I hope that we’ll go out of the crisis more powerful and ready for new market expansion
• Interview • South-East European INDUSTRIAL Мarket - issue 3/2009
Mr. Valery Andreev, General Manager of SAT for South-East European INDUSTRIAL Market magazine
Dear Mr. Andreev, SAT has leading market positions in the field of the cement industry, not only in Bulgaria. Please comment the situation of this branch in Bulgaria at the present moment as markets and production capacity?
The leading market positions of SAT are in the area of supply of electrical equipment and systems for automation for the cement industry, and not in the industry itself.
SAT is a leader in the supply of complex electrical packages ("turn key" projects) for part „electro" and „automation" in Bulgaria, Eastern Europe, Russia and partially Asia and Africa.
The projects realized by SAT are not only for the cement, but also for the glass, the concrete, the metallurgy and other industries.
For the producers in our branch the situation is very complicated, due to the stopping of the reconstructions and the new projects in almost all industries in the country and abroad. Until the middle of the year a part of the companies in the branch, as well as SAT, were concluding projects, commenced before the crisis, but the expectations for the second half of the year is a considerable decrease of the volumes and the production capacity of the companies, working mainly for the Bulgarian market.
What is the situation in the other countries of the region?
The situation is similar in all countries of the European Union, as well as in global scale.
What are your expectations for the development of the market during the current and the next years? What actions would be advisible to be taken with the view of the keeping of the working capacity of the enterprises?
At the end of the current year will be commenced a timid activation of frozen due to the crisis projects, but mainly in the engineering and the project phase. At favorable development during the first half of the year 2010, I expect strengthening of the processes of offering and concluding of contracts for new projects.
In the end of the year 2010 and after that I expect fast stepwise increase of the number of the projects, for which we have to be preliminary prepared.
We recommend the companies to keep their qualitative personnel and to use decreases as a result of the crisis volume of orders for improvement of their organization and education of the staff.
Please tell more about the project executed by SAT in the plant of Holcim in Russia. What is the scope of the project?
Exactly at the height of the crisis SAT carried out successfully an offering and won a project for „new technological line for cement - a capacity of 5000 tones per day" of the Swiss concern IILCIM („Shurovsky Cement" Plant), located near Moscow. The project comprises all parts of the electrical package, starting with engineering, design, manufacture and delivery of the electrical equipment, the programming, electrical erection and installation, testing and commissioning of the systems, submitted „turnkey" (part of A1 to A9).
In the execution of the project we have included a part of the team of SAT, as for supervision of the electrical installation works. For electrical erection and installation on site we will use subcontractors - Russian companies. For the purpose we established a Russian subsidiary company of SAT Bulgaria, named „SAT - Rus" with General Manager Eng. Boris Videnov.
When it should be executed and what includes the scope of supply and services assigned to SAT?
The project should be realized to October 2010. As the engineering phase, the design, the programming, the production and the deliveries are executed in the moment and should be completed to October 2009. This forced part of the team to work overtime, due to the large volume of projecting and production (approximately 1200 low-voltage distribution panels (LVD) and motor centers (INN), as well as a number of Input / Output panels with distributive ?LN periphery). The equipment is based mainly on hardware and software products of SIEMENS and partially of SCHNEIDER ELECTRIC. The operating system and „SCADA" system are based on Simatic S7 417 and PCS 7 CEMAT V.7.1 of SIEMENS.
With what this project differs from the other, which you have executed?
This is the third project of a complex plant, but this one is with twice as larger volume of the rest.
In order to win the project we fought against a number of engineering companies from Europe and Russia and I am especially proud, that we won our competitors with the quality of our services and the „know-how", which we have, independently of our higher prices.
This project differs of the other 160 realized ones for the cement industry by the volume of the services and the supplies, the complexness of the project (it comprises all part of electro and automation), the innovativeness - a lot of new technical and technological solutions.
In the project are used a lot of innovative solutions in the field of the standard software and the hardware solutions, with which the testing and commissioning of the system will be facilitated repeatedly.
What comprise the tests, organized in the office of SAT in the current week in terms of tested equipment, indices, results, ...?
In the first week of June 2009, in the office of SAT was performed FAT (Factory Acceptance Test) of the already produced 850 panels by representatives of the Customer. 100% testing was done to all signals and sequences. The results were excellent and it was received a permission for the supply of the panels to the plant. In this way we overfulfill our own schedules and I hope that in spite of the quantity of work, will ensure normal summer holidays of the employees.
After the autumn the second phase expects us - erection and installation on site, testing and commissioning of the systems.
The excellent results and the high quality ensured us new projects from the end of the year, so I hope that we will go out of the crisis more powerful and capable and ready for new expansion of the customers and the markets.
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