Cutting-edge technology in a Company that already crosses the mountains range
Heir to the best multinational tradition, INGELIFT LTDA. Has profiled itself as a national Chilean company capable of installing, modernizing, and maintaining all types of lifting equipment, with the advantages offered by the absence of bureaucracy, personalized attention, and quick response.
The company, which has been in operation for more than a decade and has its headquarters in the Commune of Macul, serves more than 600 units in nine Chilean regions. It has the ISO 9001: 20015 Certification in Quality Management and is technically and professionally prepared to install any elevator, escalator, or funicular type.
Just at the time of this interview with its owner, Eng. Rosa Tapia, a team of certifiers was in her company doing the inspection required for periodic certification.
Revista del Ascensor: – Engineer, tell us what work Ingelift does.
Ing. Rosa Tapia: – We are registered as first-class installers.
We can install all types of lifting equipment, of any height and speed.As an installer, there are three categories, first, second and third. And that has to do with the number of lifts the company has installed. Those who have installed ten lifts are in the third category, those who have installed fifty are in the second category and those who have more than one hundred lifts, like us, are in the first category.
R del A.: – Do you have a specialty in lifts’? How is the fleet you maintain today made up?
R.T.: – Ingelift provides its clients with vertical transport solutions, including vertical and inclined lifts, freight elevators, escalators, and mechanical ramps. We currently install our representative equipment and provide services to construction companies and those in the retail sector. Today, we maintain more than 600 machines, including 400 Cencosud units, with special emphasis on escalators and forklifts. We also serve other types of buildings, such as residential and corporate communities, hotels, and shopping centers.
We entered 2024 with great projections for the public market, the Chilean State’s platform for purchases and maintenance contracts.
R del A.: – Can you tell us about any of them?
R.T.: – I can tell you in advance that, next to the atrium of the Costanera Mall, the most important in Latin America, a five-story structure is being built to put two panoramic elevators that go directly from the first to the fifth floor, to the gastronomic access and that we will install. And there are more surprises for later.
R del A.: – Cencosud is an important client for Ingelift, ¿isn’t it?
R.T.: – That’s right. I was in Buenos Aires, about 6 months ago, because Cencosud, our main client in Chile, called me to go and repair escalators at the Jumbo in Palermo and at the Portal de Rosario where several were out of order. The experience in Chile with vertical transport services in retail is intended to be projected in Argentina in the short term, which will benefit users and tenants of shopping centers there, understanding that its economy is opening up more and more, I believe and feel that this is how Cencosud sees it.
R del A.: – What are the brands of elevators you install?
R.T.: – We represent Lincoln and Xinda Hosting. We met them recently at an exhibition in Dubai. I buy to them escalators and ramps; they are an OEM that sells me the quality products I request from them including our brand name if we ask for it. The kind of job we do makes us choose many good quality elevators to install. Every time I travel to China, I look for good products at a competitive price.
R del A.: – Don’t you install other brands?
R T.: – In Chile, when you represent a brand from anywhere in the world, you sell it and install it. You cannot install someone else’s brand. People had called me to install equipment from a multinational they had in a warehouse and we have not taken it because, in addition, we cannot give guarantees to a product that we have not bought.
R del A.: – Are you direct importers?
R.T.: – We are direct importers of all brand’s spare parts, original and alternative, for elevators and escalators. This allows us to offer a good alternative for spare parts and repairs with a quick response to an emergency in stopped equipment. Our company is registered in the MINVU as indicated by the Elevator Law No. 20,296 in registry No. 74 resolution No. 626 for the maintainer’s category, and in resolution No. 1168 for the installers category, and we have civil liability insurance for UF 24,000 policy No. 23031782 valid from March 22, 2024 to March 22, 2025 at Liberty Seguros.
R del A.:- You also modernize.
R.T.: – In parallel to Ingelift we have a company that sells components for elevators and escalators called Traction Lift, which sells locks, door operators, motors, and other parts. Having that stock makes modernization easier for us.
We replace worn-out components that have no replacement because they don’t exist anymore or are very expensive. The fact we have our workshop with a stock of machines, guides, controls manufactured by ourselves, and other components too, makes it possible to manufacture customized elevators when somebody needs one with special characteristics.
We undertake electrical modernizations with STEP and MONARCH who send us the complete project from China.
R del A.: – You mentioned earlier that because of the companies you worked for in the past, you are used to installing good-quality elevators. What did you mean?
