Defense industry is experiencing personnel shortage
Russian industrial companies, both private and public, are investing heavily in research and development and production modernization. This happens within the framework of the general movement of the country towards the construction of an innovative economy, and the departure from the raw material model. One of the main obstacles on this path is the lack of qualified personnel.
20 years ago, lawyers and economists were considered the most promising professions, a decade later, marketers and programmers, today everyone wants to become IT specialists and startups. Few people dream of becoming a milling machine, mechanic or turner. It is these specialties that are most in demand today in the military-industrial complex. We also need highly qualified design engineers, process engineers. The industry is actively automating, which causes the need for more programmers. A special case is the engine industry. There are very high requirements for the professional level of specialists, a long period of workability. It is almost impossible to find and attract ready-made specialists with practical experience in the design of gas turbine engines. Therefore, enterprises have to search for specialists sometimes even abroad or grow them from a student’s desk. Personnel hunger in the defense industry is acute. It is largely due to the fact that in 1990-ies, young people did not go to enterprises because of the deep crisis in this area, hence the aging of personnel, plus the demographic hole formed at the same time: the birth rate after the collapse of the Union was very low. The situation is gradually changing, and schoolchildren are going to study on specialties that are in demand in the military-industrial complex.
So, at KAMAZ, the share of employees under the age of 35 years today is more than 30%. In the Kalashnikov concern, the average age in 2013 was 47 years, and already at the beginning of 2015, 44. At the beginning of the current year, the share of UEC employees up to 35 years was 25,6%. “Roselectronica” plans to rejuvenate the team to 10% per annum of the total number of company personnel (38 thousand people), that is, it will recruit about 4 thousand thousand young specialists every year. In the Tekhnodinamika holding, the share of specialists in 18-25 age is 19%, while in 2011 it did not exceed 14%.
Motivates young people to realize themselves, to use the knowledge gained in practice in large projects in serious industrial enterprises. However, for those who follow pragmatic logic, other arguments work. Enterprises do a lot in the social sphere: they implement reimbursement programs for kindergarten payments, organize health camps for children, sanatorium-and-spa treatment and employees' rest. Rostec is starting a large-scale housing program for its employees. Rostec companies will be able to send about 2 billion rubles to their employees to improve their living conditions. until the end of this year. The participants of the corporate program will be qualified specialists of the most sought-after professions in which personnel shortages are experienced.
But there is another problem: in the opinion of the Kommersant interlocutors, the practical knowledge and skills currently taught in universities lag far behind the requirements of advanced enterprises using modern IT.
Rostec companies will be able to send about 2 billion rubles to their employees to improve their living conditions. until the end of this year
The Russian education system has a certain inertia, which prevents the specialists on the labor market from being in possession of the necessary modern technologies. Methods of quality control of education work on the rapidly aging requirements. While educational institutions are introducing, adapting and starting to use new standards, they are already beginning to lag behind the achievements of modern information technologies that are emerging on the market. As a result, according to the head of the department of new media and communication theory of the Faculty of Journalism of Moscow State University, Ivan Zasursky, many positions are now empty because you can’t find the right specialists. This is typical of any high-tech industry, which, of course, is the defense industry.
To solve this problem Rostec actively interacts with universities. At the moment, the corporation has concluded cooperation agreements with more than 200 universities, creating basic departments for training specialists. In addition, Rostec is working on the issue of combining the budgets of enterprises for educational purposes and creating a single training center - a corporate university, where it will be possible to introduce leading international practices. Cooperating with universities, other industrial enterprises also solve the problem of training. But the shortage of personnel while maintaining.
Experts note that it is necessary to strengthen the ties of universities with employers. For example, according to Ivan Zasursky, the project “Demanded Education” assumes that employers will formulate a request for solving actual problems of their business, social and practical problems in the form of topics for conducting contests of academic and dissertations. In the next academic year, starting in September, more than ten universities will take part in a pilot, voluntary phase of the project. The works of graduates will be published, and their students will be able to build a career for themselves through educational work — at least in the form of internships or internships, budget places in graduate school, or a grant to continue research. “The development of electronic systems for students, including for the publication of scientific papers, will certainly move the process to the best,” summarizes Anton Merkurov, an expert at Institute for State Ideologies.
