2023
Transition to video conferencing from TrueConf
UralChem"" abandoned the systems video conferencings Microsoft Cisco in favor of the Russian product. TrueConf This became known in mid-October 2023. More. here
Fine of 60 thousand rubles for leakage of the employee database
The World Court of the Presnensky District of Moscow fined Uralchem 60 thousand rubles for leaking the employee base. One of the largest producers of mineral fertilizers was found guilty of violating the law on personal data.
The court imposed a punishment in accordance with Part 1 of Article 13.11 of the Code of Administrative Offenses (processing personal data in cases not provided for by law). Uralchem received the minimum possible fine under this article, the maximum amount for legal entities is 100,000 rubles.
In Uralchem, commenting on the court's decision, they noted that the company regrets the leakage of personal information of employees and will not appeal the court order.
 | Unfortunately, our company is far from the only one that has faced such a situation. According to our estimate, about 150 large Russian companies and departments were subjected to external cyber attacks during 2022 and 2023 and are still objects of increased attention from hacker groups, the company's press service said. |  |
They also noted that according to the results of their own investigation, a number of measures were taken to increase the level of digital protection of both personal data of Uralchem employees and commercial information. The company plans to share its experience and accumulated expertise with other organizations in order to prevent and prevent such cases in the future.
The claims Roskomnadzor were related to Uralchem's "violations of requirements regarding the provision of illegal access to the personal data information system." As explained to Interfax in court, we are talking about placing a Telegram database of company employees on channels.[1]
Roskomnadzor drew up a protocol for the leakage of these employees
Roskomnadzor drew up an administrative protocol against Uralchem due to a leak of a database with data from company employees. This was reported in the press service of the Presnensky Court of Moscow on January 17, 2023.
| | World District No. 376 of the Presnensky Court of Moscow registered a protocol on an administrative offense against JSC OKHK URALCHEM, "court spokeswoman Lela Kokaya said on January 17, 2023 (quoted by Interfax), noting that the date of consideration of the material has not yet been set. | |
According to her, the department's claims are related to the publication of an employee database in Telegram channels, the protocol was drawn up according to Part 1 of Article 13.11 (processing personal data in cases not provided for by the legislation of the Russian Federation, or processing personal data incompatible with the purposes of collecting personal data). The fine in this case can range from 60,000 to 100,000 rubles.
It is not specified when the data of Uralchem employees was leaked by January 18, 2023. The volume of "merged" information is also unknown.
On January 13, 2023, Russian President Vladimir Putin instructed the government to consider the introduction of negotiable fines for companies that leaked personal data by July 1, 2023. By mid-January 2023, the procedure for investigating the leak itself is not obvious, says a Vedomosti source in the company in the cybersecurity market. Within the framework of the Administrative Code, there is no procedure for conducting such a check, it is not clear how the fact of the leak, its relevance, etc. will be proved, neither the Ministry of Digital Industry nor Roskomnadzor has the authority to do so, he continued.
| | Hence the doubts Ministry of Digital Development about the wording, the source argues. - They don't want to pass a bill that would be "dead." | |
The most logical way out of the situation, according to him, to translate the issue into a criminal plane, then investigators will conduct an investigation as part of the trial. However, this is a completely different chain of adoption of regulatory acts, the source notes.[2]
2022: Uralchem chief information officer: Existing domestic software can be replaced by up to 80% foreign
Only due to existing software solutions can 70-80% of foreign software be replaced. Many of these solutions are very mature in terms of functionality. At the same time, large companies often do not know about the existence of Russian analogues of Western products. [1] Valery Fokin, Chief information officer of Uralchem Chemical Complex, spoke about this at TAdviser Summit 2022 .
| | Only one Microsoft Office has five Russian counterparts that work well, but we don't know about it. In my opinion, Russian software manufacturers need to strengthen sales. We know well about Western products and little about Russian ones, because foreign companies sell not only software, but also belonging to a certain community. Obtaining a certificate from a foreign company guarantees that the expert will be in demand anywhere in the world. Our vendors need to create something similar, - says Valery Fokin. | |
According to him, the sanctions led to an increase in demand for domestic solutions. However, if from the point of view of software in Russia everything is more or less safe, then there is no hardware on the market. The chief information officer of Uralchem believes that for the next 5-10 years, Russian consumers will "live" through parallel imports, until the investments that are now aimed at creating domestic equipment result.
