The Rosatom Production System (RPS) is a culture of lean production and a system of continuous process improvement to ensure competitive advantage at the global level.

The RPS is based on five principles that encourage employees to be attentive to the requirements of the customer (not only in relation to the end user, but also to the consumer site, the consumer workshop and even the subsequent operator); solve problems at the place of their occurrence; build quality into the process, do not produce defects; identify and eliminate any waste (excess inventory, backlogs, downtime, unnecessary movements, etc.); be an example for colleagues.

These principles were formulated on the basis of the best examples of domestic and foreign experience, in particular, the system of scientific organization of labor, production and management (NOTPIU) of the USSR Ministry of Medium Machine Building and the Toyota Production System of the Japanese automobile company Toyota. The production system of Rosatom is aimed at fulfilling the strategic goals of the State Corporation, and industry RPS projects are aimed at increasing productivity, reducing costs and improving product quality. Knowledge and ability to apply RPS tools is a prerequisite for professional and career growth of nuclear industry employees.

At the beginning of 2015, it was decided to apply a systematic approach to the deployment of RPS at enterprises: decomposition of goals to the level of the head of the site, optimization of the production of the main products of the enterprise (production flows), implementation of RPS projects, training and motivation of employees. By 2017, the system deployment contour has grown from 10 to 23 RPS enterprises. Until 2020, there will be about 30 of them, their products will form about 80% of the total cost of Rosatom.

According to the development concept of the Rosatom Production System, all enterprises where the system is being integrated are divided into three levels: "RPS Leader", "RPS Candidate" and "RPS Reserve". RPS Leader enterprises receive a package of privileges (business coach visits to the enterprise, the opportunity for employees to travel to exchange experience at foreign and Russian advanced enterprises, family vouchers, certificates for training at the Rosatom Corporate Academy, participation in the Workspace Design project and etc.).

At present, the introduction of RPS at the enterprises of the industry has already made it possible to achieve significant savings, reduce stocks in warehouses and the timing of scheduled preventive repairs at Russian nuclear power plants.

The Rosatom Production System (RPS) is a culture of lean production and a system of continuous process improvement to ensure competitive advantage at the global level.

The RPS is based on five principles that encourage employees to be attentive to the requirements of the customer (not only in relation to the end user, but also to the consumer site, the consumer workshop and even the subsequent operator); solve problems at the place of their occurrence; build quality into the process, do not produce defects; identify and eliminate any waste (excess inventory, backlogs, downtime, unnecessary movements, etc.); be an example for colleagues.

These principles were formulated on the basis of the best examples of domestic and foreign experience, in particular, the system of scientific organization of labor, production and management (NOTPIU) of the USSR Ministry of Medium Machine Building and the Toyota Production System of the Japanese automobile company Toyota. The production system of Rosatom is aimed at fulfilling the strategic goals of the State Corporation, and industry RPS projects are aimed at increasing productivity, reducing costs and improving product quality. Knowledge and ability to apply RPS tools is a prerequisite for professional and career growth of nuclear industry employees.

At the beginning of 2015, it was decided to apply a systematic approach to the deployment of RPS at enterprises: decomposition of goals to the level of the head of the site, optimization of the production of the main products of the enterprise (production flows), implementation of RPS projects, training and motivation of employees. By 2017, the system deployment contour has grown from 10 to 23 RPS enterprises. Until 2020, there will be about 30 of them, their products will form about 80% of the total cost of Rosatom.

According to the development concept of the Rosatom Production System, all enterprises where the system is being integrated are divided into three levels: "RPS Leader", "RPS Candidate" and "RPS Reserve". RPS Leader enterprises receive a package of privileges (business coach visits to the enterprise, the opportunity for employees to travel to exchange experience at foreign and Russian advanced enterprises, family vouchers, certificates for training at the Rosatom Corporate Academy, participation in the Workspace Design project and etc.). At present, the introduction of RPS at the enterprises of the industry has already made it possible to achieve significant savings, reduce stocks in warehouses and the timing of scheduled preventive repairs at Russian nuclear power plants.

In 2017, TsKBM JSC received the status of “RPS Leader” due to the development and improvement of two main flows: “Production of the withdrawable part of the RCP” and “Zero group flow”, work on which has been systematically carried out at the enterprise since 2014. The fulfillment of quantitative and qualitative indicators, as well as business goals (share of total costs, order turnover, labor productivity) was ensured. The peer reviews that were carried out at the CDBM in 2017 and 2018 and the engagement studies confirmed the achievement and consolidation of high results.

In March 2018, TsKBM confirmed the status of "RPS Leader" and became the first in the rating of RPS enterprises of ROSATOM.

Not so long ago, my colleague was in Obninsk at Rosatom's advanced training courses. So, as soon as the AKP was mentioned in a conversation among themselves, an absolutely unanimous flurry of indignation and indignation arose. Everyone said that due to the huge amount of absolutely unnecessary papers, there is simply no time left for the main work, people are forced to stay after work, the production itself is left to chance. So what is this abbreviation that caused a sharp rejection reaction from completely different people - managers, engineers, economists from all over Russia?

The history of the creation of the RPS, its essence

RPS is the production system of Rosatom, which has been implemented since 2009. It is based on the Toyota Lean Manufacturing System (TPS), which was developed in Japan between 1945 and 1975. in specific conditions: in post-war times, Japan lay in ruins and the country needed new cars of various types (cars, light and medium-duty trucks, etc.) in small quantities. Some provisions, for example, the color differentiation of details, are associated with the illiteracy of workers, and in the post-war period these were mostly peasants. As in tsarist Russia: hay-straw. The main idea is the right parts just in time in the right place. The idea is good and not new at all. But here is the implementation of this idea ...

