Assemble in parts: how machine tools are revived in Russia
Knock below: historical anti-record as a demonstration of decline
After changing the model of the economy from the state plan to market conditions, the machine tool industry found itself in a deep crisis. Due to the general economic shock, demand for machine tools has fallen among the main consumers - machine-building enterprises. At the same time, at the enterprises, the employees lost their qualifications, wore out and went off the production facilities, ran out of money.
In the zero years, the agony of the Russian machine tool industry continued. Key manufacturers ruined and folded unprofitable projects. One of the many examples is the Ordzhonikidze Moscow Plant, in the former territory of which the business center is now located.
The low point was the post-crisis 2009 year, when the number of manufactured machines reached a historical minimum. According to rough estimates, by this time about 40 machine tool enterprises have ceased to function - about a quarter of all Russian manufacturers. The surviving organizations were in a deplorable state.
Reduced machine production: 1990-2009
Meanwhile, in the global machine tool industry, equipment became more complex and smarter, and new generation machines were developed and introduced abroad. Scientific and technical backwardness caused by the paralysis of the Russian machine tool industry, formed a dependence on foreign manufacturers.
Former building of the Moscow plant them. Ordzhonikidze
The government has paid attention to the decline of the industry in 2007. Then Denis Manturov, at that time, the deputy minister of the Ministry of Industry and Energy (the predecessor of the Ministry of Industry and Trade - ed.), First voiced the idea of creating a machine-tool holding in Russia. It was assumed that the corporation called "Rosstankoprom" will merge state assets in industry enterprises to create a "assemblage point", after which private producers will voluntarily join its structure.
At the same time, a working group of the Ministry of Industry and Energy announced its intention to create a State Engineering Center on the basis of the Stankin University, whose tasks would include conducting R & D to overcome the technological lag, together with information and analytical assistance to private owners interested in upgrading production facilities and other intellectual processes.
The engineering center at Stankin was opened soon, in 2008 year. Created on the conceptual developments of the Manturov working group, the first state structure, RT Mechanical Engineering, appeared a little later - in the 2009 year. On its foundation in 2013, Rostec created Stankoprom, a "system integrator for the Russian machine tool industry."
As before it will not work
Before explaining the actions of the government and telling what is the point of forming a system integrator, consider the state of the industry at that time.
Its weak point was the low profitability of production by Russian enterprises of new machine tools in the changed economic and organizational conditions: in 2007, Expert magazine wrote that about 80% of enterprises' income was the repair and modernization of old equipment.
The fact is that in times of planned economy, machine-tool factories existed in a closed production cycle — most of the components for equipment were made inside enterprises. Due to 1990's technological leap, such an organizational model has become overly costly.
The leaders of the global machine tool industry reformatted the industry in such a way that local centers of competence were engaged in the production of high-tech components. So, one company manufactures electrical spindles, another produces revolving heads, and a third uses ball-screw gears, a fourth system develops CNC systems. Ultimately, the company at the last stage only assembles the machine from finished parts.
In Russia, it turned out that there was no one to cooperate, and there was nothing to assemble the machines. The modern component base is practically not made. In turn, "grandfathers" machines less and less interested in potential buyers.
Electrospindles for milling machine
CNC Monitor
Electric CNC Machines
A side effect of the industry crisis is that Russian products have a bad reputation: choosing between imported and local equipment, consumers are more likely to prefer the first one. In the language of economists, this is called an unfavorable demand forecast.
Also, questions were raised by the work of managers, sales staff and marketing specialists of machine tool factories. It is worth noting, however, that they had to cope with the pressure of high-tech equipment manufacturers, on the one hand, and Chinese dumping, on the other.
Let us add to this the problem with the influx of fresh personnel that has tainted all Russian industrialists, as well as the high lending rate for enterprises at the level of 17% - and we get an idea of what machine tool industry represented in the second half of zero.
Private Russian companies did not want to invest in the rescue of the industry, and for foreigners there was no reason at all at that time. Levers of influence on the situation remained only with the state.
Launch of state machine mechanisms
The government began to take action at the turn of the decades. In addition to the creation of an engineering center and the first attempts to construct a state corporation, the Ministry of Industry and Trade in 2011 developed a conceptual program for reviving the industry. It was called the "Development of the domestic machine tool industry and tool industry for 2011-2016 years." Funding for the five-year program amounted to 26 billion rubles.
The objectives of the program are the creation of conditions for the mass production of competitive equipment, the organization of production sites for their production, and the creation of system integrators.
The notorious integrators are needed to build a cooperative chain between the community of producers of the component base, as well as to study the needs of customers in this or machine tool nomenclature. Delivering finished products to customers is the task of the integrator.
