TAURAS-FENIX is a Model Enterprise for the Future Machine Builders’ On-job Training

The second-year students of the St. Petersburg Management and Commerce Technical College visited production facilities of TAURAS-FENIX, which occupies a leading position in the high-tech equipment for the food industry market. The visit of Electronics and Mechanical Engineering Department students took place in the framework of educational on-job training. A vocational educational institution regularly sends its students to the key urban industrial enterprises. According to the College experts acquaintance with enterprises is a useful experience of students and potential employers’ interaction.

Taking into account the specifics of TAURAS-FENIX enterprise and the availability of the complete manufacturing cycle of packaging equipment, the field trip was organised at all production stages.

At first the students were shown the plant’s own Engineering Department, which employs about 100 design engineers. The division has been operating since the plant establishment in 1987. During this period it obtained 13 mechanical patents, 41 utility models, 6 computer programs and 62 trademarks certificates, besides, all computer management programs are the enterprise’s intellectual property.

Further the students visited the metal cutting site, where they see over the plant’s metalworking complete line: laser cutting machine, waterjet cutting machine, a number of CNC machines, as well as milling machines, thanks to which the precise parts conjoin and nodes connections assembly are made. Then the delegation led by Vitaly Lavrentiev, Head of the Training Centre, proceeded to the dairy products bottling equipment assembly section, where it got acquainted with well-known models of packaging solutions like PASTPACK (for cottage cheese/sour cream filling) and Triblock (solutions for bottling products in PET containers and glass).

At the final stage of the field trip the group of future machine-builders visited the plant’s main building, where they had the opportunity to inspect the assembly section and the final cycle of the production process – filling and packing bulk products equipment check-out. In the process of assembling there were machines like LINEPACK (equipment for packaging products into individual Flow-Pack bags), PITPACK (an automatic machine designed for packaging of a wide range of dusty, free-flowing, granular, small-piece, frozen food and non-food products) as well as conveyor systems and equipment for group transport packaging. The machines pack various types of containers into preformed blocks; or large items, for example, glass bottles (lemonade, juice), glass jars (jams, pickles, sauces, baby food), aluminium cans (alcoholic and non-alcoholic beverages, paint) can be packaged both in corrugated boxes and stretch film.

During the field trip the students were told that all the equipment manufactured at the factory goes through a break-in for a few days both without the product and with the product afterwards. Not a single machine is shipped without these tests. Before shipment the equipment completeness is verified, marked and packaged for further transportation to the customer.

At the moment 14 Technical College students are on-job training at TAURAS-FENIX. Some of them are engaged in the Machining Section, where they learn how to work on CNC machines; someone adopt the Quality Control Department (QCD) specialists’ experience, who teach students to monitor the manufactured equipment quality and check the individual parts of the packaging machines for compliance with the design documentation; other students are involved in the Electrical Assembly Section or in the Assembly Shop. In addition several students chose an IT Department for their on-job training.