Although the production of fuel for nuclear power plants is fundamentally different from the production of cars, especially in post-war Japan, Rosatom created a separate structure for the implementation of the RPS - the directorate (Director for Development of the RPS - S.A. Obozov) with 41 people. RPS structures were also created at the enterprises of the TVEL fuel company, including the Machine-Building Plant in Elektrostal, the main producer of fuel for nuclear power plants in Russia.

Enterprises organized RPS bureaus and set up departments in workshops with functionaries released from their main work. I think that there will be several hundred of such released people, who are not included in the central staff of OAO RPS, according to Rosatom.

In general, the Toyota lean manufacturing system is a set of previously known techniques from any textbook on economics or production organization dating back to Soviet times and successfully applied in practice:

So, how would they, the famous "pull system" is nothing more than a planning system for the release of products, taking into account interoperational backlogs, which was used at the plant before.

Kaizen: there are and have always been plans for technical re-equipment, while free creativity was encouraged - the submission and implementation of rationalization proposals and inventions.

About the notorious 5C principle (restoring order and cleanliness, according to which 90 page guidelines have been issued and elevated to the rank of philosophy!) And it’s ridiculous to talk - it’s as organic as washing hands before eating, in addition, there are workshop and factory commissions on production culture constantly addressing these issues.

Andon, JIDOUKA (Jidoka): do not transfer the defect to the following operations - both earlier and now, the defect found at the plant was seized and placed in the reject isolator, there are special guidelines for this.

Gemba - production meetings should be held in production premises.

Muda is unproductive waste that must be minimized.

Now to the question: "Where did you go?" sometimes they answer: "to gemba, to eliminate muda."

PSR - shackles for production workers

Thus, this whole system is reduced to a set of well-known banal truths. A ton of secondary and additional documents appeared with many indicators, different strategies: 3 steps, 5 questions, 14 principles, etc. etc. We are required to fill out a huge amount of paperwork in the form of plans, graphs, tables, reports, presentation of long-term and "ambitious" plans, etc. About 90 documents appeared on the RPS factory site during the year, many of them under 100 pages, in addition, there is a wave of instructions and orders. Moreover, the specifics of production - special requirements for the quality (reliability) of products - are not taken into account at all.

The company has unique equipment with various processing cycles. However, an RPS team from Rosatom, led by a Toyota consultant, arrives, walks along the line and points out that the storage tanks should not have more than 3-5 fuel elements (fuel element). This leads to downtime of the entire line when one installation fails. There is only one answer to attempts at discussion: you do not know how to work, such a place is behind the fence.

All this resembles a universal pill for all diseases and is called quackery. Moreover, mutually exclusive tasks are set - to eliminate interoperational backlogs as a class and at the same time increase productivity. It is also unnatural as the cultivation of high morality in a brothel: the owner of the brothel says: “Girls, in the morning we study the bright image of Natasha Rostova, in the afternoon answer me, and to clients, to clients. And whoever does not reveal the topic fully enough will go to the Cop subbotnik.

Numerous indicators, graphs, diagrams, reports have the same connection with productivity improvement as in the well-known Schweik problem: there is a four-story house, each floor has eight windows, 2 dormers and 2 pipes on the roof, 2 tenants on each floor. Now tell me, gentlemen, in what year did the porter's grandmother die? It is as if, before washing dishes, the hostess draws a schedule on half a wall and marks in it every washed clove of each fork, the consumption of water, soap, electricity and calculates her productivity.

Here is an excerpt from only one document “Regulations on small groups” (MG: 6-10 people): The format of the DPA (industrial analysis board) is set in the unit and MG (12-20 charts, many of which are color and processed using special programs), while hourly production analysis should be carried out. The MG leader is the most skilled worker of the MG members. Those. the most competent worker (out of 8 people!) is imprisoned for filling out unnecessary pieces of paper, although all the data is in the electronic database, while he will not have time for more. Well, engineering and technical personnel fill in all this in an expanded volume for the department, and some indicators are suitable for a PhD thesis.

In a few years, the RPS has grown so much that it has become self-sufficient and functions, issuing a mountain of papers, and, in general, it does not need production, it can work on its own and for itself.

And the decrease in the number is carried out by will - periodically pinch off one person at a time, because even RPS workers cannot explain the connection between labor productivity and dozens of pictures. There is a purposeful knocking out of personnel, on which the quality and reliability of products depend to the greatest extent: highly qualified workers are simply reduced, and their engineering and technical leaders are reduced and drowned in a sea of ​​paper, not allowing them to work normally. And then it’s even worse - an assault of RPS workers from Rosatom landed at the plant (with salaries several times higher than ours) and my colleague, the head of the fuel rod and assembly manufacturing section, is sometimes surrounded by three at once: one demands to immediately build diagrams, the other to draw pictures and fill in the tables, the third one requires a hundred magnets to create another "supermarket" (an unnecessary stand with dozens of useless pieces of paper, which are fastened with magnets). A person is simply not able to do work. And you can’t send them - they immediately run to complain to the director.

And it would be fine, there were really specialists, otherwise one of them recently asked me “such a ruler”, trying to explain with gestures, which, in the end, it turned out that he needed a square! Of course, they own complex programs for constructing tables, graphs, diagrams, but all their activities are efforts directed perpendicular to the direction of movement - no matter how much you increase them, the speed will not increase, but vice versa, it will decrease due to an increase in friction force. One could still put up with a parallel reality, but I'm afraid this perpendicular world will push us into the abyss.

