Kurganmashzavod created to win, designed to protect
“Military Parity” Interview of the Executive Director of OJSC Kurganmashzavod, Chairman of the Kurgan Regional Branch of the Russian Engineering Union Igor GISKE to the magazine “Witness”, November 2013 of the Year (Kurgan) - Igor Vladimirovich, Kurganmashzavod for Kurgans is more than a factory. Accordingly, a person who, in the current period of time, is headed by a person, has a special responsibility: in this case, responsibility is not just an economic, managerial, social category, but also a moral one, as I see it. Do you feel it as such?
- Indeed, the Kurgan Machine-Building Plant, which is a part of the machine-industrial group “Concern Tractor Plants”, despite the fact that, compared with Soviet times, has lost some of the features of the city-forming enterprise, in particular, there are no social facilities - residential buildings on the balance sheet, kindergartens and so on - was and remains a factory producing extraordinary equipment for both Russia and foreign countries - the world's best light infantry fighting vehicles in mass. The plant was and remains unique. Therefore, of course, KMZ is one of the main and most significant brands of the Kurgan region.
Accordingly, the role of the person who heads the company is also special. When the president of Tractor Plants, Mikhail Grigorievich Bolotin, signed an order about my appointment to the position of the executive director of KMZ, I probably still did not fully understand what responsibility lay on my shoulders. The director faces not only production, managerial tasks, but, of course, moral and ethical obligations. My position assumes a special responsibility both to the team, and to the management of the holding, and to the region, and to the country, for the protection of which our equipment is manufactured. Today, I fully recognize this responsibility, as, incidentally, the entire staff of the enterprise.
Our team is a team of like-minded people and professionals. I am deeply convinced that if you treat a team only as subordinates, you will never achieve anything good. In the case of our company, this is especially true. Here every person realizes himself as a person. Therefore, with each I conduct a dialogue, as with a colleague and an expert on a particular issue. I dare to believe that I manage to maintain the team spirit, this is the attitude when everyone is an individual. Together we work for a common result. The outgoing 2013 year was not easy, hard, and confidently declare: if there was no unity in our team, which I just mentioned above, as well as a healthy moral climate, we would not be able to do what we did.
As for me personally. I am a completely ordinary person, although, of course, I try to live according to my inner convictions ...
- What is their basis?
- Perhaps the very ten commandments that have not been canceled. Although, let's say, the Orthodox principle “Hit on the right cheek - turn left”, definitely not for me. When you go in the evening with a woman, and a bully approaches you, you won’t turn your cheeks up? (smiles - Auth.)
- Do you consider yourself an Orthodox person?
- I try to come to this, but for now I’m more a Komsomol member than an Orthodox person (smiles - Author). Komsomol is another religion (smiles - Auth.)! At one time I was a very convinced Komsomol. At the same time, he was never a functionary. But here the construction detachments and other practical expressions of youth activities — this was mine. I am a very "practical" person. This is more understandable to me and closer than the declaration. We were brought up on the Komsomol ideology, and after we lived, grew up, husbands in this atmosphere, it is somehow absurd to go and start praying. But faith is still there. My faith is not in prayer, not in formal expression. I rarely go to church, as I understand it, I don’t need to turn to God for trifles. I go to church not to ask, but to think. But I will definitely say that I belong to the Orthodox faith.
- How does the Orthodox faith get along and what are you doing? Yet the defense industry is a product for war ... And war is always murder. How is all this combined with the commandment "Thou shalt not kill?" ...
- Directly. We do military equipment not to kill, but to protect. Therefore, one of the slogans that the Tractor Plants team uses and follows in its activities is: “Created to win. Called to protect. " This means that we produce such equipment that is competitive, and in some respects is better than world analogues, which allows our country to provide reliable protection against any threats and attacks.
- Igor Vladimirovich, one of these days one of your industrial colleagues told me in a conversation with me: “Factory workers are a special caste,” referring to people's dedication to production, and to plants that many of them call “native” ... Do you agree with this?