The state corporation Rostec undertook to supervise an integrator called Stankoprom, which the deputy head of the Ministry of Industry and Trade Gleb Nikitin later in an interview with Kommersant called "an agent from the state."
In 2017, the Stankoprom structure includes research centers, engineering structures and a company for the production of production facilities. In addition, the integrator owns production facilities and equipment that the holding leases to machine tool builders, in particular, Savelovsky Machine-Building Plant. In February, the press service of the government of the Tver region reported that the plant received a package of orders from military industrialists in the amount of 900 million rubles.
Machine production "Savelovsky Machine-Tool Plant"
Protectionist measures have become another area of work for the state. We are talking about the government resolution adopted in February 2011 of the year on the prohibition of the purchase of foreign equipment by defense industry enterprises at the expense of the state in the presence of Russian analogues. According to the Ministry of Industry and Trade, imports in the Russian market of machine tools in those years reached 90%. In the same year, 2011 launched a program to modernize the defense industry, and it was expected that the growth in orders would increase due to the renewal of equipment of enterprises.
Be that as it may, protectionism and the creation of state players are meaningless with a further increase in the scientific and technical gap between the advanced countries. To remedy the situation, the state invested 10 billion rubles from the state program in research and development.
Additionally, the program included the development of imported machine tool know-how through the direct purchase of technologies, the development of cooperative ties with foreign manufacturers and the localization of foreign production in Russia. To this end, the government announced the creation of machine-tool clusters in several regions of the country: in the Urals, in the Ulyanovsk, Rostov and Lipetsk regions, as well as in St. Petersburg and Tatarstan.
Stimulation of localization bore fruit pretty quickly. The Japanese company Okuma opened a joint venture with the Russian company Pumori in Yekaterinburg, their compatriots Takisawa launched an assembly plant in Kovrov, Ace Manufacturing systems came to the Perm region, and Azov - Kovosvit from the Czech Republic.
The government's strategy was to first stimulate foreign investors to create enterprises for assembling machine tools from components made abroad, and later to involve the localization of production units in Russia.
In September, 2016 of the year assigned the status of a Russian manufacturer to one of such "alien" enterprises, the German-Japanese DMG-MORI from Ulyanovsk, in the Ministry of Industry and Trade: 70% of components for their machines are produced by domestic suppliers.
Equipment production Ulyanovsk enterprise DMG-MORI
In 2013, the “Machine Tool Building” project was launched - the concept of uniting two production enterprises of the Chelyabinsk Region, St. Petersburg Polytechnic University and the engineering “Baltic Industrial Company”. Partners in cooperation have created a Russian machine brand called FORT with its own nomenclature line.
Finally, a number of domestic enterprises consolidated around the Stan holding, formed on the basis of the Sterlitamak Machine-Tool Plant. The "Stan" consistently included manufacturers from Kolomna, Ryazan, Ivanovo and Moscow.
Machine tool production: 2009-2016
However, do not flatter yourself. According to Andrei Kostenko, deputy director of the Balt-System company, which produces CNC devices, Russian enterprises in 2016 produced about 250 automated machines, and this is an extremely low figure. But again, in Russia, 2013 produced an 133 CNC machine, that is, almost two times less.
Every year the government increases funding for the industry. Thus, in 2015, additional allocations from the budget amounted to 1,5 billion rubles, in 2016 year - already 2,7 billion. The Ministry of Industry and Trade expects that eventually the volume of imports of foreign machines in 2020 will be reduced to 58% (in 2013, this figure was 88%).
In March, 2017 of the year, Deputy Minister of Industry and Trade Vasily Osmakov said that in the summer, the ministry would send the government a renewed strategy for the development of the industry to 2030. The emphasis of the document will be on "the development of components and components, which are now very lacking." Osmakov also did not exclude the partial re-profiling of defense enterprises, which may be engaged in the manufacture of machine tools and their components in accordance with the new program.
Not cloudless. Who and what to criticize?
Despite the government's efforts, pessimism often circulates in machine tool circles, and the reputation of Russian enterprises remains ambiguous. A cross-survey of customers and suppliers of production equipment made it possible to understand what prevents the industry from developing more dynamically.
The interlocutor of the portal from the St. Petersburg defense plant Arsenal, who wished to remain anonymous, criticized the state of the “daughters” of the machine-tool holding “Stan”. According to him, the Ivanovo plant has not produced a new product for a long time, demonstrating the same machine at exhibitions, and the Ryazan enterprise is in a depressed state.