AKP as a non-economic shamanic ideology

The AKP consists of elements of coercion and propaganda, I analyzed what is more in it, what it looks like: either the church of the times of the Inquisition and the crusaders, or the commissars of the 20-30s with their agitprop, and decided that more on the latter , something like shamanistic commissars (shamkors).

Methods for achieving their goals: cost reduction - non-economic, performance evaluation is also non-economic. The ideology is more like a shamanic cult with totem signs - huge stands with a bunch of graphs, reports, tables, charts, plans, some of which workers have to fill out every half hour; taboo system - there should not be more than 8 people on the line (now no more than 6, in the short term -5); there should be no objections - whoever is not with us is against us; all stands should have fresh pictures; floors should be washed only using the principles of 5C, rituals and mantras at the stands.

The reaction of production workers to the arrival of top shamkors is one to one - the reaction of a peasant to the arrival of commissars. If the peasants hid grain and livestock, then we hide the fuel rods, removing them from the line, because it is impossible to work with backlogs of 3-5 fuel rods, and a container with products, stuffing them into nooks and crannies throughout the workshop. If they see a sitting operator controlling the normal course of the process, or filling out technical documentation, the favorite question is why is he sitting? And what the operator should do - whether to spin like a dervish, or jump, joyfully squealing, they do not say, because they themselves do not know.

Instead of solving serious problems, AKP managers are engaged in the creative beggars: “Let's use a cap instead of a hat!”.

Or even worse, technically unfounded ideas are put forward that can cause a collapse in production: they constantly demand to manufacture fuel elements for 1 fuel cassette, then repeat for another, and so on. And the fuel rods in the cassette of different enrichments, to switch to another type, you need to remove the fuel pellets, rebuild the equipment. It's the same as when producing a car for him alone, M10 nuts are first made, the equipment is rebuilt, then M14, the equipment is rebuilt, then M16, etc., 1 car is assembled and the cycle is repeated. As they say, no comment! And the Japanese generally put forward proposals, and in a categorical form, which cannot be called otherwise than nonsense.

In the statutory documents, RPS is positioned as a consulting company with the following activities:

advising on business and management issues;

provision of services for analyzing the efficiency of the enterprise, optimizing the production process, training and conducting trainings, implementing methods aimed at reducing unproductive losses.

Apparently, the RPS significantly exceeds its powers, spreading metastases to all Rosatom enterprises (332 affiliated enterprises as of March 31, 2015), commanding them all, while not answering for anything.

Yes, and from the point of view of management theory, the RPS is some kind of irresponsible slap on the side (according to science - a system without feedback, no matter what they do, production will respond).

According to the report for 2013 (point 2. RPS OJSC does not have branches and representative offices. Where did the RPS bureaus at enterprises and the released workers in the shops come from? And then, when providing consulting services, a tender should be held, an agreement concluded and remuneration paid based on the results It turns out that enterprises perform their work for RPS JSC and also report to them!

Everything is upside down! Except for the directorate of the AKP, everything else is illegal - just some kind of initiative imposed from above. Now "pictures" are drawn by more people than fuel rods.

An analogy comes to mind with regional committees, which in Soviet times gave instructions on when to plow, sow, harvest, how deep to plant potatoes, etc. How it ended, everyone knows. But at least they were responsible for their instructions. So, in 1959, the first secretary of the Ryazan Regional Committee received the Hero of Socialist Labor for fulfilling the meat plan three times, and a year later he shot himself because he put all the cows under the knife, and there was no more meat or milk. These won't shoot. They blame production for everything - the analysis had to be done not according to 80 indicators, but according to 180, to fill out papers in the "supermarket" not every half an hour, but every five minutes, etc. etc. But there are almost no cows left.

Redistribution of financial flows to RPS

RPS functionaries receive a certain percentage of the savings for any type of enterprise activity, so 3 magic letters "RPS" are inserted into any document. Recently, the number of personnel at the site has decreased by almost 2 times with a plan that has grown by 30%, but salaries have remained at the same level. According to existing standards, there should be 2 times more staff on the site. Obviously, the saved funds go to the maintenance of the RPS structure. According to protocol No. 1 dated September 30, 2011, until the end of 2011, 42,105,000 rubles are allocated for only one RPS task. The technical director spoke to the workshop team with the following information: the profit of the plant in 2011 was 1,700 million rubles, and in 2012 it was planned to be 200 million rubles, and all of it will be distributed through the RPS. In 2012 RPS JSC received 277,264,000 rubles for consultations alone, and this was only for the central office, and given the hundreds of employees throughout Rosatom, and hundreds who are formally listed as workers and engineers, but who are exclusively engaged in RPS, who are on the balance sheet of enterprises, their covens ( they call them conferences) throughout the country (in April of this year - in Sochi), the amount will be several times higher. Now RPS workers will unfasten the crumbs from their production table according to criteria they alone know (if there is a good mood and greed does not completely suffocate).

No wonder George Orwell is considered a great writer. In the same 1945, his book Animal Farm was published. Our situation is very accurately predicted there:

“Sometimes it began to seem that although the farm was growing rich, this abundance had nothing to do with animals - except, of course, pigs. Of course, they did not shirk from work. They were loaded with, as Squealer never tired of explaining, endless duties of supervising and organizing farm work. Much of what they did was simply beyond the understanding of animals. For example, Squealer explained that pigs daily pored over such mysterious things as "summaries", "reports", "minutes" and "memos". They were large, thickly written sheets of paper, and as they were filled, the sheets were burned in the stove. The prosperity of the farm depends on this work, Squealer explained. But still, the pigs did not create any food with their labor, and their vast collective always had an excellent appetite.

