Radislav Birbraer, SOLVER
Release Date: 2011-06-06
Radislav Birbraer, General Director of SOLVER, has been interviewed by Russianavia.net to discuss the company’s development as one of the Russian pioneers in engineering consulting, the role of SOLVER in adapting the product and implementing it for the Russian industries and the main challenges that lean production encounters in Russia.SOLVER has implemented 540 industrial projects in Russia, delivered and launched more than 445 automatic working places for designers and engineers and more than 670 equipment units.
Mr. Birbraer, what inspired you in early 1990s to take on the development of CAD systems and create a strong team of SOLVER engineers?
This move was a logical step forward in my career at Tjazhmekhpress (a well-known Russian manufacturer of heavy mechanical presses – Editor’s Notes) in Voronezh. I was deeply involved in creating automatic design systems long before the start of IT era when drawing tables were used as the main working platform. I was very interested in using complex methods of design and tried to involve computers in production of my design solutions as much as possible. To be able to do this, I started studying the basics of programming on my own. Then, in the 1980s, I thought that PCs could be a possible alternative for bulky computer centers that I could only access at night (during the day, they were used to calculate payrolls). Very soon, we managed, with the help of a French company, to get a system unit with 2 connected PCs which improved our designing capacities a lot, and this is how we started working with CAD – however at first it was just my effort to avoid night shifts. Tjazhmekhpress was investing a lot in its transition to CAD, in buying modern systems and training courses for its employees in France and in the UK.
When engineering brains were out of demand after Perestroika in Russia, I wanted to preserve our team from Tjazhmekhpress and give them a chance to continue their professional activities. Alexander Kovalev, who was the Director of Tjazhmekhpress at that time and who later became the first Governor of Voronezh, he supported our initiative of creating an engineering company. Its name has symbolic origins: during a training course in France where we were using manuals on applied software modules, the thickest volume titled SOLVER caught my attention. I learned that SOLVER was the very core of the system. When our company was finally established as an independent structure, I borrowed the word ‘SOLVER’ and made it a proper name.
How did SOLVER become the first company in Russia to implement R3 enterprise management system?
When SOLVER was formed in 1993, we had no clear strategy in place. As our engineers had experienced problems with automatic control systems, we looked at this issue in terms of the best international practice and saw that the best solution was R3. After we investigated its relevancy for Russia, we found that Voronezhsintezkauchuk (one of the largest manufacturers of high quality rubber, latex and thermoelastic rubber in Russia – Editor’s Notes) was looking for a similar system. This eventually became one of the first R3 projects in the Russian industry.
Many companies that implement automatic control systems in Russia are focused on natural monopolies. Was it a strategic decision for SOLVER to go in machinebuilding?
I’m convinced that Russia should capitalize on innovations. An immense field to implement innovations is machinebuilding; that is why we bet on this industry. Our first customers back in 1993 were big manufacturers like, for instance, GAZ Group (manufacturer of Volga car – Editor’s Notes). Besides, we had worked before for a machinebuilding company that was closely integrated with foreign manufacturers of control systems and hydraulic systems, and that was essential in our competitiveness. We had visual experience of a successful company, and we were firmly convinced that the demand for producing support of competitive production systems was about to emerge, and, accordingly, it was reasonable to focus on providing this kind of engineering support.
SOLVER is one of the pioneers who used the notion of engineering consulting. How can you characterize this product and its advantages for Russian machinebuilding?
As a product, engineering consulting is a system of microsurgery methods for operations on the sophisticated organism of the Russian industries with often not-so-advanced technologies. As a method, this surgery is still being formed, and there is still much room for competition.
SOLVER’s position in the value chain is between the consumers of engineering systems and the vendors of competitive solutions for the Russian companies: you adapt the product and you are ready to implement it in the Russian industry. Why do companies choose SOLVER?
According to the authors of “Outsourcing: the 10 commandments and 21 tool”, the matter is how you approach companies with solutions for machine tools and software. Solutions offered to a company should be supported by the chain of its business processes and should be used efficiently to create a product. Nevertheless, new technological solutions are often not supported by old business processes. In this case, the solution for the client company is either to outsource business processes or create new supporting business processes. We specialize on the second option.
