With the purpose of putting the military industry at the service of the country's social development, Indumil, a company of the Defense Social and Business Group, GSED, and the National Unit for Disaster Risk Management, UNGRD, announced the implementation of the agreement that will lead, for the first time, the construction of bridges with 100 percent Colombian labor.
This was stated by the Minister of National Defense, Iván Velásquez Gómez, together with the general director of the UNGRD, Olmedo López, and the president of Indumil, General (in retirement) Ricardo Gómez, to the media on Thursday morning.
In his speech, the head of the Defense highlighted that the goal is for Indumil to have the ability to build bridges autonomously, which will contribute to providing support for environmental emergencies such as what happened a few days ago in Quetame, Cundinamarca.
“The purpose of this agreement is for Indumil to start the process of building bridges by starting with the manufacture of parts so that in the agreement Indumil has a technological transfer that will lead it to obtain that capacity,” Velásquez said.
In his turn, the director of the UNGRD, highlighted that the agreement had an initial investment of $70 billion COP. “This agreement with the 3S Tai temporary union facilitates the transfer of 100 percent of technology to the Colombian Military Industry, so that they will be the ones who provide the UNGRD with the eight pieces that it already has developed in the country for production,” López said.
The agreement was made since the UNGRD managed the resources through the Colombia Vital sub-account, for the procurement of semi-permanent metal bridges that includes technology and knowledge transfer to Indumil as a receiving company to generate capacity in Colombia.
In the medium term, Indumil, through the transfer of technology and knowledge, will progressively increase the production capacity of bridge parts until it obtains a 100 percent manufacturing capacity, with an entirely Colombian workforce, and thus a capacity to meet the needs of the national road system.
For his part, the president of Indumil said that the Colombian Military Industry has very important resources, especially in the area of metalworking. "The conversion kit has 35 pieces, the Military Industry has already made the designs and has made 8 pieces that are currently installed and in testing, but with the Agreement we signed with the UNGRD we are going to obtain the capacity, because it will be in a transfer of technology by the company that received the account for the bridges, which we will take advantage of so that, in three phases, we can make bridges in Colombia.”
“The first phase, which is already in progress, is the construction, the elaboration of these kits and there has been a second part, which is the transfer of knowledge, not only to elaborate the remaining parts of the kits, but of the complete bridge, and as a third phase, to obtain the 100 percent capacity to build and manufacture an already national bridge,” General Gómez concluded.
The agreement is divided into three phases: In the first, Indumil will build parts for the bridges and kits of conversion; the second will be the transfer of knowledge by the temporary union 3S Tai to Indumil, and the third is the construction of 100 percent Colombian bridges.