Results of RPS activities. Beginning of the End

Yes, and all the activities of the RPS employees resemble the habits of these cute animals: all the acorns in the clearing have already been eaten and digging has begun under the oak. And the fact that the roots of the oak have already been exposed does not bother them. Examples? - please: in the summer of 2011. at one of the nuclear power plants, 3 cassettes were depressurized, fuel rods were found to be corroded in the reactor - this is an emergency. And these cases began to be repeated with frightening regularity. Quite recently, during the start-up of one reactor, the components of fuel assemblies began to fall off, their completion will cost millions (tens of millions?) Rubles. And these fuel rods and assemblies are made just at the sites where workers run from one operation to another, and engineers are busy drawing pictures that stretch along the line for tens of meters, like shingles. And there are 2 times fewer workers on the line than three years ago. And then a team of RPS from Rosatom, headed by a consultant from Japan, arrives, about 15 people, and thoughtfully pronounces that one more should be cut. Welders and other skilled workers, on whom the reliability of fuel rods depends, are forced to perform other tasks, so that they do not have enough time for their main work. What kind of full-fledged product control can there be? Delays began with the supply of components with a sharp deterioration in their quality. This had never happened before. Recently, we received defective components, with them we assembled 2 fuel assemblies that cannot be put into the reactor, a loss of about 20 million rubles.

Some young lady from the AKP, who seemed to have never worked in production, angrily reprimanded the production director that meetings should be held daily at the sites. You can’t disobey - they set up stands with pictures 18 meters long in our workshop (the people immediately aptly dubbed them the wailing wall), and the management of the plant and the main workshops gather there daily. If at this time an emergency situation occurs, and the manual is not in place, the wrong decision may be made, here you have depressurization of the cassettes and defective components. I have been working at the enterprise for a long time, and I have never seen such a heavy, oppressive, hopeless atmosphere, the farther, the more imbued with a sharp rejection of the activities of the incompetent overseers put over us and drove, apologists for nonsense. We, due to the specifics of production, employ competent, qualified employees, they see and understand everything, and the most common reaction to this whole bacchanalia: "absurdity, insanity, injustice." If in 2009 the value of a share of MSZ OJSC was 11,400 rubles, then on July 16, 2013 it was 1,800 rubles - the market cannot be deceived by beautiful pictures and pseudo-scientific texts.

By the way, at the site for the manufacture of fuel rods for the AREVA company, the company's management banned such activities led by the Japanese, and there is not a single refusal for their products!

Road to nowhere. Application of the Toyota system in the world and in Russia

Consider the problem from the other side, according to the available facts. Lean expert Curtis Quirin, who has traveled half the world, laments that, if you think about it, only three companies have successfully implemented lean. These are Toyota, Honda and Danaher. All other enterprises that have embarked on the path of implementing this production system are very superficially engaged in the use of Lean manufacturing tools. And these efforts are wasted. Those. the system does not take root anywhere, and the above-mentioned 3 firms work, most likely, not thanks to, but in spite of the system.

An example from Russian industry: Nizhny Novgorod kaizen

GAZ became the first enterprise in the Russian automotive industry to use Japanese "lean manufacturing" technologies. Since 2005, the system began to operate at all enterprises of the Gorky Automobile Plant. It includes four principles: "people are our most valuable asset", "focus on the production site", "continuous daily improvement" and "think about the customer". The Nizhny Novgorod residents “improved” and “thought of it” so much that they stopped producing the Volga, and the government was forced to swell 38 billion rubles ($ 1.2 billion at the then exchange rate) into GAZ. Obviously, all their intellectual strength and financial resources went to the release of "pictures", as we call them, and there were no forces or funds left for cars.

In science, technology, there is such a thing as the repeatability (reproducibility) of the result. If the result does not repeat (which we observe) it is no longer a system.

Now let's take on the Chief Teacher - Toyota. They are the world leaders in the production of defective products. Apparently, the recall of defective Toyota cars has already become a tradition.

For the first time ever selling its vehicles in the US market, Toyota was the first automaker to recall more than 4.8 million defective vehicles in the US in 2009. This is reported by The Detroit Free Press. And in other years, their number is in the millions, for example, in 2012, about 10 million.

And finally, in March 2014, Toyota pays an unprecedented $1.2 billion fine in history, the largest ever in the United States, for late troubleshooting and defrauding consumers (US Department of Justice language) that led to serious accidents and deaths. April 2014 - recall of 6.7 million vehicles with defects.

Here are reviews of Toyota from the penultimate Geneva Motor Show: “The saddest sight was presented by stands of Japanese brands. The exposition of Toyota, the high level of production of which is known only to Russians, and even then through advertising exploits, was left without attention by the European public.”

Do we need a second Chernobyl?

In the nuclear industry, a single failure is an emergency, until recently there were no such failures for many years, and our Teacher has millions of them!!! If the RPS continues its activities at the same pace, then exploding nuclear reactors will soon be added to the take-off hydroelectric generators (Sayano-Shushenskaya HPP), falling rockets with satellites. I can even imagine how the reactor can be brought to an accident. If in the CPS cassette a number of fuel rods along the casing wall mistakenly have a different enrichment, then the cassette will bend due to uneven heating and, if necessary, its emergency release, the cassette will simply jam. Of course, a nuclear explosion will not occur, but superheated steam can rip off the reactor lid or destroy the primary circuit equipment through the inlet and outlet nozzles.