We act as the service provider who is ready to take on new business processes that support the technology suppliers. With new technologies, a company invites us to create and implement the corresponding auxiliary business processes. To be able to monitor the derivations from the standard flow of processes, we create new standards and certify our clients' personnel accordingly.
To what extent do the business processes that SOLVER creates respond to the needs of the Russian industry and how do your products promote its modernization and creation of added value?
There are three main criteria that characterize a company’s market position: length of the production cycle, level of quality and costs of production. Any of our projects is targeted at reducing the production cycle (i.e. growth of productivity), improvement of quality and cost-cutting to form the optimal price (i.e. growth of profit). In each case, we analyze the current production, suggest and implement new production solutions to achieve our goals in terms of time, quality and costs. This is the common base for projects across different industries such as planes and oil pumps.
Mr. Birbraer, what industries are currently among SOLVER’s priorities?
We traditionally work with aviation, engineering, energy, oil and gas, railway equipment.
Talking about aviation, we would like to mention one of your new projects – engineering products made of composite materials…
SOLVER is delivering the first automatic composite placement machine in Russia to Voronezh Aviation Plant (VASO). This is cutting edge equipment by MAG for highly productive placement of high quality components with sophisticated geometry. With this unique machine, we deeply implement new technologies for component production. But even before you implement, you need to understand the processes in terms of engineering and think how to transfer this knowledge to other specialists. At the moment, we are studying automatic placement of prepregs and we’re forming consulting services on their basis, in order to transfer best practice to the aerospace companies.
In 2010, we have invested about US$ 600,000 (with the help of Sberbank) in special software by Vistagy and trained people who are now preparing automatic placement of composites for aircraft together with VASO for the arrival of the machine by MAG. SOLVER studies the processes and their peculiarities so that the implementation of the composite placement machine would take as little time as possible. As a consulting company, we saw the impressive economic effect of this technology. The main aspects of optimization are lower labor costs in composite placement and saving costly materials.
Another interesting project in aerospace is mechanic processing of aluminum semi products for production of aviation components at one of the Russian metallurgical works. This will minimize the production cycles and reduce transport and operation costs for the aviation companies and help produce more value and thus obtain better revenues for the metallurgical companies. A well-calculated concentration of the volumes of mechanical processing has resulted in achieving a ten times larger productivity per unit of special equipment that is impossible to achieve at any aviation facility.
What is your view of the prospects of implementing composites in aviation?
Some 20-30 years ago, composites were distant future. No doubt, now they are an important part of the industry. I don’t think that composites would squeeze out other types of materials but I am sure that composites will be strong partners on the market of innovative solutions in machinebuilding. Composites will contribute in reducing the weight – an essential variable in aviation, shipbuilding and the automotive industry.
Talking about implementation of composites, I would like to mention our engineering center and training and production center in Voronezh where we prepare the projects and train people responsible for mechanical processing. We structure our work so that we could supply equipment, prepare the facilities for production, describe and standardize new processes and train people at the same time.
We have come up with the idea of creating an operational prototype of modern composite production. Right now, this project is in progress, and we plan to implement it by the end of 2011. It envisages including training people for composite production using a structure called “designing with Vistagy software – manual production with projection equipment and cutting-out machines – fully automatic production”. I am sure that this section of training program will be widely demanded on the market. World famous equipment manufacturers were very enthusiastic about creating this prototype for studies and production.
What are the main challenges that lean production encounters in Russia?
Lean production is highly efficient production where the business processes and the capacities of every company correspond to the market requirements. To achieve this, you need to change the structure of production and management, change the technological system. That is why lean production is dynamic production. Lean production means higher competitiveness and profitability.
The main difficulties in its implementation derive from the fact that top managers are often reluctant to change the production processes, systems of incentives, planning systems and principles of training the staff. However, we do have positive experience which means that engineering consulting has prospects in building lean production in Russia.
| Company: | SOLVER |
| Position: | General Director |
| Country: | 俄罗斯 |