority here is to improve the overall energy-efficiencyof the building. In the vertical transport sector, this involves lifts, escalators and moving walkways.
On-site traffic flow management. Most of the world’s big cities, the volume of traffic continues to grow. The effective planning and control of traffic flow is becoming an ever more important consideration in urban development policy, in which the rise in lift traffic plays a significant part.
Lift travel quality and comfort. The ride quality and ride comfort of a lift system can be upgraded in various ways:
- By technical design improvements – for example, reducing the vibration generated by the mechanical system.
- By optimizing in-car component placement – for example, determining the most passenger-friendly handrail location.
- By improving the results of regular preventive maintenance.
- By identifying and minimizing kinetic disturbances (speed, acceleration, deceleration and jerk) and in-car noise and vibration.
- Lift Safety. For us as lift manufacturers, lift safety – both for the passengers and for the technical staff in charge of building and lift maintenance has always been our number one priority.
- Passenger interaction. As manufacturers, we are exploring ways in which the lift passenger’s experience can go beyond just physical mobility and be expanded to include access to broader information and content and to other communication networks.
- Lift system maintenance. As lift manufacturers, we are of course always seeking to maximize the lift system’s working life and ensure the highest levels of safety, reliability and passenger comfort. This depends to a great degree on the provision of a top-class lift maintenance service.
- Better use of available building space. Over recent years, all lift manufacturers have been exploring ways of designing lift systems which take up less building space, thereby freeing up more space for different uses and so increasing the design options available in the building concerned.
E.E: What are the most innovative products marketed?
IMEM: We have already talked about the MRL Silens Pro Revolution lift range which combines in a standardized solution with an exclusive format the most recent and advanced technologies applied to the lift.
There are also many innovative products and solutions applied to the elevation field. To name a few…
- The study of new algorithms and traffic flow patterns corresponding to various different building types (residential, office, hotel, hospital,
- mass transport).
- The improvement of lift waiting times and travel times (eg IMEM’s Direct Approach System).
- Artificial Intelligence. Adaptation to passenger use characteristics.
- Calculation of the number of lifts and lift car size best suited to the traffic flow characteristics of each particular building.
- Managing the traffic of those having different access rights to different parts of the building.
- Ease of evacuation: the movement of people, control of traffic and means of communication in line with regulations regarding evacuation in general and in case of fire and earthquake. Use of one or more of the lifts in the building for the transport of specialised personnel (firefighters, trained evacuation teams etc.).
- Destination control. Despatcher systems using mobile phones, RFID identity cards, passenger facial recognition systems etc.
- Increasing use of electric/electronic components to replace electromechanical safety components.
- Applications for mobile devices (mobile phones, iPads, netbooks, PCs etc.) which allow lifts to be remote-controlled and offer access to information on lift conditions in real time. The display of content for the passenger – information about interesting events in the building, the company, advertising etc.
E.E: What estimations do you have for 2022?
IMEM: We live in particularly difficult times to make predictions. Since the Covid-19 pandemic began, companies have had to adapt to an even more complex and changing reality, far away from the market conditions that until now we considered normal. At the time of writing this, we are witnessing a sharp rise in raw materials and energy prices, transport bottlenecks and a worrying inflation scenario. We are not experts in macroeconomics, so we do not know how to predict whether this situation will last for months or years: at the moment this scenario has darkened a year that was going well after a very weak 2020. In the undesirable assumption that this scenario is prolonged in time, we can live very complicated moments for the world industry and economy: we repeat that we are not experts in making forecasts and for our part we will face this situation with courage and optimism as we have always done during our more than fifty years of history.