Chernobyl also did not have a nuclear explosion - only a thermal one due to the emergency protection rods that did not descend. And the probability of error has recently increased due to a sharp decrease in the number of personnel and the performance of several operations by one worker. On the last day of information, it was announced with pomp that at the plant for the production of centrifuges for uranium enrichment, the time to manufacture one centrifuge was reduced by almost 10! once. Now it remains to wait until they begin to fall apart, and uranium hexafluoride, so useful for the body, appears in the surrounding air.

"Altruism" of the Japanese

And finally, the last one. I am surprised by people who are touched by the willingness and desire of Toyota to share with them and even provide training in the system of "lean manufacturing". They probably don't know that free cheese is only found in a mousetrap, or they think it's only for mice. Then especially for them, about the people, from Virgil: "Beware of the Danaans who bring gifts." My grandmother, a Ural Cossack, called such people “outsiders”.

Toyota itself is moving away from its own system. Toyota quality management is changing under the pressure of globalization. The company no longer relies on self-improvement, but on strict adherence to standards. Toyota believes that in Russia (at its factories) one can strive for absolute quality and reduce costs with the same efficiency as in Japan, and rightly so, everything has its time.

What is wrong is that Toyota is forcing its obsolete cost system on the rest of the world. Everyone knows that the Japanese are patriots of their country and company, and there is nothing surprising in the fact that they weaken their competitors with their system, and in the era of globalization, the whole world is a competitor. In military science, this is called a decoy: enemy planes bomb plywood models of tanks and guns. In production, this can be compared with a miracle steam locomotive, the design of which is offered for free. True, half of the steam goes on the whistle, the locomotive is barely crawling, but discussions are prohibited: whoever is not with us is against us; and then a consultant from Japan comes and says that the beep is heard only 30 km away, it would be necessary to increase its power even more. And they will increase until the locomotive stops, which happened at GAZ.

But I have such an opinion in the light of recent decisions (the planned reduction in the profit of the plant by 8.5 times, the transfer of most of the profits to the RPS, the termination of bonus payments for saving material resources) that RPS managers could take any theory: corpuscular-wave theory chess openings, etc., if only to create a structure for it and close financial flows to it. And they took the Toyota system out of a sense of innate delicacy, so that the production workers would not be very nervous, it is still more believable, and it was tested at GAZ.

I think that in a few years the government will not be able to get by with $1 billion. A phantasmagorical picture is emerging, worthy of Bosch's brush or Kafka's pen, more absurd than in his "Trial": the chief consultant Mr. Hayashi arrives from Japan, walks around all the factories of Rosatom and, in a couple of minutes, taking an eagle eye of an 80-year-old old man completely unfamiliar to him production, issues an indication, as in a nightmare. But, if you wake up after a nightmare, you sigh with relief, then you can’t even object here, you won’t even have time to open your mouth, as you fly out of the factory - you can see very high support from a simple (seemingly by status) consulting firm.

Epilogue. (Epitaph?)

The RPS is an ideological cover for the redistribution of financial flows to a newly created structure that is not responsible for anything, does not produce anything useful, and whose functioning poses a danger to the continued existence of the nuclear industry. This structure, like the Terminator, cannot be persuaded, cannot be persuaded, it can only be destroyed, otherwise it will destroy the nuclear industry. And no half-measures, like the article "Dizzy with success", will not help here. They will calm down for a while, but then they will take up their own again - after all, the oak is still standing, and not all the acorns from under it have yet been dug.

V.N. Kartashov, engineer ts.55, PJSC MSZ

Note:

The article was created starting from November 2011, some figures may be outdated.

Hello Tatiana.

In connection with the 70th anniversary of the nuclear industry in Russia, which happened on September 27, 2015, I ask you to place two articles by an employee of one of the enterprises of this very industry. I really hope that these articles will catch the eye of people who wish Russia well and who have the opportunity to give these articles an official move. The person who wrote these articles is a retired veteran of the nuclear industry who has worked at the enterprise for many years. I dared to write everything that hurt because I had enough and there was nothing to lose. Younger people are much more careful. I don't know this person personally. Therefore, for objectivity, I talked with other people working at the plant. I was told that after posting the first article on the intranet, people came up to him and shook hands. Everyone has sharply negative reviews about the RPS.

In general, the actions of the PSR come down to a significant (and, as the author claims, fatal) reduction in the number of employees, a reduction in material costs (including through the maintenance, or even a decrease in the level of wages) and an increase in the intensity of labor. As you can see from the articles, these seemingly good goals can turn into a deadly cocktail!

By the way, these articles, in my opinion, will easily pass in the topic “Possible objects of sabotage”, which became popular on the blog after the explosions in China, and “Methods of sabotage warfare”.

The most important achievement in Russian nuclear technologies is their quality and reliability. It is clear to anyone reading these articles that, if everything written in the articles is true, then Russia's prestige as a leader in nuclear technology is being dealt a serious blow. The undermining of prestige is fraught, as I see it, with serious problems not only for Russia, but also for consumer countries (and these are mainly developing countries). Nuclear power plants are a source of cheap energy, which is so necessary for these countries. Provided, of course, that nothing explodes, does not infect the district and does not blow the roof off the population, who understands that they actually live on the atomic bomb.

I am also very interested, if the plans for the collapse of our nuclear industry come true, will Russia's sworn friends fill Russia's niche in this business, or will the global collapse and discredit (in full) of the world nuclear industry begin with this? I assure you, the answer is not obvious. I hope that things will not go further than theoretical layouts.

