At the entrance of the Saint Petersburg Precision Alloys Plant, workers flash by in uniforms the color of that very stern Petersburg sky. On the jackets is a new logo — a dynamic intertwining of gray and orange rings — like a schematic image of endless interaction of multicolored metals, the joining of chemical elements, and perpetual motion. Without exaggeration, real alchemy is sometimes wrought within the plant’s walls. From early morning workers begin making precision alloys. “Precision” means “exact.” These are materials with the most exact chemical composition and predetermined physical and mechanical properties.
To be on the shop floor you are issued a vest, a hard hat, and special protective boots. Most workers prefer a hard-hat cap — a lighter hard-hat variant with a brim, in other words a baseball cap with protective elements — to the classic hard hat. This too is part of the new workwear; staff opinion was taken into account when developing it.
Dozens of stands dedicated to the enterprise’s many years of history hang in the cozy plant corridors. From here we enter production — in the electric steelmaking section room it immediately becomes warm from steel cooling in special vessels. Here some alloys begin their path. Several types of melting furnaces operate in the section, thermally processing up to 350 tons of feedstock a month.
In the electric steelmaking section several types of melting furnaces operate, thermally processing up to 350 tons of feedstock a month.
The process is supervised by Viktor Vladimirovich Romanov, deputy head of the technical department. Even at the end of the work week he is reluctant to be distracted by talk if it interferes with work: precision alloys require special control at every manufacturing stage. The specified quantity of elements in the material composition must be observed precisely in order later to obtain the needed properties from it. Real alchemy.
Viktor Vladimirovich Romanov, deputy head of the technical department
“Newly minted” alloys of all kinds go to hot rolling. There, under the mill’s weight, the metal emerges as strip requiring further processing. And here — welcome to the cold-rolling section. It is equipped with nine cold-rolling mills and cutting and surface-cleaning lines on which the needed product dimensions and physical properties are set.
The cold-rolling section is equipped with 9 cold-rolling mills and cutting and surface-cleaning lines with capacity up to 600 t per month, on which the needed strip dimensions and physical properties are set.
Cutter Viktor Nikolaevich is one of the local old-timers; he has worked at the plant for a total of forty years. “I live on Vasilyevsky Island, and here, at the Steel-Rolling Plant, I worked for 33 years. Then I left for another enterprise, but returned, and now I’ve been working here again for seven years,” Viktor Nikolaevich says. According to him, returning to the already renewed Saint Petersburg Precision Alloys Plant was largely helped by suitable working conditions and schedule.
Viktor Nikolaevich at work on the cutting line. At the plant for 40 years already.
Another employee is also quite satisfied with the conditions — the cat Dusya. Rumor has it she is not the only whiskered and striped colleague at the plant. She watches over production and helps Tatyana Karbysheva — perhaps the youngest and most airy head of quality control. Tatyana has worked at the plant only recently; in our presence she confidently and elegantly measures strip thickness with a special instrument — a micrometer.
Tatyana Karbysheva, head of quality control
A micrometer is an instrument for measuring strip thickness. The enterprise can produce the thinnest products only a few microns thick.
There are more and more young employees at the plant, notes occupational safety service head Vladimir Nikolaevich Akinshin: “There are special programs at the enterprise in which young people do internships, learn trades, and get a chance of further employment.” Established workers also get every condition for professional growth. The plant organizes advanced training for current specialists. Such a need arises ever more often amid deliveries of new equipment, production automation, and development of new materials.
Strip processing
Today, when a course has been set for import substitution and development of domestic production, the plant faces important tasks in developing and mastering new product types. This opens professional growth opportunities for many specialists and attracts young talent. Young people see that the trades of worker and engineer, technical specialties, are again in demand and promising.
Moreover, the enterprise has much to be proud of and much to teach: the Saint Petersburg Precision Alloys Plant has rich experience in mastering a full process cycle for producing certain materials. One of the few in the country, the plant can produce metal strip from specified alloys only a few microns thick. In particular, one can see this in the so-called “micron” section. Here, on mill “150,” magnetic strip is made for flight recorders — those very “black boxes” installed in aircraft. According to specialists, this thinnest metal strip remains the most reliable information keeper, withstanding extreme loads in emergency situations. And this unique product is created within the walls of PZPS LLC.
Dmitry Borisov, cold-rolling mill operator
The plant produces strip for magnetic recording in flight recorders
In their free time employees of the Saint Petersburg Precision Alloys Plant play football. “We have our own team ‘PZPS’; soon we’ll have football kits too,” Vladimir Nikolaevich smiles. Management rents a hall on Vasilyevsky Island for regular training; employees come with children and supporters. The team is still young and plays for enjoyment, but it will not be long before it takes part in plant club championships. For now football at the plant has a male face, but everything is still ahead. True, there is a high probability that the female part of the collective, which according to employees is becoming ever more numerous, will choose another sport. Be that as it may, one thing is clear: the enterprise is moving forward, expanding and transforming into something more than just a plant, and its soul — a friendly collective — lives by its work and does not intend to stop at what has been achieved.