- I will say more: visionary leaders must create and strengthen this caste. Take as an historical example the Putilov factory in Petrograd. It was a small island of socialism where houses were built for workers, social infrastructure was created, kindergartens were opened for workers' children. At this plant, dynasty was warmly welcomed, when a person brought relatives and children to the enterprise. The workers did not participate in any strikes, revolutions. Putilovtsy very proud that they are from this factory. One of the sons of the director, who headed the enterprise before the revolution, managed the plant in the early Soviet era. Only later did this effective system become artificially destroyed.
We try to cultivate the same model in our enterprise. And in principle, all large enterprises in one way or another came to it in Soviet times after overcoming the devastation. And in the new post-Soviet Russia, we will definitely come to this. When the USSR collapsed, for some reason, the opinion prevailed that the person in production management is a kind of cog. This was particularly firmly established in the minds of so-called effective managers, who believed that it was enough to control cash flows in order to be successful. And in fact, it has long been known that effective management is the management of relations between people both horizontally and vertically. This can be done only by creating a team in which, firstly, there is continuity of generations. Look at how many dynasties are in our factory! And at the same time I can say with confidence that those plants where it is destroyed often cease to exist. Secondly, it is necessary to cultivate a factory community (joint activities aimed at strengthening the corporate spirit, supporting and honoring veterans, socially oriented policies). Let it not seem cynical, but it is a management tool that is equivalent in efficiency to decent wages. I understand how important it is for the factory workers.
Some of our workers after retirement come to me and ask to give them a permit to the plant: they want to come to their workshops and communicate with people, because the plant is part of their life for them. It is now being said that it is necessary to change the place of work once every five years, to be constantly ready for relocation, etc. And I will say: try to do it in fifty years, when in addition you have worked all your life in one enterprise!
A team built and living according to such laws is easy to mobilize to solve the most difficult task. Such, for example, what we have done this year, creating a new infantry fighting vehicle "Kurganets 25". We did it on a big emotional lift. It is not made thanks to superpayments, innovative managerial approaches, but due to the fact that we came to the people and said: "Guys, we must do this, it is necessary for the plant." Our people are working not to "cut the loot", but to the name of Kurganmashzavod with a new force sounded at the Russian and world levels. This was the main motivational component in creating the new BMP. And we proved again that the best. At a recent exhibition in Nizhny Tagil, where all the military enterprises of the Tractor Plants Concern were represented, the KMZ demonstrated its new equipment at an open and closed show. We are the only exhibitors who brought in working prototypes, and not mock-ups like everyone else.
Creating a team, factory caste - this is perhaps my main task as executive director of the plant.
Our joint team work also brought the result that in the framework of the annual corporate Award of the Concern Tractor Plants Concern Kurganmashzavod in 2013 was recognized as the best company of the year. Now the passing banner of the Concern is here in Kurgan. If we consider that the group includes the 30 order of various companies from 10 subjects of Russia, as well as Denmark, Germany, Austria, the Netherlands, Serbia and Ukraine, then this is very honorable!
- How is the choice, assessment of the company, which is recognized as the best?
- Exclusively in terms of economic parameters: sixteen indicators that must be met at the factory. No subjectivity. And also by voting the top management of “Tractor plants”, and, moreover, secret.
- Kurganmashzavod is a part of the machine-building and industrial group Concern Tractor Plants. I have heard from some “local” owners of industrial enterprises that a nonresident owner is an irresponsible owner, unaware of our realities, etc., saying that in order to effectively manage the plant, one must almost be born and grow in the region of its presence. ..
- I will ask these "responsible" owners and managers, but they themselves are Kurgan, do they spend much time in the city? I believe that in any enterprise there should be a career growth system, and the person who came to work as a master should understand what he will become, what place on the career ladder he will take if he works well. The master - senior master - the head of the site - the deputy head of the workshop - the head of the workshop, and so on. We in the Concern hold exactly such personnel policy. And such a rotation of managers in modern economic conditions is justified. Our employees are focused on professional growth. This is a proven global practice.