R.T.: – I left the University and did my internship at a glass company; at the time an advertisement appeared that asked for a recently graduated mechanical engineer, and that she had to be a woman. It was missing to say that her name was Rosa (laughs). Of course, I applied to the so-called Heavenward company, which at the time was starting with LG elevators; I worked there for 7 years, as a technical assistant for operations management and I worked with Gustavo Lagos, manager of the sector. There I was the installation coordinator for most of the LG equipment in Chile, and learned everything. I ended the relationship with Heavenward because the Japanese arrived with Mitsubishi and there was a restructuring. I left as assistant manager of installations. I immediately joined KONE, where I worked for two years. The next step was to create Ingelift Ingeniería en Transporte Vertical LTDA.
R del A.: – Chile is known to have a major participation of multinational companies in the elevator industry. Are you able to compete with any multinational? What difference can you offer to the corporations that can hire you?
R.T.: – Ingelift competes on equal terms with multinational companies. In the technical comparison, we are the same, what changes are the brand, the price, and the service, which are national. In the after-sales service as we are in Chile and we have an advantage over multinationals and that is a personalized service to the clients. My client calls me and tells me that they need me at 8 in the morning somewhere and I am there at 8 a.m. and I go myself, I do not send a supervisor. In multinationals, the client is just another number. That makes the difference. They know me pretty well because I am the one who watches all the projects at Cencosud.
R del A.: – What regulations do you follow in Chile when installing?
R.T.: – We install following Law 440/1:2014 sanctioned by the Chilean National Institute of Standardization. It is a construction regulation for buildings and all their parts. 440 feeds the elevator law, 20296, which establishes the installation and maintenance of elevators, both vertical and inclined or funicular, freight elevators and escalators or mechanical ramps, by installers and maintainers who have a valid registration in a registry that will be kept for this purpose by the Ministry of Housing and Urban Planning, Minvu. It also provides that elevators receive monthly maintenance from a company registered with the MINVU. We make a contract between the consortium and us or the consortium’s administrator and us. There is also the regulation of universal access for people with limitations. All this documentation enters into the Municipal Permit where they check everything is in order and only then, they give the go-ahead for installation.
R del A.: – What can you tell us about the certifying companies?
R.T.: – The elevator regulations brought with them the certifying companies. They are the ones to review the installation following a list of items established in the standard. Now, while we are talking here, a certifying company is auditing my company. I will be there in the afternoon* because I am in charge of the entire operational part, the maintenance and operation issue, and they will ask me for some information there. We do the maintenance according to the ISO 9001 Standards voluntarily.
* Editor’s Note: Refers to the day she was interviewed.
R del A.: – How many employees work at Ingelift?
R.T.: – We have fifty-five workers hired and another fifty-five under subcontracting work for Ingelift throughout the country from Arica to Punta Arenas. We have experienced and technically qualified personnel to handle installations without height limits. The company is very committed to its staff and its growth; the annual training program is intense.
R del A.: – Do you run the company alone?
R.T.: – My husband, Jorge Retamal Flores, and I are partners; he is my complement. I have the more theoretical role of looking at the plans, analyzing, and putting together the projects, he is a technician involved in everything that has to do with the company’s logistics and metallurgical workshop. Nevertheless, I am on the ground as well. My oldest daughter is a graphic designer and takes care of the company’s image: uniforms, signs, and the website; the one who follows her is studying foreign trade engineering and she is going to work with me because she wants to help me with foreign trade issues that until now I was in charge of.
My youngest son is 12 years old and is still in school. My dream is for him to become a mechanical engineer and follow his parent’s example, but he likes football and is already training at the Colo Colo School.
One surprising thing is Eng. Tapia’s enterprising ability, to acquire such an important role in the escalator and high-speed elevator market in a short time. However, when you know the trajectory of her life, you understand that everything has been the product of great intelligence and enormous determination.
Born in a humble home, her father worked as a caretaker in a textile factory. Very early, at 10, Rosa showed her interest in machines, when her father took her to the factory. There she watched with curiosity at how they worked.
She always liked studying a lot, and she loved mathematics. At first, she wanted to dedicate herself to teaching it. When she finished high school, she took an Academic Aptitude test and got the highest score of all the students in Mathematics. At that time, her father convinced her to use that talent to study a profession that would offer her better economic prospects than the low salary she could get as a teacher would. She listened to her father and enrolled in the State University of Santiago. She scored second in the admissions class among a student population composed only of men. She graduated as a mechanical engineer, which has allowed her to run her company with great success, a success that does not stop at any challenge.
“My short-term goal is to be recognized in Chile as the most important national company in vertical transport.”
Rosa Tapia
Contact
INGELIFT INGENIERIA EN TRANSPORTE VERTICAL LTDA.
Address: Los Olmos 2670, Macul, Santiago
Phone: +56 2 2501 0752
Whatsapp: +56 9 4208 4467
Mail: contacto@ingelift.cl
Web: www.ingelift.cl
Facebook: Ingelift
Linkedin: Ingelift