In the meantime… “The introduction of the Japanese 5S workspace organization system has begun in the Moscow metro,” Denis Litvinov, head of the Vykhino electric depot, told m24.ru. He emphasized that the new system will be part of a lean manufacturing program that will significantly increase the reliability of repaired units. This, in turn, will reduce the number of breakdowns and improve passenger safety. It is expected that by 2017 the 5S system will be implemented in the repair and maintenance departments of all underground electric depots.”

The implementation of the Rosatom Production System (RPS) is a large-scale industry project designed not only to increase labor productivity to the level of foreign competitors of the State Corporation Rosatom and reduce costs, but also to increase wages and create new rules for career growth.

The RPS is based on the USSR Ministry of Medium Machine Building NOTPIU - a system of scientific organization of labor, production and management. In addition, the RPS includes and adapted to industry specifics the best achievements and tools from other modern systems, in particular, the principles of the Toyota Production System of the Japanese automobile company Toyota. The basic principle of the RPS, as well as the production system of "Toyota", is to meet the needs of the consumer in the shortest possible time with the minimum possible expenditure of resources at the required level of quality.

The purpose of the implementation of the RPS is to create a universal methodology for the management system for the integrated optimization of production and management processes, based on the best examples of domestic and foreign experience, and to test it at the enterprises of the State Corporation Rosatom. Further development of RPS will take place in the form of software solutions aimed at improving the production efficiency of key products, as well as replicating RPS experience in other sectors of the economy.

The tasks of the RPS are:

• Identification of key products of Rosatom and parameters of their competitiveness;
• Setting goals for key products;
• Development of methodological documents on the use of tools for optimizing production processes, diagnostics of the production management system and labor resources;
• Optimization of production processes;
• Carrying out a comprehensive diagnostics of production for key products in order to identify reserves for increasing production efficiency;
• Approval and launch of comprehensive programs to improve the production efficiency of divisions based on the results of the diagnostics;
• Creation of an industry infrastructure to ensure the process of increasing production efficiency.

The system ensures the implementation of strategic goals through staff training, as well as through continuous improvement and continuous improvement opportunities to increase labor productivity, improve quality, reduce costs and meet customer requirements. The introduction of RPS is aimed at embedding the ideas of prudence and optimality into the logic of managerial decision-making in production, and through production - into other processes and structural divisions of the company.

RPS is designed to maximize productive actions per unit of time at each workplace by consistently eliminating losses in production and management processes. RPS ensures the progressive growth of the productivity of production processes, the reduction of production costs and the improvement of the quality of work and managerial work. In addition, RPS is aimed at combating any losses: excess inventory, backlogs, downtime, unnecessary movements.

The development and implementation of the RPS began in the second half of 2008, when Sergey Kiriyenko, General Director of Rosatom State Corporation, set the goal of quadrupling labor productivity in the industry by 2020, reducing costs and, as a result, reducing the cost of manufactured products. On December 29, 2008, an order "On the implementation of the Rosatom production system in industry organizations" was signed.

Since 2009, the production system has been actively introduced into Rosenergoatom Concern OJSC. It was in the Concern that the first training programs on RPS tools were implemented and the training process was launched. Moreover, practical work has begun at the pilot sites of nuclear power plants under construction and operating, and at the machine-building complex.

In 2010, 54 projects were successfully implemented under the RPS. At the first stage of implementation, pilot sites were selected at a number of enterprises.

Since August 2011, the second stage of RPS development has been launched, when the system is being implemented at the main production chains of Rosatom enterprises.

At the moment, the system is deployed at 79 enterprises of the industry, which are divided into three groups, in order of priority (groups A, B and C). Among the enterprises of group A, the most priority ones have been identified, which have received the status of reference ones, where promising projects are being carried out, the result of which is planned to be broadcast to other enterprises. Many enterprises of Rosatom have already achieved certain positive results in the implementation of the system.

The status of the Rosatom Production System has been finally determined - it has been recognized as a culture of continuous improvement. How to raise the level of RPS culture in the industry, what role is assigned to managers in this process, and what are the prospects for lean manufacturing, were discussed at the RPS Leaders forum.
The RPS Leaders Forum is a discussion platform for lean manufacturing professionals. Here they do not agitate, do not explain the principles of the production system, do not tell how to use the tools - in general, they do not chew on the methodology. RPS project and PSP contest participants, RPS department employees, methodologists, leaders of RPS enterprises, activists of change support teams - about 200 people in total - gather once a year to discuss strategy, goals and objectives. It was at this site that a decision was made several years ago to deploy the RPS system.

RCC

Until recently, there was no consensus in the industry whether RPS is a system or a culture. This year, everyone seems to agree that the RPS is more than just a set of projects and tools to improve the production process. “AKP is, of course, culture. That legendary Hayashi (Nampachi Hayashi - former Toyota vice president, lean manufacturing consultant. - “SR”), who comes and regularly scolds us, for me is a symbol not so much of specific practices as decomposing stocks, how to organize chains, but of spirit and faith that there is no end to improvements,” said Rosatom CEO Alexei Likhachev.
Alexander Lokshin, First Deputy General Director for Operations, explained in simple terms what meaning is put into the concept of RPS culture: “Culture is a set of rules, norms of behavior, patterns that are considered the norm. A cultured person is one in whom deviation from such norms causes irritation and who has a need to comply with these norms. The culture of the SEP is the need to do well. Force to force to come to this, from my point of view, is impossible. When we manage to create a culture in which continuous improvement becomes a need for everyone, we will achieve our goals.” Alexander Lokshin even suggested changing the abbreviation RPS to PKR - “Rosatom's production culture”.
For more than a year now, the participants in the AKP movement have been puzzling over how to increase involvement in the AKP, what needs to be done so that everyone believes in it. Here are the most popular answers of forum participants: be patient and wait for the results of the RPS deployment, explain, convince; to train immediately upon hiring, to do this, attract authoritative people. The logic of the answers is clear: to form a culture of RPS in the industry is not a quick matter. A special place is given to the head of the enterprise - he must become a role model. Every leader should be a mentor.


