Summary of the press-conference held by Komplekt-Servis
Do we need high quality valves and fittings in Russia today?
October 14, 2009 Komplekt-Serviсe organized a press conference “Do we need high quality valves and fittings in Russia today?” that was held at Company’s booth in the frames of II International Forum PCVEXPO-2009 “Pumps. Compressors. Valves”. Yuri Sankov, General Director of Komplekt Servis, Boris Kabanov, Chairman of Chief mechanical engineers Council of Russian and CIS oil processing plants, Semen Dunaevsky, General Director deputy of Central Design Bureau for valves and fittings participated in this great event. Press-conference was held in the spirit of cooperation – Power of cooperation is a great power.
The main objective of the event was to discuss a problem of bad quality of valves and fitting smanufactured in Russia and find the ways to eliminate the risk of supplying scrapped products to high-risk fuel and energy facilities.
The problem under discussion is not new and is not explained by world financial crisis or absence of loans as well as authority nonfeasance.
The problem is so old and complex that comprises and interlaces authorities, politics, economy, history, architecture and even ethical principles.
At the time when authorities reason upon security of energy supply, necessity to support domestic manufacturers or necessity to have effective policy to replace imported goods it turns out to be that manufacturing of valves and fittings is left behind. In 2008 volumes of imported goods caught up with and even exceeded volumes of valves produced in Russia and in 2009 it went growing. Besides, this is just officially imported goods. If we take into account popular “grey” technologies and foreign products that are presented as “domestic” many of you will be surprised.
The “diagnosis” is simple – low competitiveness of products manufactured in Russia and huge vacant niche of special armature. High-risk locations are usually equipped with reliable smart imported equipment, whatever it costs, while Russian manufacturers have to fight for low price with Chinese manufacturers, for example, to work with general purpose production facilities. Chinese plants are difficult to win as Chinese authorities support them and quote good price for electricity, provide them with grants, benefits. Besides, they work very hard though their labor is not well-paid.
Competitiveness - is a measure of our efforts to make our products attractive and saleable. Competitiveness - is a measure of value for money: functionality, reliability, safety, appearance, ergonomics etc. and this balance is unstable as depends on Customer’s needs and capabilities. So, stable high quality of the products as well as low prime cost and hard work of technology specialists and designers is not enough.
Competitiveness requires flexibility to adjust to the market, wise management and ability to meet Customer requirements. Some valves manufacturers explain low competitiveness by well-known problem of technical upgrade of the plants, lack of profit and state investments. In order to get financial support from the state each plant should become professionally attractive for investments. In order to achieve much you should start with a simple thing – establish order: at work place, in a region, in the State. According to official statistics as of 2002 competitiveness of Russia takes 64th place out of 80 possible, technological state of art - 64th place, innovation activities – 76th place, investment in personnel – 71st place, efficiency of legislative activity – 51st. place. Seven years passed by, but situation is not improving. Everybody can be blamed to some extent...
We should get together and look for smart solutions and implement them. Conformity to required quality of valves and fittings is probably not as painful as food, pills, medical services, household and industrial chemistry quality or reliability of rockets and aircrafts, but cause-effect relationship is the same. We raise this problem as our mission is to solve it as we appreciate professionalism and want to live in prosperous and safe Russia.
Statistics of valves conformity to main technical characteristics indicated in technical passport was presented at the conference. The data was gathered at Komplekt-Service testing facility. Some of the participants were surprised, some were even scared, but nobody was indifferent. Statistics based on incoming inspection of 25 000 flanged valves in the range of DN50-500 PN16-63 from 20 well-known manufacturers for the period of 2008-2009 shows the problem that has been existing for about 7 years. The problem under consideration is nonconformity of the products manufactured by domestic plants to GOST requirements and unacceptable reject volumes. According to statistics scrapped products make up to 20%. If we assume that situation at the whole market of valves is the same, the amount of produced scrap is equal to no less that 150 mln.$
The existence of problems mentioned above was confirmed by the manager of one of the biggest Russian installation companies working for energy facilities. Like Kolmplekt–Servis they perform 100% incoming inspection as well as tests before installation and keep records. Leakages, obvious functional defects, pores, shears, cracks were referred to as scrap when leak tightness was declared as A or B class, but in fact corresponded to D class and even lower classes. Besides, 99% of the products do not fully correspond to declared leak tightness class and can not be accepted.
