INSET: Arzamas Instrument Plant (AIP) named after P. I. Plandin JSC is a leader of the country’s defense and industry complex. It is the world-renowned plant manufacturing instruments for aviation, missile, space industries as well as a wide range of civil-purpose products. For more than 50 years the company has accumulated a vast experience in the design and production of gyroscopic instruments, control systems, airborne computers, steering drives, test and verification systems as well as flow meters and medical instruments.
This May AIP JSC witnessed a significant event – a new assembly shop rigged with state-of-the-art high-capacity equipment was opened. The scope of investments into the new shop amounted to ca. RUB 40 mln of both equity and loan capital. How is it possible under the sanctions when import-replacement process has just been started and it is far too early to say that the technological gap of the Russian industry has been successfully closed?
At the opening ceremony AIP General Director, Mr. Oleg Lavrichev, pointed out that the shop was established to cover the future substantial growth of the order scopes:
– The orders are growing not by several percent but several-fold. By 2017 we expect that the production scope will be doubled. First of all, the growth is expected at the expense of the increased state defense order, and we are going to develop a niche which is new for the company – radar equipment which we will manufacture in this shop.
In effect, the shop will manufacture innovative products – new control units, steering drives based on ball-and-screw units as well as transmitter assemblies and units for small-size onboard and ground-based radars. AIP will master this new area in cooperation with Arzamas Instrument Design Bureau LLC (AIDB LLC). It is worth mentioning that AIDB LLC is an AIP subsidiary company because our plant is using not only innovative products manufactured by our leading developers, but also a wide range of in-house products.
The recently (2014) established for the development of hi-tech products AIDB has already been noticed in the import-replacement process actively being unwound in the country. Searching for the company capable of creating modern hydraulic suspension for the special-purpose tactical armoured vehicle Typhoon-K without Italian components Rostar company (Tatarstan), one of the contractors of KAMAZ OJSC, addressed our company. This decision was prompted by the preliminary review and assessment of the AIP production and design capabilities.
But here it would be appropriate to point out that import-replacement is not our end purpose and by far not the basic development pre-requisite: Arzamas Instrument Plant is developing regardless of the economic circumstances, though, the circumstances above make the Plant act faster: it is economic and technological sovereignty of Russia which is at stake.
And certainly, it is not import-replacement which dictates the requirements to the AIP-branded products’ quality. Our company has traditionally been oriented at the output of the products with the quality comparable with that of the world leaders and in many ways exceeding it.
Thus, Arzamas Instrument Plant named after P. I. Plandin JSC won the “Investment Project of the Year – 2014” contest held by the government of Nizhny Novgorod region in “Investment Startup of the Year” nomination for the implementation of the project on the manufacture of the new angular rate sensor. And this is not a single victory but systemic work: upon the 2013 results AIP JSC won the diploma for winning the “Investment Project of the Year in the Area of Production Facilities Upgrade” nomination – the scope of the funds allocated for the purchase of hi-tech equipment amounted to ca. RUB 400 mln. “With investments in efficient equipment, we will be able to enhance the dynamics of development and achieve high results in production output, engineering and sales. AIP JSC is the leader of the Russian instrument-making and we want to retain this position”, said then AIP General Director, Oleg Lavrichev. Another award is the best evidence of the fact that our heading is correct and we are confidently going on it.
The fact that it is AIP, which develops numerous innovation projects, is confirmed by the company’s new victory in “Innovation of the Region” contest. Upon the results of 2013 we won in the “Military and Industrial Complex Innovations” nomination with the project “Technology of Making a Special-Design Precision Ball-and-Screw Unit”.
Currently all the leading companies on the missile equipment manufacture switch over to actuators (steering drives) of the following types: ball-and-screw and roller-and-screw. This is due to the fact that these units enable substantial expansion of the automatic drives’ functionality during their use in extreme conditions; they also provide for the substantial reduction of the weight and size. Based on the switchover to the hypersonic operations it is especially important to improve dynamic characteristics of the ball-and-screw and roller-and-screw units. AIP JSC is the only plant in the country which has the technology and relevant equipment for the ball-and-screw and roller-and-screw units’ manufacture.
The winner of the 2014 “Innovation of the Region” contest in “Innovation in Instrument-Making Industry” nomination was the project “Manufacture of Domestic Gas Meters SGBE-1.6 and SGBE-2.4 to Measure the Individual Users’ Gas Consumption Volume”. The conclusion is obvious: Arzamas Instrument Plant is developing and tends to fit the time and be competitive not only in the defense area but also in the civil segment of the Russian economy.
