A New Car Building Plant is launched in Russia

Tikhvin (Leningrad region), January 30th, 2012. Today, Vladimir Putin, the Head of the Government of the Russian Federation, has participated in the ceremony of the launch of the brand new car building plant constructed with the assistance of the ICT Group of companies in the town of Tikhvin.

The symbolic launch of production was carried out by the Russian prime-minister Vladimir Putin and the president of the ICT Group of companies Alexander Nesis. Start-up of the Tikhvin Freight Car Building Plant will become a remarkable benchmark for the Russian industry. For the first time in more than half a century an innovative full-cycle enterprise has been constructed – car assembly and foundry production are integrated into a single technological complex ensuring high rate of productivity and flexibility of production.

The project of the Tikhvin Freight Car Building Plant is implemented by the ICT Group together with the state development institutes – Vnesheconombank and Eurasian Development Bank. Total amount of investment makes 36 bln rubles into the industrial production and 6 bln rubles into the housing construction for the plant`s employees. On the amount of investment, production facilities and level of the technological infrastructure it is one of the most large-scale objects in the European machine building industry.

Tikhvin Freight Car Building Plant is a unique enterprise comprising discrete and continuous production into a single structure. Labor capacity at the main TVSZ car building production will comply with the level of the world transport companies such as Alstom, Siemens, Wabtec and exceeds several times the figures of the domestic enterprises-producers of the freight rolling-stock. Every 4.5 minutes the plant will manufacture a wheel set, every 24 minutes a new car will be produced at the TVSZ conveyor. Production capacity of the facility makes 13 thousand new-generation freight cars, 90 thousand tons of railway castings and 65 thousands of wheel sets per annum.

For the first time technologies and expertise of the world car building and auto industry are applied in the production of the railway cars. Reputable producers from over 40 countries around world are the suppliers of the main technological equipment for the plant. Automated lines and industrial robots of such world leaders as Danobat (Spain) and German Eisenmann, KUKA Systems, Heinrich Wagner Sinto and Siemens-VAI installed at TVSZ facility are applied at the enterprises of the international groups Volkswagеn Group, General Motors, BMW AG, Ford Motor Company, Airbus S.A.S. Tikhvin Freight Car Building Plant foundry production features equipment which the world’s only analogue is used at the manufacture of castings for the auto trucks by the enterprises of the Daimler AG German group.

Tikhvin Freight Car Building Plant is a sort of “intellectual gadget” with the size of a quarter of a million square meters. The plant`s infrastructure constitutes a hi-tech architecture, comprising the enterprise`s resource planning system (ERP-system), applied, in particular, at the facilities of the Boeing corporation, product lifecycle management system (PLM-system) and up-to-date information and communication technologies.

The large-scale use of the Tikhvin freight cars will have the prominent systematic impact on the entire railway mode market. The cost of repairs and maintenance of the new-generation cars fetches as much as 50 percent less than that of the standard. The operation of the new-generation cars will enable to cut RZD’s costs for servicing the railway infrastructure (by holding the impact of the cars on a rail track down by up to 15 percent) as well as to mount the capacity of the network. Application of the fundamentally new for the Russian market design of “Barber” bogie casting will dramatically improve the railroad safety, quality of the freight cars fleet and in all, efficiency of the haulage.

In parallel to the construction of the plant, the ICT Group has implemented the large-scale social program for resettlement and providing accommodation to the plant’s employees, under which 125k square meters of living space (more than 2,000 flats) has been built in the modern housing estates. This is one of the largest projects of the housing construction in the Leningrad region. The plant employees can take an advantage of various programs for taking possession of the property or temporary use: social renting, corporate housing mortgage program in cooperation with the OJSC “Bank of Khanty-Mansiysk” and OJSC “Agency of Housing Mortgage Lending”, “Resettlement” program with OJSC “Agency for Restructuring of Housing Mortgage Loans” (ARIZhK), state financial assistance (maternity capital, housing certificate for the reserve officers).

At present the enterprise employs 1,500 people. Once the ramp up of the Tikhvin Freight Car Building Plant is achieved, the total number of working places will amount to 4,500 people.

ICT Group of companies is one of the largest, privately-owned investment and industrial holding companies in Russia. It manages assets in financial industry, precious metal mining, heavy and industrial engineering, commercial and industrial development. Currently, the portfolio of assets under the Group’s management includes such companies as Polymetal, NOMOS-BANK, Khanty-Mansi Bank, and Tikhvin Freight Car Building Plant. The Group also holds large equity stakes in Uralkali, Baltic Leasing, etc.