Word: elektrosila
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...Elektrosila is an exception among Soviet factories, which lag at least a generation behind their Western counterparts in efficiency and quality. The typical Soviet plant's labor productivity is a paltry one-third the average level of factories in non-Communist industrial countries. At the same time, Soviet plants use two to three times as much energy and raw materials as ( Western factories consume for the same amount of output. Since most Soviet plants answer only to bureaucrats instead of consumers, finished merchandise is often shoddy or simply the wrong type of product to meet demand...
Most Western experts, along with rueful Soviets, blame the country's industrial ministries for stifling initiative and innovation. "I used to have to go to the ministry with the smallest change in our work," says Boris Fomin, director of the Elektrosila plant. "They issued hundreds of instructions, which usually contradicted one another. There was no strategic guidance." While Gorbachev's industrial reform required enterprises to wean themselves from government subsidies by January 1989, the majority of Soviet factories still rely on Moscow for merchandise orders, supplies and financial support...
Such worries have not slowed the managers at the Elektrosila plant. They have teamed up with ten other factories and six research centers in Leningrad to form a consortium to explore new manufacturing methods. They plan to sell their equipment in package deals so that customers can sign up for an entire power plant with a single stroke of the pen. Elektrosila hopes for a substantial boost in exports to raise the foreign currency the plant needs to buy up-to-date Western machinery. At the moment the factory has only 7 million rubles ($11.2 million) in hard currency...
...Elektrosila's newfound independence has brought some unexpected problems. "There's more risk now," says Fomin, the plant director. "Before, all my mistakes were leveled out by the ministry. They were covered up. Now we must rely on our own skills and resources." Simply arranging financing or figuring out whom to call for operating permits can become a major headache. "We have great difficulty getting supplies," says Alexander Kozlov, 42, the factory's chief planner. "Everyone is in the process of change. Some old connections are broken, and new ones have not yet been established...
...women of Elektrosila are a bit awed by their new freedom, they are too enthusiastic to be daunted. Fomin, a stocky man whose black wavy hair makes him look a decade younger than his 62 years, has turned down repeated offers of ministry jobs in Moscow. "I'm in love with what I'm doing now. Besides, I do more good here. So far, I have had no bad flukes, so I sleep pretty well. But there are a lot of general managers in the Soviet Union who don't sleep well at all these days." As any capitalist would...