Russian Elevator: Missile Makers’ Secret Project

05.02.2010 — Analysis

Urals engineers have designed an elevator with frequency controlled drive using permanent magnets which is not a novelty to developed countries while for Russia this is hot news in this sphere. The developers claim that they took into account all present trends in elevator making and involved the most up to date production facilities. Around ten enterprises are participating in this cooperation in the Sverdlovsk Oblast.

The work, however, is not done as fast as business would have wished. It has been planned that in December 2009 CJSC Pyshma Elevator Building Plant would produce the first batch of lifts. Aleksandr Korablyov, the Head of Soyuzliftmontazh Ltd., whose company installs most varied lifting devices, asserted that there is no new elevator in the market so far. The expert assumes that "The guys in Pyshma have nothing to offer yet. As far as I know, they are still working on the winch drive."

A representative of FSUE NPO Automation, the company that initiated the development of the control system for the new elevator, confirmed this information. Serghey Gruzdev, the Deputy Director General of the company, told us that the testing is not completed yet. There are still issues with the winch and control system. According to the expert the design is of a medium class and is based on the imported components: "We studied and employed the state of the art developments in the elevator building. This is why the lift can not be faulted from the point of view of its technical characteristics. The process of starting up batch production of a new product cannot be skipped, however, the final tuning stage is always necessary. I think the tests will require few more months, I have no further information on this."

Dmitriy Kravets, the Director General of CJSC Pyshma Elevator Building Plant, points out that it is possible to make endless improvements on the product which is why the company sets February as a month of getting ready for the batch production. The documents are ready, the expert claims, the production process is tested, the suppliers are determined. In 2010 the plant is planning to make 100 lifts per month. The plant has the capacity to make as many as 3000 lifts per month and more but the plant managers are aware of how difficult it will be for them to get a foothold in this market.

The need in lifts in the Sverdlovsk oblast is rather serious, according to the Interregional Territorial Administration of Rostechnadzor for the Urals Federal District about 80% of passenger lifts (3,000 units) are at the end of their service life. Over 500 are being added to this list annually. Replacement of worn out elevators has been lagging behind the demand quite considerably in recent years.

The situation began to change when the federal money was allocated by the Fund for Housing and Services Reform. In 2009 around 850 lifts were replaced in Ekaterinburg more than a half of which were made at the plant in Shcherbinka, near Moscow. About a third of the lifts for the Urals capital were purchased in Mogilyov (Belorussia).

Experts are saying that these figures do not reflect the real situation in the market. Shcherbinka lifts dominate because they are lobbied by federal officials who give money to the regions for the renovation of services infrastructure. Management companies, however, if they had enough money, preferred to purchase imported machines. 

A Russian lift's price averages at about 600 thousand roubles, a high quality imported machine costs dozens of times more. The difference between them, of course, is like the difference between a Zaporozhets car and a Mercedes, claims Evgheniy Chasov, the Chief Designer of the Urals Elevator Building Plant. Chinese companies offering better quality than Russian at prices lower than western are trying to fill the gap. Leading foreign companies are also trying to adjust for the less wealthy Russian consumers, OTIS, for instance has established the lift assembly line in Saint Petersburg which uses Russian components. Specialists are unanimous in that this lift will discredit the trade mark of the famous company - control systems burn out, Russian components often have to be replaced by imported ones.

Russian have learned the lesson of the St Petersburg "otis", the manufacturer in Shscerbinka imports the most important components i.e. winches, control systems and drives. However, using the frequency controlled drive in the winch raises the cost by 200 thousand roubles straight away which is a significant sum for management companies.

The price is not the only thing hindering the sales. Lift operators all but swear at the products and, most importantly, service offered by the domestic elevator makers. Management companies claim that they always hit the wall of endless red tape, missing or incorrect components, incorrect design etc. Suggestions for modernization are simply ignored.

In experts' opinion the key cause hindering the progress in the Russian lift building sector is in the mentality of manufacturers. For instance one plant refused to take order for the magnet core for a Russian made transformer only because a special die had to be made for it. The refusal officially was justified by the production being extremely busy at the time. The consumer has a different point of view on the issue: engineers did not want to get involved with a new product as this carries risks and headache.

The empty room left by manufacturers always gets filled by something. Some installation companies came up with own ways to modernize a usual Russian made lift to "business-class" - they finish the cab with stainless steel, install frequency controlled drives on doors and winch. They say that a lift runs like clockwork and is affordable enough for housing proprietors. Russian makers, it seems make problems where there was none and give the market away to competition.

Dmitriy Kravets asserts that the requirements to quality of products for Russian consumers have grown rather a lot and the reputation of domestic producers is so bad that nobody wants to order lifts without a good proven track record. And it is contracts that the Urals lift makers need to test their new designs in real life.

Vladimir Terletski