Some specialists think that present GOST standards contain too high requirements to leak tightness. May be it is high time to change standards, norms, regulations, tests technology for customers and manufacturers? But in this case we should be honest and must stop dreaming about WTO and competitiveness.
Numerous questions from journalist visiting press-conference were answered by Yuri Sankov, General Director of Komplekt Service, Boris Kabanov, Chairman of Chief mechanical engineers Council of Russian ans CIS oil processing plants and Semen Dunaevsky, General Director deputy of Central Design Bureau for valves and fittings.
Below you will find some answers of Yuri Sankov, General Director of Komplekt-Service:
- Yuri, what solutions of the mentioned quality problem can you suggest?
There are 3 main tasks that should be done to change the situation to the better:
· To elaborate and implement support and promotion programs for competitive high-quality products and innovations, put into effect investment policy and costs management (for electricity, gas) involving state authorities.
· To elaborate and implement a mechanism preventing supply of bad quality products to fuel-and-energy facilities. Bad quality products imply the items that do not meet requirements for functionality, safety, reliability, technical properties and are in conflict with GOST standards.
· To provide fuel-and-energy facilities with reliable and safe pipe fittings by cooperative effort of fair suppliers, branch associations, experts and government.
- Whose interests do you represent, Customers or Manufacturers?
Interests of our Customers, fuel-and-energy facilities, is our main priority. Our company’s goal is to provide fuel-and-energy facilities with safe and reliable valves and fittings. Moreover, we supply products of not only Russian and CIS companies, but also world wide manufacturers to achieve the set goal. Customers should have a choice of best products, professional services and just in-time deliveries.
- Looks like we create unsolvable problems for manufacturing plants, don’t we?
Firstly, there are different manufacturers. We are not interested in creating problems for constantly developing, highly professional plants with good business image. If manufacturing plant produces the items of strategic interest for our Customers we will do our best to help. By the way, statistical data given above was not open for public, but plants, interested in producing high quality products could always get this information and always can in order to improve technology and production processes.
- Do we have fair suppliers in Russia? Judging by your statistics there is no fair suppliers or there are just few…
Fortunately, there are some good suppliers. Such companies keep Russian market alive. We presented this statistical data not to identify good or bad companies, but help those who would like to improve production processes.
- Don’t certification companies declare the level of serial products’ conformity to norms and GOST standards?
Authorized company issues certificate of conformity affirming technological and legal possibilities to produce and sell items, according to GOST R requirement. Obviously, manufacturer have to save on technology, materials etc. to enter the market. So, in reality quality of the products can significantly differ from quality of the items tested by authorized certification company. As noted by Semen Dunaevsky, the situation has been more complicated recently as there are more and more certification institutions every year. They issue certificates having not a single word about product quality or performed tests.
- Why do representatives of valves manufacturers association not participating in the press-conference?
I think we have different opinions on discussed problem, though we see big cooperative work in future and are ready for comprehensive discussion of action plan with valves manufacturers association. The association has good experience, resources and background for cooperative work, but the point is – WHO will do this work and HOW it will be done.
- Do you have efficient tool to influence the situation of bad quality, scrap, unfair suppliers and so on?
We have an idea how to change the situation using efficient tools. Firstly, this is establishment of Council on valves and fittings reliability and safety. Information background will be prepared by test laboratory (TOLK), which incorporates Komplekt-Servis laboratory and other laboratories, meeting GOST requirements. Establishment of such Council was approved not only by quality experts, but also by Council of chief mechanical engineers of Russian and CIS oil processing plants. I would like to thank Boris Kabananov and Natalya Egorsheva for their support. Only authorities and certified institutions can have efficient tools in this situation. Our mission is to help authorities in our common cause.
Power of cooperation is a great power! Solidarity, professionalism and support of various innovations, particularly by government resources are key vectors for development of company, field, region, country. If everybody takes just one step to development our life in Russia will be better and safer.