Modern means of communication allow you to communicate and exercise leadership, being geographically anywhere. I think that, not being a native of the Urals, I spend much more time in Kurgan than some "indigenous" industrialists. For the whole year I was not in the city from the strength of a month. All the rest of the time I'm at the factory. But even if it were not so, I am convinced: the main thing for a leader is experience, skills, knowledge, professionalism. On the contrary, when a person does not live in a given territory, but only happens to be “arrivals” and sometimes leads, this is just wrong. The director should be assimilated in the situation in which his enterprise is currently located. Yes, most of the time I now spend in the Kurgan region, but, of course, I don’t shout that this is my native land and I don’t intend to eat it in public in handfuls as proof. Of course, managing such a key plant for the region as Kurganmashzavod, I am in constant dialogue with the authorities. We have constructive business relations with the administration of the Kurgan Region, I say this without any sycophancy, its actions on the territory of the region are constructive and adequate in the current socio-economic conditions.
As a matter of fact, our Concern in each region of the presence of its enterprises is engaged in intellectual donation, and these investments by the government of the country are now equal to financial ones.
- Igor Vladimirovich, I will ask you a question that I ask all heads of enterprises who I consider experts: how to return the former glory to the people of work, not in words but in deeds, to workers and engineering specialties, that is, to those people thanks to whom the machine-building plant is what is it for many decades?
- In the approach to the solution of this issue, the economic and the ideological approaches prevail in our country. In my opinion, they need to be correctly combined. Through the efforts of a single social movement, I am talking about the Russian Engineering Union, the regional branch of which I head in the Trans-Urals, does not raise the image of the working man. A state program should be in place for the integrated development of the machine-building industry in Russia, for the production of qualified specialists in demand for workers and engineering specialties, for raising the prestige of working people. It is important that the manufacturer, regardless of ownership, be protected. If the state protects its own enterprises, it will be able to control their compliance with the obligations to the workers. If educational institutions cease to bombard the market with diplomas of lawyers and economists, they begin to train specialists for mechanical engineering, then the plants will not need to spend their time training and retraining people instead of retooling production and producing new products at an accelerated pace. If the media starts to talk about the heroes of labor, about the factories, then the youth will not shy away from us, looking for easy money, go to other cities and regions. If all this happens, the plants will start to develop and operate. People will be proud of their businesses, because it is prestigious to work for them. Young people would break into technical schools to get crusts of a skilled worker or engineer. And at the factories they would have a decent salary.
Why do employees of such enterprises, such as General Motors in America, live well? Even in a crisis, the state defended them in such a way that workers almost did not feel the phenomena and consequences of the crisis. And our engineering enterprises are often left to the mercy of fate: survive as you wish. And if we consider that we are not far from the socialist planned economy, then to survive without state support in times of crisis is extremely difficult, almost impossible.
And I am convinced that we will return to this model. After all, as such, the competition in its capitalist understanding, we "did not happen." And since the owners also want to live and are able to count money, they see a way out of the situation in the so-called "optimization". Ideally, this means the purchase of new equipment and the introduction of new technologies, which implies a reduction in the number of unqualified and inappropriate qualifications of employees. The main thing that the company worked. Every production worker knows that if the plant has stood for a month, then it is impossible to start it in the mode in which it worked before. Moreover, it can simply lead to a shutdown of the enterprise.
Answering your question about the return of fame to a man of labor, I, as a practitioner, is extremely concrete: the state program of support for mechanical engineering, as well as agriculture and other industries, is urgently needed. What is needed is not slogans and declarations, but concrete steps. I do not accept chatter.
Although the fact that a person of work and respect for his interests started talking is already good! Social movements and their projects designed to protect the interests of working people in practice should, using the levers of their influence, be carried out to the authorities - both in the Duma and in the government - "their" people - practitioners, managers.
Practices are appealing to me in all spheres of human activity. That came to the leadership of our football team Italian Fabio Capello, practice to the bone. Absolutely practical person, aimed at the result. He earned all his regalia, credibility, simply winning everything he could, without any declarations. Only work "on the result" is valuable, and all the rest is idle talk.
