The designers and engineers of Ural Turbine Works will be performing four times better by the middle of 2007. This acceleration of engineering and design will reduce the time needed for production of a turbine by one third, and this, in its turn, is expected to raise the total capacity of the plant. Ural Turbine Works is hoping to achieve this by introducing the new Pro/ENGINEER computer-aided design systems, as has recently been decided by the Board of Directors.

‘Our designers are using four types of software at the moment, which creates communication problems among different departments. What we need is a ‘monolingual’ engineering community, mutual understanding, and full transparency of the whole process. Using a single system will also allow us to keep all the date concerning a particular product for its life time,’ says Deputy GD for Engineering Reforms Felix Shamrai.

The company conducted a special tender and looked at a number of the world’s leading software products. The choice was largely determined by the fact that Pro/ENGINEER is currently used by virtually all global turbine makers; besides, the system really proves its advantages in the course of the tender.

The money (50m RUR) needed to buy the software is going to be obtained from Renova Group; the project investments are expected to recover in less than two years’ time; meanwhile, according to the company’s strategic development program, it should raise its capacity by four times by 2011, reports the spokesperson for Ural Turbine Works.