On September 12, Anton Alikhanov, Minister of Industry and Trade of the Russian Federation, and Denis Pushilin, Head of the Donetsk People’s Republic, paid a working visit to the production site of Mariupol Machine-Building Company LLC. The purpose of the visit was to get acquainted with the enterprise’s production potential and to discuss its role in strengthening the region’s technological capacity.
During the tour of the production workshops, a substantive dialogue took place between the minister and the plant’s management. Against the backdrop of operating equipment and samples of finished products, not only current successes in import substitution were discussed, but also future growth points. The management of the Mariupol Machine-Building Company outlined a number of promising areas in which assistance from the Ministry of Industry and Trade of the Russian Federation could provide a powerful impetus to the development of both the enterprise itself and the region’s industry as a whole.
A key topic was the possible creation of a regional re-engineering center on the basis of the plant. With considerable experience in experimental machine building, the company is ready to master the production of analogues of critically important products that have fallen under sanctions, thereby forming an independent domestic engineering school.
A logical continuation of this idea was the discussion of creating an additive technology center. Equipping the enterprise with modern industrial 3D printers for metal and polymer printing will make it possible to significantly speed up and reduce the cost of developing and producing complex parts, promptly meeting the needs for scarce spare parts for the entire industry.
Looking to the future, the parties discussed the ambitious task of creating an experimental site for the introduction of artificial intelligence technologies into production processes. This involves the development of domestic software capable of automating the technological preparation of production, which will be an important step towards complete independence from foreign PLM systems.
The dialogue also reached the most large-scale, strategic level. In particular, the possibility of forming a unified machine-building cluster in the region was touched upon. The idea of uniting the industrial resources of such enterprises as “Azovmash” and “Azovelectrostal” under the auspices of a renovation center, the core of which could be the “Mariupol Machine-Building Company,” taking on the functions of planning and supporting restoration and modernization projects, was discussed.
Thus, the working visit of the head of the Ministry of Industry and Trade not only made it possible to demonstrate the current capabilities of the plant, but also outlined the contours of a future strategic partnership. The discussion of such large-scale projects emphasizes the key role assigned to the “Mariupol Machine-Building Company” in the program for the restoration and modernization of the region’s industrial potential.