- Speaking about protecting the interests of the industry and specific enterprises, it is logical to proceed to the issue of the activities of the regional Union of machine-builders of Russia, which, obviously, has been gaining both strength and influence in recent months. The industrialists with whom we have to communicate are unanimous: this is an excellent platform for communications, exchange of experience, a lobbyist body to protect the interests of the industry. How do you see the goals and objectives of the Union of Mechanical Engineers, the regional branch of which you head? There is an opinion that the activity of such unions pursues purely political goals, and the development of the industry is secondary.
- It is no secret that earlier the Engineering Union in the Urals was a very formal organization with formal reporting. We could continue to “work” like this, send reports to the center, as many other regional offices of various unions do. But I love specifics without ponto ...
... When I was elected chairman of the Kurgan regional branch of the Union, I gathered the council and realized that some didn’t even know each other’s name and patronymic, they practically didn’t communicate with each other, maximum - they called up occasionally. And now we all visited most of the factories of the region together, we know who lives what .... Not only machine-building enterprises, in general, more than 20 enterprises of the region, but Kurgan State University, which for me is very significant, caught up in our ranks. after all, it is the only university in the region that today trains engineering and technical personnel, as well as an industrial technical school. The regional office provides assistance to our educational sites. Bought computers for the department of mechanical engineering at KSU. Equipped an interactive classroom for the technical school. We work with educational institutions on the organization of the practice of students.
We have fulfilled the task of growing quantitatively: with us such powerful structures as ShAAZ, Vargashinsky plant of fire-fighting and special equipment, Kurgan Bus Plant, etc. I am very pleased that with us not only the enterprises of the machine-building complex, but also Len Zauralye, Sintez, I think they are attracted to our ranks by the very possibility of communication. In the near future we are going to hold a competition for the best technologist among the enterprises that are members of the regional branch of the Russian Engineering Union.
The first and main task of SoyuzMash is to introduce maximum cooperation between enterprises within the region. Create a platform for effective cooperation. And in political terms, we need to create ... a powerful regional lobbyist structure (smiles - Avt.), Which everyone would consider. A tool to protect the interests of enterprises, working people, residents of our region. Can we act together, for example, against raising tariffs? So far, we have little strength, but I think we will have a year or two undermining (smiles - Auth.)!
The Engineering Union aims to actively interact with all the constructive forces of the region. In particular, we thank the Deputy Governor of the Kurgan Region, Director of the Department of Industry, Transport, Communications and Energy Vasily Zharov for support of our undertakings.
- At the plant for more than 10 years KMZ Youth Union has been operating. And you actively support this movement. Is this a principled position?
- I think Kurganmashzavod was lucky: the directors of the old school were always present in the management of the plant, and not the so-called "effective managers"! They were aimed, in spite of any difficulties, to preserve excellent Soviet achievements. Thanks to these people and saved such forms of work. In the post-Soviet era, all this was lost, and it was in vain: after all, these are forms and methods of work that have proven their effectiveness for decades.
- In general, the social policy at the plant. How do you see her? How is it done?
- First and foremost, what we are doing in this direction is strictly following the collective agreement. We work very closely with the union. We do not have any principal conflicts in the work collective, only local ones that are overcome by dialogue. We are helping kindergartens for the opportunity to get additional places for children of factory workers. We also have a plan for financing social programs in the enterprise. We buy vouchers to the sanatorium, to children's camps. To this end, we are allocated a sufficient amount of funds by the management company of Tractor Plants, their distribution is handled by the trade union. We support the Palace of Culture of machine builders and our factory clinic. Of course, some socially oriented events today are curtailed, but we continue to implement a lot.
- I understand that this is a fundamental position of the plant itself, and of the Concern as a whole.
- Absolutely. The business of all enterprises of the Tractor Plants is socially responsible. The Concern includes 29 enterprises that form divisions of industrial, railway, agricultural engineering, special-purpose engineering. Kurganmashzavod is the head enterprise of the military equipment division. According to the number of KMZ - one of the largest enterprises of the Concern, along with Cheboksary "Promtractor" and aggregate plant, "Promlit". The Volgograd machine-building company VgTZ (manufactures and repairs airborne combat vehicles), the Lipetsk crawler tractor plant (produces the landing gear for the C-300 anti-aircraft missile systems), the Special Design Bureau of Mechanical Engineering (the only developer in the country of light armored equipment, located in Kurgan) and scientific research institute of steel (head enterprise of Russia on materials and designs of protection of arms and military equipment, Moscow).
