The first foreign enterprise in the Chelyabinsk Region to come under Russian management has joined the national project "Labour Productivity"

09.03.2023 - Arnest Packaging Solutions'

Arnest Packaging Solutions' Argayash aluminium can production plant, which was bought out by Arnest Group of Companies from the American company Ball Corporation in September 2022, became a participant in the national project "Labour Productivity".The agreement with the regional Ministry of Industry has already been signed.In the next six months, experts from the Regional Competence Centre (RCC, established to implement the National Project activities under the regional Industrial Development Fund) together with key employees of the plant will analyse possible points of growth and eliminate losses at each stage of the technological process, which will allow the enterprise to work more efficiently and increase productivity.

"In the national project "Labour Productivity" there is a restriction on the share of participation of tax residents of foreign countries in the charter capital of a legal entity, which closed access to it for many enterprises, including the Ball plant in Argayash.However, it is now a Russian company, and there are no obstacles to its entry into the national project.It is particularly important that Arnest Packaging Solutions remains a socially focused organisation, creating new jobs and helping the area in a variety of ways.Of course, for RCC experts, working at such a high-tech enterprise, which has a successful experience of implementing lean production and sets high standards of labour conditions, will be a serious challenge.It is not an easy task to improve the processes that have already been built to an exemplary level, but they will cope with it," Egor Kovalchuk, Deputy Governor of the Chelyabinsk Region, is confident.

Arnest Group's enterprises have been implementing lean production tools and principles for a number of years. In 2017 and 2018, its plant in Naro-Fominsk, which produces lids and aluminium cans, became the first and so far the only Russian winner of the international Shingo Award for Operational Excellence.Experts call it the "Nobel Prize in manufacturing."This is the highest honour, demonstrating a high level of operational culture and operational excellence, underpinned by a system of continuous improvement.

In 2018 - 2019, the company's perfume and cosmetics plants in Stavropol and Novomoskovsk in the Tula region were among the first to become participants in the federal programme "Increasing Labour Productivity and Supporting Employment" in their respective regions.The Novomoskovsk enterprise was named among the leaders of the national programme overall in 2018.

"Due to its quality characteristics - lightweight, practical and environmentally friendly - aluminium beverage packaging is becoming increasingly sought after by our consumers.As a market leader, we are making every effort to increase productivity not only through direct investment in capacity expansion, but also through the introduction of advanced approaches to production organisation.All this allows us to achieve consistently high results and provide the market with high-quality packaging of domestic production", - says the president of the group of companies "Arnest" Alexey Sagal.

Ruslan Salimov, an expert from the Chelyabinsk RCC, who is leading the project implementation at the Argayash plant, together with the company's working group, chose as a pilot stream a section where all production processes are concentrated, from putting the aluminium coil on the line to the pallets with finished products going to the warehouse. Diagnostics is already underway here.

It is worth adding that, in addition to the work of the RCC expert directly at the plant site and free training of its employees in the basics of lean production, the status of a participant of the national project "Labour Productivity" allows to use a whole range of state support measures, both at the federal and regional levels.These include tax benefits, the possibility of preferential financing of investment projects, reimbursement of equipment purchase costs, participation of the company's top managers in the "Productivity Leaders" programme, and exchange of experience with enterprises participating in the national project from different regions of the country.

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***The National Labour Productivity Project, which is overseen by First Deputy Prime Minister Andrey Belousov, was approved by President Vladimir Putin's May 2018 decree and is designed to create conditions for annual growth in labour productivity in the country.To achieve these objectives, the Russian Government has developed a set of state support measures for business, which includes financial incentives and expert assistance in optimising production processes.In the Chelyabinsk Region, the regional Ministry of Industry and the Industry Development Fund are implementing the National Project activities.At the moment 117 enterprises of the region are participants of the national project.
Arnest Group is the largest manufacturer of perfumes, cosmetics and household products in aerosol packaging in Russia and CIS countries.The group includes local production facilities producing aluminium and tin packaging for perfumes and cosmetics, as well as three plants producing aluminium beverage cans and Russia's only lid plant.