Close to failure
A separate category of employees, which is very necessary for the defense industry, are specialists in the field of information technologies in various areas. Today it is impossible to produce modern industrial products without intensive introduction of IT into development and production processes. Therefore, the achievement of the goal of new industrialization is impossible without the digitization of engineering design, production and technological, and financial and economic activities of high-tech enterprises. “Unfortunately, the management of industrial enterprises treats IT not as a strategic task of changing the technological structure and transition to a new format of activity, but as a secondary production factor,” notes Vladimir Rubanov, a member of the public council at the Ministry of Industry and Trade of the Russian Federation. According to him, top managers poorly represent the role, place and capabilities of IT, as well as the requirements for the corresponding reorganization of the enterprise and training of personnel in their implementation. This requires that the competence of the customer of information technologies and production systems be included in the educational standard for managers.
This is a critical task, because industrial enterprises now often work on outdated systems, which increases the risk of being attacked by hackers. In the 21st century, the tasks of the defense industry complex have largely shifted to the area of cyber security. “In order to increase the defense capability, including the personnel security of the country, defense industry enterprises must not only form an order, but also anticipate it for the future. Today, a great emphasis in this area is on engineering (engines, aircraft, special equipment), recent conflicts have shown that the war of the future is primarily cybersecurity, ”says Anton Merkurov. According to him, both the defense of strategic objects and offensive functions fall into this sphere. If earlier we needed soldiers on the battlefield, then in the near future they will fight without leaving the computer. And the task of the state in this area is to provide attractive jobs and to formulate tasks aimed at developing their own products for protection.
Ideally, every automated management system (ACS) with material and human resources should already have cybersecurity capabilities built into it. In outdated solutions, of course, no. At the same time, the damage from the improper operation of such systems and the consequences of their hacking can be enormous. For example, such ACS, which in the 21st century are increasingly becoming targets of cyber-terrorists, are used at critical facilities: transportation hubs, nuclear power plants, thermal power plants, hydroelectric power plants, large industrial enterprises, etc.
One of the reasons for the shortage of high-quality IT professionals in manufacturing is the inheritance of the recruiting system, focused on several universities that have relevant basic departments
In most cases, such automated control systems are built on foreign software and hardware, which, experts say, first, is not trusted, and second, it has multiple vulnerabilities. At all the life stages of the ACS - from design to operation - the personnel involved in the processes, due to not very high competence and lack of special knowledge, can make significant mistakes, which negatively affects the security of such systems. In many ways, this situation is due to the lack of systematic training.
This problem concerns not only the enterprises of the military-industrial complex, but also other strategic sectors of the Russian economy, for example, oil and gas and electricity. Considering the special nature of the knowledge and skills gained in training, which is associated with the dual use of them, this area of educational activity should have a special level of quality control, they say in Rostec. This is not about improving federal quality control of education in the field of information security, but about creating an additional control system based on certification of the qualification level of graduates of educational institutions. To do this, it is necessary to create a set of certification requirements, define a set of trusted independent certification centers and provide opportunities for everyone to pass the tests and confirm the appropriate certification level. Development of certification programs should be based on the established professional standards in the field of information security.
In addition, no one doubts that it is necessary to introduce modern educational technologies in the field of IT preparation in Russia. There is also an opinion that it is necessary to use two types of educational programs at each level of education: one for targeted training of trainees who graduate at state-owned enterprises (national certification system), the other for trainees who have connected their careers with commercial enterprises (international certification system) . You also need to build a thoughtful cooperation between education, science and industry, which should form an order for training.
