Page 29 - trends in automation

Alexey Vititnev,
General manager
of Festo Russia
Customised solutions
The plant and machine building sector in Russia has
been growing for a number of years. The Solution
Engineering Center SEC Moscow, founded in 2004, meets
the growing need for customer-specific, individualised
solutions. One of its successful special developments, for
example, is the certified drive system GBVA for the oil
and gas sector. But energy-efficient solutions are also in
great demand, in machine building as well as for water
and wastewater technology.
215 employees currently work at Festo Russia.
“The companies that we
support locally have enormous
innovation potential.”
WTO, com­panies are hoping for new market opportunities,
which they can exploit thanks to support with production
technology and expertise ‘made in Germany’. The companies
that we support locally have enormous innovation potential, but
at the moment are still producing mainly for the domestic
market.” On the other hand, Russia’s cities and metropolises
are becoming increasingly concerned with the issue of energy
efficiency. “This is precisely where our solutions in water and
wastewater technology are needed and can provide us with huge
potential for growth. Vodokanal in St. Petersburg supplies the
city’s 4.8 million inhabitants with clean drinking water and has
set the ambitious target of reducing energy consumption by
a third. Energy-saving pneumatic actuators from Festo are
used in the new block K-6 of the water treatment plant,” says
Alexey Vititnev. (Find out more in the article on page 28).
Advancement through further training
Another cornerstone of Festo’s success in Russia is learning
systems. “If Russia intends to establish itself as an exporter on
a larger scale, this will increase demand for trained personnel
in the coming years. There is a risk of a huge gap developing
here,” explains Andrey Shpitov, Head of Festo Didactic Russia.
“With our Didactic centres in Moscow, Tscheljabinsk and
St. Petersburg we advise companies, universities and public
educational institutions and provide practical training concepts
ranging from training courses and seminars right up to the
planning and equipping of industrial learning laboratories and
learning factories.” The MPEI-Festo institute at the Moscow
Power Engineering Institute (MPEI – Technical University) was
founded in 1999 to provide high-quality technical training,
advanced technical training and English language training.
Since then, more and more leading universities in Russia have
chosen Festo learning systems to train their personnel.
Customised products make the grade
According to Russia’s economic barometer, the signs for the next
few years are positive. Alexey Vititnev therefore expects average
growth in sales for Festo to be in the low double digit range.
“With our extensive range of solutions for both factory and
process automation and our range of customised products,
including low temperature applications, we are ideally
positioned for industries that are particularly relevant to the
Russian economy, such as mining, oil, gas and the aluminium
industry,” explains Alexey Vititnev, describing the objectives of
Festo Russia.
Issue 24 trends in automation
Synergies 26 – 27