The opinion on how to change the culture was also expressed by Nikolay Solomon, First Deputy General Director for Corporate Functions, Chief Financial Officer of Rosatom: “We need to clearly show what we praise and scold for, who we are promoting.” At the same time, it is necessary not only to declare these principles, but to follow them, otherwise people will not believe. Nikolai Solomon noted that through the application of the principles and tools of the RPS, the values ​​of the state corporation are manifested and nurtured. The forum participants agreed that the main focus of the next year is to create exemplary workflows in production, in the office and in engineering, educate and develop employees, and build long-term relationships with suppliers.

RPS protects the thrifty

RPS Development Director Sergey Obozov briefly spoke about the implementation of the Lean Polyclinic federal project, which involves RPS specialists from Rosatom: “Replication is being carried out in 23 regions. There are no longer two polyclinics, as in pilot projects, but sometimes three, sometimes four, sometimes five. We provide basic training. We suggested that the Ministry of Health create its own RPS project office.”
The activities of the RPS office were highly appreciated by the Administration of the President of the Russian Federation. Further more. The authorities have attracted Rosatom as a general partner to work on a program that is being implemented under the leadership of the head of the Ministry of Economic Development, Maxim Oreshkin, to increase labor productivity in industry and construction.
“We take on two budget-forming enterprises in each pilot region. Our main condition was “not a single person on the street”, so we selected factories whose production volume in 2018 should rise sharply. The second condition is that the owners and management really want to improve the results. We will show them a master class on how to make an increased volume with the same number of staff,” Sergey Obozov shared his plans.
In this project, the interaction will be built differently than in the Lean Polyclinic. Rosatom invites students to its place. Sergey Obozov counts: “Seven regions, two plants each - 14 plants, we are ready to accept 28 people in our teams, to work on Rosatom's exemplary flows. Somewhere before mid-December, I think we will complete these brigades, and from January 10, 2018 we are waiting for them at our factories.” The program will be implemented in the Tyumen, Tula, Nizhny Novgorod, Perm and Samara regions, Bashkortostan and Tatarstan.
The head of the Rosatom Academy, Yulia Uzhakina, added that nuclear closed cities could become lean cities. “The mayor of Zarechny is starting to do something, Ozersk is joining. We need to help them understand this matter: how it is done, what are the examples,” she said.
As Nikolai Solomon noted, the best practices of Rosatom must be presented in a very simple and understandable form so that people who have never heard of RPS become interested in this system. “We are discussing with the Ministry of Economy and VEB the creation of a platform in which these cases will be publicly available,” he said.
“Next year is a year of expansion of practice, our experience will be replicated. But we must not forget ourselves to continue to replicate it within the industry - for this it is necessary that each RPS director, RPS leader have two or three sponsored directors, ”concluded Alexei Likhachev.

AKP as a way of thinking

Nikolai Kmitto
Chief Engineer of the Directorate at the Kursk NPP, a branch of NIKIMT-Atomstroy
- There was an unfavorable situation during the construction and installation works during the construction of the complex for the processing of radioactive waste of the Kursk NPP: at the time of the start of the installation of metal structures, the delay from the schedule was 90 days. We needed to eliminate this backlog at all costs. According to the schedule, the installation and application of a fire-retardant coating on the supporting metal structures of the storage frame takes 240 days, and we had to do it in 150 days. According to the classical scheme, work at height is envisaged, a protective coating is applied to the already assembled metal structures - somewhere it turned out to be underpainted. Plus, gusts of wind and other adverse weather conditions led to an overrun of the flame retardant when spraying.
RPS tools and common sense helped to cope with the task. We paralleled the processes of installation and coating, began to apply the composition during the pre-assembly in the workshop, at the construction site - only on non-paintings and places of welding of elements. The delay from the schedule was eliminated. We saved on scaffolding, increased safety, as we practically eliminated work at height. In addition, the quality of the applied coating has improved due to dedusting and degreasing of metal structures in workshop conditions. It became possible to control the thickness of the coating, which reduced the consumption of material. Previously, the composition was applied in 20 minutes, now - in five. The economic effect of the proposal amounted to more than 13 million rubles. But the main thing is that this solution can be replicated for other capital construction projects.
RPS for us is a production necessity. The desire to apply RPS tools must come from within. Instilling a culture of lean work is difficult. I believe that it won't be long before every employee understands that RPS is a science that explains how a culture of continuous improvement works.

Vladimir Rogozhin
Advisor to the General Director for long-term production planning, OKBM im. Afrikantova
- We have prepared a project to optimize the workflow in the manufacture of a pipe system of shipboard reactor plants, which is assembled from modules. The goal is to reduce the production time for pipe systems from 494 to 442 days. Before proceeding with the assembly of the module, it is necessary to form a set of parts and prepare a package of relevant documents, draw up the documentation after the delivery of the finished product.
We have set ourselves the goal of reducing the paperwork processing time when manufacturing a module from 20 to five days. With the help of barcodes, processes were automated: if earlier documents were prepared by sampling, an inventory was made, it took up to 90 minutes, now the entire package is formed by simply scanning barcodes in just a minute. Labor productivity increased by 30%, economic effect - 6.4 million rubles a year. At the beginning of the year, two more projects were launched aimed at optimizing workflow. Until the end of the year, we will reduce the time for the formation of a package of documents in the manufacture of modules to three days and reduce the volume of documentation by almost half.
I've been doing PSR since 2009. At first, many of us were skeptical about the RPS, no one understood what it was for. I did not immediately realize that this is an effective tool. But after several successfully implemented projects, people got used to it and started using it. Today we can say that the culture of continuous improvement has taken root in OKBM. I am motivated to use RPS by a clear methodology, a systematic approach to identifying inconsistencies, deviations and eliminating them with proven tools.

