Oleg Belozerov, Director General of Russian Railways (RZD), Alexander Misharin, First Deputy Director General, and Oleg Valinsky, Deputy General Director, Head of Traction Directorate, familiarized themselves with the Digital Plant project of the united group of LocoTech and TMKh. The presentation took place today, on September 18, 2018, in the framework of the world's largest railway exhibition InnoTrans 2018 (Berlin).

Within the framework of the Digital Plant project, the 2050 company created a digital twin of production based on a simulation model. The project was presented by Dmitry Himmelberg, Director General of 2050 LLC, in the presence of the leaders of JSC TMKh and LocoTech, Kirill Lipa and Yuri Degtyarev.

O.V. Belozerov was shown all the possibilities of this project, already successfully implemented at Novocherkassk EVZ (part of JSC Transmashholding). 

The goal of the initiative is to provide the most flexible and prompt response to customer and production requests in general. The system calculates the results of the implementation of the plan with the specified parameters in a few minutes. This will provide an opportunity to increase production while maintaining the high quality of work by optimizing the use of resources of both customer and manufacturer of equipment and service company. 

Oleg Belozerov stressed the importance of introducing such systems to improve the competitiveness of domestic enterprises and the industry as a whole. He expressed confidence that the "Digital Plant" will increase the efficiency of processes throughout the entire life cycle of the locomotive fleet of Russian railways. 

“The world has entered the Industrial Revolution 4.0, which is characterized by the penetration of cyber and physical systems into the production and the merger of virtual and physical space. Digital Plant is an innovative tool in the area of digitalization of production and planning. And, most importantly, this solution has been produced by the Russian specialists,” D. Himmelberg stressed.

At the first stage, the operations of the assembly production is analysed by the attainability of the implementation of the annual plan. Simulating the work of the shop on a digital model with different volumes of the required annual production of locomotives (sections), the exact date of each section placement in the station, the date of production of locomotives and the fulfilment of the annual plan is determined. In addition, the maximum quantity of output is calculated under the specified operating conditions. This process is possible in the mode of 3D rendering, where the 3D model of the assembly shop is used.

Thus, the company's management is able to evaluate the effectiveness of each station and employee, determine the “bottlenecks” and the optimal working conditions of the workshop to achieve the annual plan. 

At the second stage, the operation of specific production stations in the shops is analysed. This allows to carry out intrashop planning in order to confirm the possibility of fulfilling a weekly plan with the current production plan. In addition, the system allows to estimate factory capacities with an increased amount of work, taking into account of the “bottlenecks” and their detailing (machine loading, lack of material and labour resources). 

InnoTrans is the world's largest railway exhibition-fair of transport equipment and systems. It is held every two years at the Messe Berlin trade fair in Berlin. This year the exhibition is held on September, 18-21. Exhibition participants are global corporations, leaders in the area of railway transport, the largest operators and manufacturers of rolling stock.

The first exhibition was held in 1996 and since then it has received the status of the most authoritative communication platform for managers of railway companies and industry specialists. 

LocoTech traditionally participates in the InnoTrans programme.