OREANDA-NEWS. November 10, 2009. The delegation from Daimler AG, KAMAZ’s strategic partner, visited Naberezhnye Chelny. The guests, led by Head of Production System Development Department Christoph Siegel (Daimler AG), paid attention to the development of KAMAZ’s production system.

Since the moment when KAMAZ and Daimler became strategic partners the two companies have initiated a number of joint projects. The potential joint ventures should have production processes based on a single standard for the projects to be successfully implemented. Borrowing Daimler’s best practices and implementing them at KAMAZ, adapting to the present-day Russian realities, was one of the priorities of KAMAZ’s production system development.

To organize a production corresponding to the European standards, the KAMAZ managers and employees need to take training courses at Daimler plants. The German delegation visited KAMAZ just to see on what stage the production system is implemented at KAMAZ enterprises, to determine KAMAZ experts’ level of training and fix areas in which the management and personnel need additional training.

On the first day, while visiting the automobile plant, the guests noted big changes the enterprise had had this year after the D&D procedure carried out last autumn to assess the real cost of KAMAZ assets prior to Daimler buying its stake.

According to Director of KAMAZ Automobile Plant Ildus Bayanov, the foreign guests were interested in applying and developing Lean Production. “The representatives of Daimler AG were satisfied with what they had seen,” – noted Bayanov. “They did not expect us to make such a progress.” According to the gradation developed by Daimler AG, there are four levels of Production System development. Daimler has been developing in this direction since 1995 and now it is between levels two and three. In their opinion, KAMAZ is between levels one and two. And it should be noted that the automobile plant introduced the production system in 2006 and has been actively developing it since 2008. “Currently the aims and principles of the production system meet the appearing requirements, – said Ildus Bayanov. – This is all employees’ participation in production development, reducing costs, and a team work of workers, engineers and managers. Development of the Production System is a way to survival, to financial stability and development”.

Besides the automobile plant, the German delegation toured OAO Kama Frame and Stamping Plant, OAO KAMAZ-Diesel, Master Logistics Centre and KAMAZ Corporate University. All the enterprises received a high appraisal from the foreign guests.

The Daimler delegation’s visit to KAMAZ turned out to be useful for the both parties. The Daimler experts’ final report contains some valuable recommendations on improving the mother gathering conveyors and enhancing workplace safety. The German colleagues also said they could learn something from the Tatar auto giant. Besides, the representatives of the German concern admitted that KAMAZ’s lag from the globally leading truck manufacturers in terms of applying the production system was gradually becoming formal. KAMAZ is rapidly catching up with its Western counterparts.

Upon analyzing the data obtained during the audit, successful negotiations were held on further cooperation between KAMAZ Inc. and Daimler AG within the joint project Production System in terms of training, implementing the key performance indicator system (KPI) and standardizing management processes at the workshop level.