Unlike many other areas of information security, in the field of cyber security, automated process control systems for critical facilities, high-quality training requires large investments in the creation of modern educational and laboratory facilities and test and diagnostic laboratories. This state of affairs is connected with the high cost of foreign-made ACS systems (Siemens, ABB, Schneider Electric, etc.) and the fact that training specialists requires work not only with a computer system, but also with a complex hierarchical system of controllers, and both at the level of software development and at the hardware level.
That is, the competences of the professional staff of the IT sphere in Russia are focused on solving the problems of localization and adaptation of import solutions, software products and electronic equipment, programming skills and system integration. However, as Vladimir Rubanov emphasizes, today the global vector of IT development is associated with the skills of information management, conceptual and logical modeling and architectural design of complex information systems. Expectations from IT breakthroughs by focusing only on the programming industry seem to be unjustified, since IT success is associated with knowledge of the subject areas of their application, ability to set and formalize programming tasks. This requires the shift of educational programs from technical programming skills to modeling skills and the formalization of the description of activities in IT application domains.
As they say at Rostec, taking into account the existing problems with state financing of budgetary industries, you can come to a single optimal solution at the moment related to the formation of a contingent of students on a budgetary basis solely on the basis of government order with the mandatory distribution of graduates to state institutions. Training of specialists for non-governmental organizations should be conducted on a fee basis or if there is compensation for training costs, if a graduate who has been trained on a budgetary basis is forced to find a job in a non-governmental organization for one reason or another.
“Approaches to the organization of scientific and educational ecosystems in the case of the civilian sector and the defense industry are really different. Both there and there, the systems of open publication and research will play a huge role, but in the case of the defense industry, the realization of the potential of these systems depends on the levels of access. The need for information closure for “external” specialists is understandable, not only on the basis of country membership, but also generally outside the scope of the defense-industrial complex or specific concerns. However, the principle of open information exchange and competitive employment will eventually be implemented both there and there. And educational programs should, in my opinion, be tied to the specific needs of each sector of the industry, ”comments Ivan Zassoursky.
Mind exchange
Another reason for the huge shortage of high-quality IT specialists in manufacturing is the inheritance of the system of recruiting specialists focused on several universities, which have corresponding basic departments for training specialists. “You cannot get to work, for example, at TsAGI, if you have not studied where they are recruiting specialists. Therefore, the enrollment is limited to universities where there is such an opportunity, and by those students who, entering a university, already knew where they want to work. People from other universities, even if they want to work, have no chance to get employed in the military-industrial sector, because there is no recruiting system that would allow them to hire specialists that companies really need, ”explains Ivan Zassoursky. According to the expert, it is necessary to build a recruiting system in a new way, to open the entrances to a career in the defense industry and the industry at new levels. In a situation of economic crisis, a career in the DIC may be an interesting proposition for young people, especially in combination with a housing support program. Unfortunately, for now, according to Anton Merkurov, “in the short term, IT education in Russia is primarily a ticket to Europe or the Silicon Valley. There is still a strong academic education in technology universities, which still makes Russian specialists in demand abroad. ”
But, as mentioned above, good specialists do not always leave only for material reasons - the possibility of self-realization plays a big role, the chance to participate in an interesting scientific project in collaboration with experts who can learn a lot. Today, one of the main directions of improving training, in particular, in the field of information security is to create on the basis of leading educational institutions a modern laboratory base, which would allow, firstly, to gain in-depth knowledge in this area, and secondly, to carry out quality training personnel of the most varied profile: designers, operators and specialists, including in the field of cyber security of ACS. Among the possible ways, due to the initial state financing, collective centers of breakthrough IT solutions (for example, cybersecurity) can be created on the basis of leading universities, which, in terms of material and technical equipment, would be at the advanced world level and could be to ensure its subsequent funding and development.
In addition, it is necessary to make greater use of the network training opportunities noted in the new Law on Education, which will allow the efforts of professionals from various fields (technical, financial and economic, linguistic, etc.) to be concentrated in a number of areas of IT training to achieve maximum effect. in terms of knowledge and skills.
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