At the Ivanovo Machine-Tool Plant they agreed with this comment. "The plant practically does not work. We found investors, yes. Only these investors, I believe, destroyed a unique enterprise in a year and a half. From 1 December 2014, the plant launched two machines under the auspices of Stan LLC. People come to the plant, but there is no work "- told the Military. RF source at the company, which also, for obvious reasons, chose to preserve anonymity.
At the same time, the Stan Holding names United Shipbuilding Corporation its key supplier. In the press service of USC, the following question is answered to the question about the most high-tech equipment in the country: "in the light of the position of the Ministry of Industry and Trade of the Russian Federation in terms of attributing products to products made in the Russian Federation, for example, machines of the Kolomna Heavy Machine Tool Plant".
The shipbuilders also said that in September 2016 of the year in Kolomna, a meeting took place between the chief engineers of USC and Stana, at the end of which the parties signed a joint protocol on interaction.
The press service of the "Mill" correspondent Voennoe.RF explained the criticism that the company - the most notable player in the equipment market. According to representatives of the holding, Stana’s products occupy half of the Russian machine tool industry.
Equipment production group "Stan"
In addition to management, there are other vulnerabilities. One of the interlocutors of Voennoe.RF, a machine operator-CNC operator with 20-year experience, said that he considers Russian computer-aided design systems and the rest of the “soft” to be uncompetitive.
Remains relevant and the problem of personnel. Commercial Director of Simbirsk Machine-Tool Plant Tatyana Valova notes that it will take time to bring up a new generation of qualified engineers.
“Technical universities now graduate engineers, yes. But a specialist must first come to the plant and work there for 5-6 years before he starts to understand something. Theory is one thing, and practice is quite another,” Tatiana Valova argues. Another problem she calls the habit of working young people who come to the plant to immediately demand a high salary, without having the proper experience and level. According to her, there is no other motivation, other than financial, to work in the enterprise for the younger generation.
Tatyana Valova notes that financially successful production is investing its own funds in attracting young people. However, there are not as many such enterprises in the country as we would like.
Another specialist points out that not all Russian enterprises can participate in state programs, in particular, in the machine-tool concessional lending program - too high requirements for its participants. Unfortunately, the Simbirsk Machine-Tool Plant does not meet these requirements.
At first glance, the requirements are, in general, fair, since we are talking about the financial stability of enterprises, market prospects and the production soundness of the project. But there is a vicious circle, as in the case of attracting personnel: specialists do not go to the plant, because the salary does not suit, and the salary is not raised, because there are not enough engineers to carry out serious projects. Here and there: only financially stable producers are allowed to the program, but how to achieve this stability without concessional loans? The company can get out of the stalemate only through a merger with consolidated machine-tool structures.
Other industry representatives confirm that, outside the state programs, loans to machine-tool builders are issued at a very high percentage.
“Credits? Yes, what can I say. We seem to work“ under banks ”, as if everything is specially organized precisely for this, the marketing department of the Vladimir Machine-Tool Plant said.“ The percentage depends on how long you take the loan. It is more than the average values in 16% ".
The company said that even participation in R & D does not guarantee a reduction in the technological gap between manufactured products. "That's just until the bureaucratic procedures go, much of what we are going to do is becoming obsolete," representatives of the plant stressed.
Financial position of machine tool manufacturers for 2015 year (according to the information and analytical service "Kommersant Karoteka")
* The currently operating Savelovsky Machine-Tool Plant was established as a legal entity 15 September 2016. The data in the table refer to its predecessor.
** For Kovrov Electromechanical Plant, the data are for 2016 a year. In addition to machine tools, the company's product range includes mobile robotic systems and hydraulic systems.
A word to the military industrialists
In early February, an innovative Italian machine Spirit 100 worth about 6 million euros was officially launched at the Baltiysky Zavod. This single example clearly demonstrates the demand for advanced industrial equipment from the defense and shipbuilding industries. But is there a suggestion?
Most of the questions from consumers are caused by insufficient technological level of domestic machine tools. For example, the head of the marketing department of Kaliningrad "Yantar", Ilya Panteleev, noticed that not all Russian machines in their capabilities correspond to the needs of a shipbuilding plant.
"This is primarily about large and high-precision jig boring machines, which occupy a special place in the production process. Such precision, which can be achieved by Czech, German and any other equipment, domestic machines are not yet able to provide. I would like the overall level of Russian equipment a similar plan through the efforts of our machine tool builders has risen one step higher, "he said.
In turn, Igor Krasilich, director of the technical development department of the Sukhoi aircraft manufacturing company, told Voennoe.RF that he was awaiting the start of development of a domestic five-coordinate high-performance equipment with a large size of tables, high spindle speeds up to 24000 rpm and a set of options.
