SILC 2022

A boutique conference with a far-reaching purpose

A feast for both the senses and mind, Santander International Lift City (SILC) celebrated its inaugural event in Spain on 28-30 September, gathering together 200 industry professionals from all continents and 30 different countries. Designed as a boutique conference, SILC 2022 took place in Santander, northern Spain’s coastal city that is home to IMEM Ascensores headquarters. 

First Day

On the first day of SILC, all guests gathered at the Centro Botín. Centro Botín is an arts center designed by Pritzker Prize-winning architect Renzo Piano in collaboration with Luis Vidal + Architects. It is located in a privileged part of Santander and uses a broader urban intervention to integrate the city center and the historic Pereda Gardens with the Bay of Santander. A welcome dinner with finger foods and Cantabrian wines was held at the Palacio de La Magdalena.

Focused primarily on innovation and digitalisation, SILC 2022 featured speakers from leading specialised firms in the elevator world — IMEM Ascensores, Wittur, Danfoss and Vodafone — as well as from the academic field and some allied industries. These players are all considered necessary to undertake the digital transformation of companies in the sector and their adaptation to the current socioeconomic context. 

IMEM Ascensores CEO Antonio Pérez, whose knowledge of the elevator sector is credited by his 50 years in the industry, gave a speech to welcome SILC guests and said, “SILC is a response to a pressing need, as the sector’s growth and sustainability rely on joining forces to become stronger, more knowledgeable and better prepared for the rapidly changing environment shaped by technology.” According to Pérez, it is crucial to “boost and improve the relationship model between manufacturers, companies and sector professionals to build a solid network and face future challenges more confidently.”   

True to this spirit, SILC included a series of focused presentations led by experts in global economy, industry regulation and digitalisation, as well as representatives from the entire value chain of the elevator sector. They had the chance to sit together and discuss innovative proposals for a more cooperative, efficient relationship model within the industry.

Global Markets and Transforming Technologies

SILC 2022’s first day featured contributions from experts on two main topics that directly influence the industry: the global economy and technology. A presentation by Banco Santander served as the starting point to set the context and paint a detailed picture of the current challenges and opportunities that companies face across the globe as they adapt to a global market. Pablo de la Torre, the bank’s commercial head of international business, emphasised the need that such a sophisticated and technology-dependent industry has to identify the right markets from which to source components and those in which to sell their products, fundamental needs that will determine the commercial sustainability and financial health of organisations.

Vodafone shared the latest advances in 5G and offered insight into how this technology could revolutionise the world of elevators in a very short time. Head of Business Development at Vodafone Spain Carlos Becker brought to the table many practical examples of how society is already being transformed by digital communications and 5G, and there was an interesting debate on the possibilities that this scenario opens for the industry that may very soon present opportunities that, not long ago, would have seemed more suited to a science fiction film.

The academic contribution was provided by renowned vertical-transportation (VT) scholar Dr. Gina Barney, who took part in SILC 2022 to touch on the evolution of load and safety aspects in elevators and how these affect regulations. She also joined the expert panel with fellow speakers to analyse how the industry can tackle all the future digitalisation solutions while remaining stable, compliant and able to deal with the many and varied entities with which it works: construction companies, architects, developers and building management firms. 

IMEM also invited speakers from the industry to offer more technical presentations. Giuseppe de Francesco from Wittur Group delved into the subject of data collection and management to improve elevator maintenance services. Michael Müller from Danfoss gave an overview of the challenges and trends that digitalisation brings to frequency converters or drives, which are no longer considered simple power processors.

Second Day

The second, rainy day featured the IMEM factory tour. Guests, who were divided into four groups according to languages, joined the factory tour after coffee at the IMEM headquarters. In this tour, we received detailed information about IMEM’s stable growth from the first day of establishment to the production capacity of today. The showroom we visited after the factory tour was the most successful showroom your author has ever seen in terms of architecture and technology. It was a great pleasure to observe the history of IMEM and its advanced R&D infrastructure as every new door opened in the showroom. It felt like a trip through time. After the factory tour, we set out for the historic Palacio de Las Fraguas, where the afternoon session took place.

Digitalisation: An Unstoppable Reality

On the second day of the conference, the participation of industry partners in SILC 2022 took the shape of an open forum that aimed to transcend a mere biannual event and become an established, permanent think tank to benefit the elevator industry as a whole, spurring creative thinking, providing a space for discussion and conceiving innovative proposals that allow for organic growth of the market across all continents.

IMEM’s R&D team, together with key representatives of its partners Vodafone, Wittur and Danfoss, held a series of roundtables to illustrate their vision on the application of digital transformation to the VT sector, from the definition of smart users and their interaction with elevators to product design, industrialisation and user platforms.

“Digitalisation is a reality, and it is unstoppable, and investment in new technologies is not negotiable for companies in our sector.”

— IMEM CEO Antonio Pérez

These sessions had a marked technical approach and focused on the transition of the sector to technologies that are not just changing the industry, but society as a whole, ruled by IoT, AI and smart ecosystems. IMEM and its partners are already working on a global platform available 24/7/365 where the company, suppliers, partners and customers share a 360º vision throughout the value chain and the product life cycle. This, in fact, is a revolution not just affecting the product and the end users’ experience, but also (and notoriously) the engineering approach to defining processes and systems, where smart elevators, users and companies are all able to obtain and convert data and make decisions based on their machine learning capabilities. Embracing all these new technologies that include elevators, organisations and user dialogue and share information in real time also brings up privacy issues that must be addressed by upgraded cybersecurity. 

Genesis of an Industry Think Tank

The debate generated at SILC 2022 highlighted the need to face jointly within the sector the challenges that digitalisation brings. As Pérez expressed in the closing session of the conference, “Digitalisation is a reality, and it is unstoppable, and investment in new technologies is not negotiable for companies in our sector.” Based on the premise that “working together will make our industry stronger,” he expressed that SILC will be open to all manufacturers, providers and agents of the elevator industry, as its objective goes beyond individual interests of companies, but encompasses the common interest to develop the VT sector from within.

Third Day

A Cabárceno Nature Park tour was in the program of the last day without any sessions. The park is an old mining area where around 120 different animal species now live in the most natural conditions possible. More than 20 km of tracks zigzag across this nature park, leading visitors to incredible gorges, peaceful lakes, evocative rock figures and natural spaces where the animals roam free. After the tour, all guests gathered for the closing ceremony and cocktail reception at Villa Abarca. In this reception, your author found the opportunity to meet the many great IMEM team members behind this hospitable organisation. 

SILC’s first event also offered a social program that offered attendees an immersion in Cantabrian culture, traditions and gastronomy. The next edition of the conference is scheduled for 2024, but IMEM has already announced there will be related activities organized before that date, and both public entities and private organisations have expressed their interest in taking part.