Country’s oldest gunpowder factory to boost labour productivity
For more than 230 years, the Kazan State-Owned Gunpowder Factory has been producing gunpowders and charges for almost all types of weapons, as well as hunting and sporting powders. The company is successfully introducing innovative ideas, focusing on strengthening the scientific potential and optimising production processes within the Labour Productivity and Employment Support national project.
Since the beginning of the year, FCC experts, together with the company’s employees, have been working on optimising the production processes for sports and hunting powders. During the implementation of the national project, the production of such powders increased by 30%. The in-process inventory - unclaimed products accumulated in the workshops - was decreased by 60%.
A significant increase in productivity was achieved through the introduction of lean manufacturing tools. For example, according to the results of a comprehensive analysis, it was revealed that the equipment stood idle. FCC experts have developed a whole range of measures to eliminate equipment shutdown. Some of the innovations have reduced downtime by 75%, and this work will continue in future.
The company’s employees will not stop there. In the near future, optimisation will affect all areas of gunpowder production. For this, the enterprise has its own team of changes. At the moment, a schedule has been developed for training the workshop employees in the lean production basics.