6 October 2020

Leading expert in the lean production from Japan visited the Nevsky plant

Tadzuke Naoto, сhiefe engineer of the Tanex Japan Co Branch, evaluated the implementation of lean production tools at the Nevsky plant. The plant from Saint-Petersburg is a first-wave participant of the national project «Labor productivity and employment support» in the North-West region, which aims to optimize production processes, reduce costs, improve the quality and competitiveness of products. The Federal Competence Center (FCC) provides targeted support to the company.

Mr. Naoto visited the casing production shop and the final assembly site of compressors used on the main gas pipelines. Currently, the process of replicating the experience gained in the course of work with the FCC experts is under way at these production sites. At the end of the visit, a summarizing meeting was held, at which Tadzuke Naoto shared his findings.

«Nevsky plant has deeply rooted traditions of manufacturing. I am glad to work jointly for searching new approaches in the framework of solving the productivity increase issue. In the areas that I have seen, it is necessary to make visualization of production processes and monitor fluctuations in the time spent for certain operations on a daily basis, identify problem situations, analyze their causes and quickly develop solutions. In addition, it is important to focus not only on shortening the production cycle, but also on minimizing losses and maximum standardization of production. I think this will give certain improvements. They will not happen immediately. You'll need to work on that. In six months, at most a year, you will receive an economic effect from the implementations», – said Tadzuke Naoto.

The implementation of lean production tools under support of the FCC experts began in May 2019 at Nevsky plant. In particular, at the production site of the compressor equipment rotary part a system of unified equipment maintenance and daily monitoring of the production targets implementation was introduced. These and other lean production tools let reduce the production lead time by three times, increase the overall efficiency of equipment by 9%, and the output in this site by 27%.

During the project, 430 employees were trained in lean manufacturing tools. The 5S system, which has reduced the number of tools and accessories, covers 63 jobs.
Three internal trainers were trained according to the methodology of the Federal Competence Center, one of them received the status of the best lean production trainer among internal trainers of all enterprises in the Russian Federation participating in the national project.

«The FCC brings together the leading Russian experts in the field of lean production. They help the participants of the national project to become competitive. The opinion of Tadzuke Naoto is the very one view from the outside that we talk about to the heads of Russian companies, when we demonstrate them the benefits of our support. His recommendations make our joint work with plants more efficient», said Nikolay Solomon, the Director General of FCC giving thank Mr. Naoto.

The roadmap for development of the production system of the Nevsky plant until 2022 includes the implementation of the projects and further implementation of the 5S System at 10 production sites of the plant including casing, assembly, tool-mechanical, assembly-welding, packaging, blade and metallurgical productions. The goal for the next three years is to increase the labor productivity by 30%.

«We are grateful to Mr. Tadzuke Naoto for visiting our plant, for his expert assessment and a number of valuable practical recommendations during the visit. I am sure they will definitely find application in the production system of the Nevsky plant within the frame of implementation of the programs to increase the productivity and develop the culture of continuous improvements», said Vladimir Kvach, the deputy general director for development of the Nevsky plant.

Reference:

The national project was approved with the May decree of the President of the Russian Federation Vladimir Putin in 2018 and is meant to create conditions for annual increase of labor productivity in the country by 5% until 2024. To implement the tasks set, the Government of the Russian Federation developed a package of measures of state support for business, which includes financial incentives, employment support and expert assistance in production process optimization.

The Federal Competence Center in the field of labor productivity (FCC) is the operator of the national project «Labor productivity and employment support». The main target of the project is to ensure the growth of labor productivity at medium and large size enterprises of the key non-resource branches of the Russian economy by at least 5% per year by 2024 through introduction of the lean production culture. The project also serves to determine the interest of the business to the problem of labor productivity growth, formation of product and services market on increasing labor productivity in the Russian Federation. At least 10 000 enterprises from 85 constituent entities of Russia will be involved in the project. About 79 500 employees of companies will be trained in lean production tools.

«Nevsky plant» CJSC is the oldest industrial enterprise in Saint-Petersburg, the leading power-machine building enterprise in Russia. It carries out design development, manufacturing and package supply of power equipment for the oil and gas industry, metallurgy, chemical and power generation industries. The supplied equipment is widely used for modernization of the gas transmission system, in the construction of modern power units and power plants, in small generation sector, for LNG market and a number of other industries.
The plant was founded in 1857 and for over 75 years the company has been developing and manufacturing products for power machine engineering: industrial stationary gas and steam turbines, centrifugal and axial compressors and boosters. Since December 2019 it has been a part of the «Gazprom energoholding» Group.

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