Kungur. Our special correspondent Alexey Nevsky. The second day of a press tour in the Perm region for the reporters from the industrial media, on the 6th of July, started with a visit to KNAUF Gypsum Kungur enterprise.
At a press conference, its director general, Valery Filatov, who has been managing this plant since its first day of operation, told about the enterprise's unique features.
In particular, he noted that this plant, unlike the other enterprises of the company, was built from the scratch at the site of uncompleted construction. Valery Filatov had to convince both the German party and the regional administration to make a decision to open a production plant there.
In July 2001, the production was launched. At present, there are production lines of gypsum, metal profiles and other materials at the plant.
The demand for this product is great, that is why the workshop of metal profiles is operating 24 hours per day and seven days per week.
78 m euro have been invested in the enterprise, including the equipment modernization. The products are supplied in more than 30 regions of Russia and is applied in such significant construction sites, as Vostochny Cosmodrome, objects of the summit of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization and BRICS, HILTON hotels in Ufa, as well as in Mongolia, Kazakhstan and Kirghizia.
Two years of the crisis have been used by the plant management to optimize expenditure. A director general emphasized that the troubles made the company to revise its sales policy, carry out trainings of specialists in order to cut the stuff.
Answering the reporters' questions on the ways the new materials and technologies are applied at the regional construction sites, the company's representatives told that the Marketing Department is actively developing promotion of new materials and technologies in the construction area of the region. However, this isn't enough.
Head of the Marketing Department of the Perm regional Sales Directorate, Pavel Tokarev, stressed that a mechanism of quick implementation and application of modern materials isn't functioning in Russia, neither there is a legal and technical base. All this impedes the wide use of products.
Head of the Corporate Communications Service of the Central Office of KNAUF CIS, Leonid Los, added that the absence of modern legal base regarding new materials impedes correct evaluation of the end product costs. As a result, it becomes impossible to make a fair assessment of the whole object under construction.
Over the period of 15 years, the enterprise did a lot for the city's residents. According to Valery Filatov, the plant has built a technologic bridge across the Babka River and a total sum of a charitable support of the region amounts to 23 m roubles.
However, there is a little problem in the region, which the company's management didn't mention. The only road connecting the city with the industrial zone of the enterprise goes through a narrow tunnel under the old-fashioned railway. Not every bus is capable to drive through this tunnel, that is why the plant's workers have to cast a compass to get to the work. The authorities of the region haven't reacted yet to the appeals to expand the tunnel.
As a reference:
At present, 200 employees work at the plant in Kungur. Their average age is 40 years and an average salary is 48,126 roubles. At the last year end, the enterprise has become one of the five best KNAUF production sites. There are plans to launch the production of dry construction mixes with a capacity of 20,000 tons per year.
