‘We went with Rifkat Nurgalievich, we all went around, serious guys’
Manufacturer of 3D machines from St. Petersburg may become the third contender for the opening of the centre for contract printing of products for enterprises of Tatarstan
An intense competition is unfolding for the opening of the additive technology centre in Kazan, which could “swallow” the need for contract printing of parts and assemblies for industrial enterprises of Tatarstan. The new applicant, after the application of Rosatom State Corporation and the Moscow ZD-Integration GC, is Laser Systems JSC from St. Petersburg. The manufacturer of the first mass-produced 3D machines proposed at the meeting of the board of directors of Tatneftekhiminvest-holding on 23 April to open a centre with five to six machines — only Rostec has a larger fleet. Another St. Petersburg company presented the technology of oil sludge disposal.
Domestic 3D printers are coming up
St. Petersburg Day is what the meeting of the board of directors of Tatneftekhiminvest Holding can be called, whose agenda was filled with presentations of the know-how of developers from the Northern capital. However, only two were publicly available — this is the SLI (additive technologies) technology, which is developed by the Laser Systems company, a resident of the SEZ St. Petersburg, and the technologies for the disposal of hazardous waste from the Safe Technologies Group. Both developers came to the meeting of Tatneftekhiminvest Holding for the first time, but they felt confident, since their solutions were widespread in the country, and the republic could adopt them or not. There is definitely interest in them, but their implementation, as always, depends on the economic effect.
Dmitry Vasiliev, CEO of Laser Systems JSC, immediately played a trump card.. With 25 years of experience in the field of additive technologies, the company managed to develop and launch industrial 3D printers into mass production. According to Dmitry Vasiliev, their company was the first in the country to assemble domestic machine tools, having received the conclusion of the Ministry of Industry and Trade of Russia. It entered the register as a serial supplier of domestic equipment. According to him, the machines have a printing field of “a maximum of 250-350 mm”, and at the output a new one — with a printing field of 500 mm. Several types of materials have been mastered — carbon, stainless steel, titanium, copper. “It is possible to 'grow' products from all this, and the quality is better than casting, but close to forging," Dmitry Vasiliev said.
A data centre with 5-6 machines may appear in Tatarstan
The speaker proposed to create an additive technology centre in Tatarstan, establishing a fleet of five to six machines. This will be the second largest center in the country — only Rostec has more. According to Vasiliev, the demand for contract printing services is growing astronomically. According to him, the forecast turned out to be 4 times lower than the real need. “There are not enough centres: there are an order of magnitude fewer of them than there is demand. The centres are overloaded, although there are those who have bought equipment but do not know what to do with it," he shared. For comparison, the average fleet of equipment in China consists of 100 machines.
But there is enough space for everyone in the 3D printing market, Vasiliev believes. “This type of business is scalable," he said.
“Albert, what do you think?"
“The future belongs to these machines, of course," Rustam Minnikhanov agreed. “Albert, what do you think?" he asked his assistant Albert Gilmutdinov, who himself had been working on this topic for a long time, being the rector of KNRTU.
He was impressed. “We were at this enterprise, went with Rifkat Nurgalievich, went all around, talked with colleagues, the guys are serious, go on working," he reported.
“We didn't even dream before when we were studying at the institute. Many issues can be solved," Minnikhanov agreed. And he instructed the enterprises to go. " It is necessary to communicate with enterprises so that there is information, maybe even specialists can go and see. We need to take our industrialists, I think that large companies — SIBUR, Tatneft — will be interested, we have a lot of imported equipment," the rais believes.
Prior to that, Mikhail Rodin, the founder of i3D group of companies, made an application for the creation of a similar centre. He intends to build a 3D printing plant worth 1.5 billion rubles. The ZD-Integration group of companies headed by him received a subsidy from the Ministry of Industry and Trade of Russia of 280 million rubles, the enterprise is supposed to be located on the territory of Innopolis SEZ in Laishevo. The first 3D printing machines will be released in mid-2025 Even earlier, Rosatom State Corporation took the initiative to create the centre.