Five-axis milling machine manufactured by Makino MAG3.EX
At the Amur Shipbuilding Plant, in response to a question from Voennoe.RF about the “problematic positions of the machine-tool industry,” it was reported that these were CNC machine tools. As the press service of the shipyard explained, Russian equipment is not able to meet the needs of the plant due to the insufficient level of technological capabilities.
Creeping consolidation as an attempt to break the strategic impasse
“In all problematic areas, questions are being solved now. And we believe that we will solve them all the same,” Sergey Novikov, deputy chief editor of the industry magazine Stankoinstrument, shared with the editorial staff of Voennoe.RF.
The expert said that now the industry circles are actively discussing the idea of creating a federal center for scientific, engineering and technological support for machine-tool construction on the basis of MSTU Stankin. It is assumed that the center will include both sectoral institutes and the producers themselves.
“Ultimately, the center’s activities should end with the release of specific advanced equipment,” Novikov said, adding that the project is still only at the conceptualization and development stage.
If we leave aside skepticism with respect to the ongoing integration processes, we can assume that we will see further integration of intellectual and productive resources into a single public-private organism, where the Ministry of Industry and Trade acts as the central nervous system.
Confirms this thesis and the statement of Denis Manturov that by the end of 2017, the company "Stan" will include five more plants.
Note that the technological gap has partially reduced over the years of government work in this direction for 10. Of course, it is not yet possible to talk about its complete overcoming. Nevertheless, a number of Russian manufacturers and structural "think tanks" have begun to master high-end component nodes and build up their own capacities and capital.
MSTU "STANKIN" at the international exhibition "Technoforum-2016"
The trend towards the recovery of the industry has begun, although the pace is far from optimal. In addition, we can assume that industry consolidation centers in the medium term will absorb the company, at the disposal of which remained at least some attractive assets.
The key trend in the machine tool industry is the slow but sure strengthening of the positions of Russian component manufacturers. “Our CNC screens and their component components, such as drives, cables and sensors, occupy the 60% of the market. Siemens and Fanuc are following us,” said the deputy director of Balt-System, Andrei Kostenko. “And recently we also mastered the software software for CNC. "
However, the specialist noted that 70-75% of the products manufactured by Balt-System are being upgraded by the defense enterprises of the old technology, and only the remaining quarter of the components are mounted on new machines.
Considering the prospects of the industry, you need to understand what the demand for machines is expected in the future. The press service of the United Shipbuilding Corporation, Voennoe.RF, said that the technical re-equipment of the main machining capacities is already in the final stages.
"Our main task is to have time to create the necessary number of productions to ensure the projected order in 2016," said Deputy Minister of Industry and Trade Gleb Nikitin three years ago. It is fair to say that the "main task" is performed only partially.
On the other hand, as mentioned at the beginning of the material, Dmitry Medvedev announced a new large-scale program for the development of the military-industrial complex for the 2018-2025 years. Probably, the program will stimulate demand for machine products.
Moderately optimistic forecast given and reputable marketers BusinesStat. They analyzed the demand and needs of the Russian machine tool market. According to their estimates, in 2017, the market demand for machines will recover, and in 2018, there will be a full-fledged increase in sales by 7,9-13,6%. According to the results of 2020, sales of machine tools will amount to thousands of 20,07.
"Now there is one interesting trend in the world - to sell not machines, but the time of their work. This is done, for example, by the Japanese company Mazak. They send the machine to production, it works, and the company pays for its labor hours," he told about experimental practice Sergey Novikov, deputy head of the Stankoinstrument magazine. “At the same time, landlords remotely monitor his condition and work for maintenance if necessary. I think we will come to this too."
Voennoe.RF found out that the first attempts to shift the Japanese practice of renting machines to Russian realities have already been made. As mentioned above, “Stankoprom” leases equipment to the “Savelovsky Machine-Tool Building Plant” - the holding’s general director Dmitry Kosov told the editorial staff. It is logical to assume that in the future the integrator uses this business model not only with Tver enterprises, but also with other plants.
The above-mentioned facts, despite the problems that remain in the industry, suggest that the industry is emerging from a peak. If current trends continue, such as funding, attention from the government, purposeful work with R & D and the development of new component nodes by manufacturers, the Russian machine-tool industry will increase competitiveness by 2022 in the year and increase its output.
This does not mean that Russian machines will surpass all analogues, having conquered the global market. However, the conditions for the further development of the machine tool industry have been created - and it may well be that in five years knowledgeable interlocutors from defense enterprises will no longer respond to questions about the quality and quantity of Russian machine tools with a sad sigh.
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