We work in close cooperation, join forces, help each other, I would even say - we take care of. And, by the way, going back to the subject of personnel rotation mentioned above: the director of the Lipetsk plant from the Kurgan region, a former employee of the KMZ, and he is doing very well there.
Concern "Tractor Plants" implements many investment programs (in terms of transition to new technologies, the purchase of modern equipment). For example, the plant "Promtractor Wagon" in Kanash, whose director I was before coming to Kurgan, is one of the most high-tech enterprises of the Tractor Plants, a super-modern factory for the production of freight cars, whose workshops are equipped with the most advanced equipment that exists in the world mainly Japanese, German and Italian.
At the enterprises of our holding there are many social programs, including those oriented to work with veterans, with children of employees, corporate programs. During the year, collectives are held at all enterprises to select the best specialists for the Tractor Plants Award, which is very prestigious and the most ambitious within the country's industry. Get her - the highest honor! And I am glad that in 2013, the Kurganmashzavod Prize was awarded to 15 people in various nominations, they all received our corporate Oscar - the Mashinostroitel Rossii statuette (smiles - Auth.), A golden badge of distinction, as well as a cash prize. In honor of these labor heroes, a solemn award ceremony is held, which is organized in one of the cities where the enterprises of the Tractor Plants Concern operate.
I will share the pride of our team: this year, Kurganmashzavod received a corporate banner and was recognized as the best enterprise of 2013 of the year! This is for the plant, of course, an event!
The enterprises of “Tractor plants” work in a united front, shoulder to shoulder. When our plant was not easy, we survived at the expense of the Concern, and now, when the situation has stabilized, on the contrary, we are already helping our colleagues.
- The products with which KMZ is associated have always been an infantry fighting vehicle. Is it fair today?
“But the BMP was not always the main product of our plant.” At first they were gearboxes, then tractors. Today, you are right, our pride is the legendary infantry fighting vehicles, and I think they will remain so for a long time. New developments are emerging, government contracts are being concluded for the purchase of this equipment, a huge interest in it is evident from foreign customers. And to say that in the near future KMZ will develop production of civilian products along with military equipment on a parity basis, it would be wrong. Although we are seriously developing a civilian direction: transport vehicles TM 140, construction and utility vehicles MKSM 800. There are plans to create a transmission plant at KMZ to manufacture gearboxes, bridges for vehicles manufactured by the Concern, and perhaps for the entire Russian car industry. For Kurgan, this is a rather traditional topic, since, I repeat, the plant was originally built for the production of gearboxes, and transmissions were initially present here as the main products. But no one plans to move away from military subjects.
“I know that the new infantry fighting vehicle, the Kurganets 25, at the recent weapons exhibition in Nizhny Tagil caused a stir, forcing people to talk about themselves, and that the creation of this BMP was a highlight for the plant. Tell us, what is this car and what is its uniqueness?
- This is a great, completely new car, and constructive, and on combat capabilities. It was created by a team under the leadership of a unique professional - the general director, chief designer of the Special Design Bureau of Mechanical Engineering Sergey Sergeevich Salnikov. The development is fully owned by SCBM. Kurganmashzavod became the base enterprise for its production. The SKBM and KMZ specialists worked together on the infantry machine, demonstrating a symbiosis of advanced design ideas and production capabilities, and as a result, this unique machine was created in just a year and a half. And in record time. Now "Kurgantsu" will be tested, technological and design improvements, etc. We are ready for this and will do everything to ensure that the machine has acquired in full all the technical qualities incorporated in it. Indeed, this BMP embodies a fundamentally new approach to shaping the appearance of the car in connection with the new requirements of the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation.
In conclusion, I would like to congratulate the team of Kurganmashzavod on the deserved title of “Enterprise of the Year”, as well as Sergey Sergeyevich Salnikov, who was awarded by Mikhail Grigorievich Bolotin the President’s Award of the “Tractor Plants” Concern, which in both cases is the highest recognition of the invaluable contribution to competitive domestic products.
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