Sergey Trofimov
Repairman, UEIP
- Since 2015, about 500 of my PPUs have been sold. This year, in our workshop, we have prepared a rationalization proposal for the reuse of grease, since it did not lose its properties. The amount turned out to be small, only 70 thousand rubles. But still savings. The use of RPS is motivated by the continuous improvement of their work. I have been working at UEIP for 25 years and have been systematically engaged in innovation even before the introduction of the RPS. When the production system began to be actively implemented in our country in 2012, it became easier to draw up your proposals.
The culture of RPS can only be promoted through education, explanation of the principles and advantages of a systematic approach. And only on a personal example, and not in the form of an order or as an obligation. I instilled a culture of continuous improvement in my brother. This year, in our workshop, he took second place in the supply of PUF after me, he has about 70 PUF. People are already starting to look up to him.
When you get used to working in a new way, you see what else can be optimized. As far as possible, I try to help colleagues from other areas.
Sergey Mikheev*
Engineer of the 1st category, ASE
- The project is aimed at reducing the cost of forming an artificial foundation for the hydraulic structures of the Kursk NPP-2. After evaluating the soil replacement scheme for the foundations, our team proposed replacing the material adopted in the project, sand and gravel mixture, with sand. The fact is that in the Kursk region there are no problems with the delivery of sand, but the sand and gravel mixture would have to be transported from other regions. Having changed the configuration and assessed how rational it would be to make an artificial foundation in terms of construction organization, we recalculated the strength. We concluded that our solution meets all requirements. The overall economic effect from the implementation of the proposal amounted to 275 million rubles.

Eugene Ratz*
Engineer of the 2nd category, ASE
- The idea of ​​replacing the soil came up with Sergey Mikheev in the process of designing the organization for the construction of the Kursk NPP-2. We wondered why such a solution was chosen and whether it could be optimized. We actively use RPS tools in our work. With their help, you can solve any issue, including justifying cost reduction to designers, who are often not ready for criticism, and consider their decisions to be optimal. Any project can always be optimized, there would be a desire. There are no perfect projects.

Andrey Salnikov
Structural assembler, RosSEM
- We had to mount 118 eight-meter columns weighing 300 kg each at the zero mark of the reactor compartment of the Belarusian NPP. These columns support the process equipment of the reactor. Previously, we fed columns into an opening with a diameter of 1 m from the eighth mark, then moved them in a horizontal position with the help of improvised means to the installation site, lifted, fixed, and constructed scaffolding. The mounting loop for fixing the column had to be cleaned, welded, then the column was mounted - this is work at a height, it is inconvenient. Then disassemble everything and repeat 117 times.
Therefore, a device for vertical movement of columns was developed and implemented - such a star-shaped trolley was obtained, on which the column was fixed. Three installers calmly roll a trolley with a load to the installation site. We have significantly accelerated the process: if we installed all the columns on the first block in the old way in 59 days, then on the second block we did it in 18 days. It would seem a simple cart, but the effect is colossal.
This is not my first project. Laziness is the engine of progress, and, probably, I am a big lazy person. When I see a problem, I immediately think about how to solve it or how to simplify the process. Everyone helped, I would not have done anything alone. The economic effect amounted to about 780 thousand rubles. The main thing is that the experience will be replicated for other construction sites of units under the NPP-2006 project. I have a lot of developments, I plan to implement them at the next construction sites.
We started implementing the production system at the end of 2014 at the Belarusian NPP. I immediately connected, as this is an understandable working tool that facilitates work, saves resources and develops a person. Today it is already a culture of continuous improvement.

Sergey Sachkov
Head of the VVER-440 Fuel Rod and FA Fabrication Section, MSZ
- When I worked at another site, we created a device that allows using scales to determine the number of technological tips removed when assembling a bundle of fuel elements for RBMK reactors. In the process of assembling the bundle, fuel rods are inserted into the cells of the frame in three pieces. In order for them to enter strictly in the center and with minimal friction, technological tips are used - they are put on the fuel rod before assembly, after assembly they are automatically removed. Whether all the tips were removed was observed by the fitter. Since three fuel rods are inserted into the frame in 100 seconds, the mechanic waited all this time instead of starting to prepare the next bundle, then he counted the tips and only then gave a signal to continue the operation. With such an organization of labor, in order to assemble 30 bundles per shift, two locksmiths had to work on two assembly stands.
We proposed to determine the number of removed tips by weight. The scale accurately determines whether all the tips have been removed and gives a signal to continue working. The locksmith does not need to be present all the time next to the beam assembly stand and count the tips, at this time he can assemble the frame of the next beam. As a result, the same amount of work can be done by one locksmith at one stand. The freed assembly fitter became a production planning engineer.
I think this practice can be replicated for another type of fuel. I am interested in self-development and benefit the company. Therefore, I do not divide my activities into RPS and job responsibilities. For me, this is a working tool. At first, people perceived the AKP negatively, but now I see that the attitude is changing. Previously, they believed that it was imposed, but now they see how I implement my ideas, see the result and get involved. A good example is contagious.