MOSCOW. Nov 28 (Interfax-AVN) - The Ministry of Industry, Science, and Technology believes that the quality of arms and combat materiel, produced by the Russian defense industry, has been decreasing of late.
"The quality of arms and combat materiel produced has considerably decreased of late, which resulted in a greater number of complaints, including those from foreign customers," a ministry spokesman told Interfax-Military News Agency on Friday.
According to Viktor Sergeyev, head of the ministry's defense industry policy department, lower quality of defense industry products has been caused by a number of systematic technical and organizational reasons, including obsolete production capabilities, obsolete spare parts, and lower professional skills of employees, including those, pertaining to quality control, etc.
"A total of 75% of production capabilities at defense industry enterprises are morally obsolete, while about 50% of them are worn out. The upgrade rate of main production facilities has recently been less than 1%, while the required figure totals 10%," Sergeev said.
According to him, the quality is further affected by a greater number of contracts on exporting weapon systems, which has not been fielded with the Russian Armed Forces, breaches of materiel tests, slow introduction of contemporary quality control standards, small-batch production, etc.
Sergeyev noted that a comprehensive program, aimed at raising the defense industry product quality, was worked out and adopted in August 2003.
He emphasized that new technologies and equipment were the basis for raising the quality of defense industry products.
The problem of standardizing defense industry is very acute, Sergeyev stressed.
"At the present time up to 70% of state standards, pertaining to weapon systems and dual-purpose product quality, have to be revised, taking into account international standards," he said.
Sergeyev also reported that the problem of shifting to a single comprehensive system of technical requirements and national standards was to be solved in the next seven years.
In the meantime the defense industry relies on a system of industrial branch standards.
Introduction of the Continuous Acquisition and Life Cycle Support (CALS) technology is to become a pivotal step towards increasing the quality of defense products. This technology envisions continuous informational support throughout the life cycle of a weapon system.
According to Sergeyev, pilot projects on introducing the CALS technologies to such programs as the TU-214, Project 11356 frigate, the Akveduk system, the T-90S MBT, and the Smerch MLRS, have been developed and launched into realization.