Kentau Transformer Plant is a leading Kazakhstani manufacturer of wide-range transformer equipment supplied to all sectors of the economy, including the electric power industry, metallurgy, mechanical engineering, transport, oil and gas complex and housing and utilities sector. The products manufactured by the plant meet international quality and safety standards. Over the past years, the list of the plant's products has reached more than 400 items. The recommended service life of transformers is 25 years, but in fact, with proper operation and timely service, the transformer will work uninterruptedly for 40-50 years.
What is the volume of production at the moment and what proportion of the manufactured products goes to export?
We are part of trade and economic relations, therefore, the changes that occur in the economy of the country and the world also affect us. The acute consequences of the crisis are felt all over the world, for example, there is a reduction in demand for products and non-payments from buyers of products have increased. Also in our country, at present, production volumes have decreased compared to last year, this also affected the export of our products. Production volumes decreased compared to last year, this also affected exports. In the first half of the year, exports amounted to 27%, last year at the same time it was 40%. But now there is already positive news, at the moment we already have a good portfolio of orders for the 2nd half of the year. As of mid-August, we had orders for 8 billion tenge, of which 50% were in the export direction. The products of our plant are in great demand and are exported to Russia, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, Armenia, and Tajikistan. We produce not only high-quality transformers, but also energy-saving ones. Due to the introduction of high-tech equipment from leading European countries, as well as using modern insulating materials, our products have significantly surpassed their foreign counterparts in quality, reliability and a variety of nomenclature.
Has the pandemic affected the operation of the plant?
If we talk about the difficulties we faced, the pandemic in a matter of weeks radically changed the labor market in different countries of the world. We, like many manufacturing companies, had problems such as the rise in prices for raw materials, materials and components, restriction of movement around the city and intercity, and this caused a downtime at the plant, force majeure circumstances arose. But as I mentioned above, we are now working to return to the previous rhythm and hope for a full recovery.
During the pandemic, a certain part of the employees worked part-time, some on a remote basis during strict quarantine, but now we are restoring the 3-shift work schedule as it was before. We hope that soon the entire team of the organization will be involved in the work. The Covid19 pandemic has affected production and profit margins, but we are still keeping jobs and will work to avoid reductions. Now the plant employs 1,153 people, of whom 318 are young specialists under the age of 30, the number of men in our plant of course predominates - 884, well, 212 people of our employees - women. It is also worth noting that we train our own specialists, we have a successfully functioning polytechnic college, where students receive dual training, and then apply their knowledge in our plant. The college annually graduates more than 100 specialists, who then work at our plant and in the JV HC "Alageum Electric". 
Does the state provide assistance to the plant as an export-oriented production?
Yes, the production of our products is aimed, among other things, at increasing the export potential. We attracted additional financing from the Development Bank of Kazakhstan JSC to increase the export potential of our products, within the framework of the Nurly Zhol State Infrastructure Development Program. DBK provided loan funds in the amount of 1.5 billion tenge at 6%, this is a good rate for “long” money in tenge.
With the financing of DBK-Leasing JSC, we modernized our plant, as you know, the Kentau transformer plant has been operating since 1959, and there was a need to upgrade the equipment, for the financing provided by DBK-Leasing within the framework of the state program “Productivity 2020” metalworking machines for the production of transformers from the world's leading manufacturers were purchased. This equipment, based on software automated control, makes it possible to facilitate manual labor, increase productivity and reduce the cost of production. Undoubtedly, we are glad that the state supports entrepreneurs in every possible way, in particular through such development institutions.
The release of high-quality transformers also depends on the technical characteristics of the equipment, tell us about the launch of the Yaskawa Motoman robot welder.
Yes, today the specialists of the Triada company completed the installation and adjustment of a robotic welding complex for welding transformers TM (G) 25-2500 / 6-10 kV, Yaskawa Motaman. This robot is designed to improve the quality of welds and increase the productivity of the plant. He can provide the necessary welding in 20 minutes, for which an ordinary person spends 8 hours.
What tasks and plans do you set for the future?
We look to the future with optimism, we are already preparing for 2021-2022 today. Yes, as you understand, the current year was very difficult, but I believe that we will overcome all this. We plan to modernize some complexes and sections, including in September we plan to launch two robotics lines - this is a line for transverse cutting of electrical steel with automated stacking of plates manufactured by Tuboly (Switzerland) model CCM 450, designed to automate the mixing of magnetic cores of transformers with a capacity of 250-10000 kVA voltage 6-10-35 kV. We also plan to double the volume and for this we have all the opportunities and resources. We will look at world markets and find new buyers for our products. The life of our enterprise continues.