At the same time, Valery Fokin notes that Uralchem will not curtail digital transformation projects. The company has been very pragmatic about digitalization before, any project to introduce innovative technologies had to bring effect to the company, give additional opportunities or reduce risks.
The main directions of digital transformation:
- increased efficiency of technological processes;
- improving the quality and speed of management decisions;
- new digital business models, platforms, customers;
- occupational health and safety.
| | We see that due to digitalization, we can increase production by 2% and reduce variable costs by 3%, primarily we are talking about energy costs. Digital transformation projects, in addition to direct effects, bring a large number of indirect ones. The most important of them is an increase in EBITDA by 5% due to improved sales processes and lower costs. The emergence of AI systems on the market makes it possible to transform control models. In addition, the priority is technologies that save the health of workers, "Valery Fokin told TAdviser Summit 2022. | |
According to him, the key task facing IT in the corporation is to move from the classic management model, when people make operational decisions, to one where AI decides everything. Valery Fokin believes that such a transition will take 10-15 years. To implement these plans, you need to go through two major stages of transformation:
- create a technological platform that implies total automation of business processes;
- Build a data platform or data management ecosystem.
Both stages of transformation in Uralchem go in parallel. The company has launched the process of automation of all processes, the necessary solutions are either purchased from developers, or created within the company if there are no necessary products in the market. In parallel, in 2021, Uralchem and Uralkali, together with SberCloud , launched the enterprise data management ecosystem, which receives data from all sources. This data will become the basis for the launch of new digital services. Now new tools are being developed by IT specialists, but in 2022 the corporation intends to create a large number of services for employees so that they can independently build models in them, increasing the efficiency of work. To increase the level of competence, Uralchem launched a school of data analysts, where people can acquire the necessary data skills. For the platform to work in full measure, Uralchem launched a corporate accelerator, which must generate a constant influx of ideas for using AI.
In addition, the corporation intends to use the data to create client services. Uralchem's subsidiary Digital Agro is developing a digital platform on which it is planned to host a large set of services, for example, the "precision farming" service, which will allow fertilizing the field pointwise, only where necessary.
TAdviser SummIT took place on May 31, 2022 in Moscow. The event was attended by more than 900 delegates, more than 100 reports were made. Among the key speakers are the Minister of Digital Development of the Russian Federation Maksut Shadayev, Deputy General Director of RZDEvgeniy Charkin, [2] Chief information officer UralhimValeriy Fokin, Vice President for IT of Eurasholding Artem Natrusov, [3] Chief information officer LentySergey Sergeyev and others.
2021: Digital transformation in Uralchem: Chief information officer Valery Fokin presented strategy and priorities at TAdviser SummIT
Valery Fokin, Deputy General Director - IT Director of Uralchem, speaking at the TAdviser SummIT conference on May 26, 2021, spoke about the priorities and progress of digital transformation in the company.
| | We all know that the process of digital transformation is the hardest, tectonic work, - said Valery Fokin. | |
In Uralchem, this work began classically with the formation of a digital strategy linked to each functional direction in the company, said the head of the IT department. It covered planning, finance, the digital work environment in which employees work. And the goals of the implementation of the strategy are to increase efficiency, speed, and reduce costs.
The strategy has three areas: overcoming the backlog in terms of basic automation, the use of digital tools in production and business processes, as well as changing the business model. The latter implies the creation of truly new business models, including digital business models near the core of the business. The company "Digital Agro," owned by "Uralchem," in particular, is engaged in the creation and sale of convenient services for customers, primarily in the agricultural field.
The most important project that was started in the company is the replacement of the platform. In Uralchem, ERP the replacement of ERP was extremely necessary, said Valery Fokin. It was chosen as a platform, and Oracle E-Business Suite this is due to the fact that the company friendly to Uralchem - "," Uralkali where Valery Fokin also works as a Chief information officer, has long been automated using this solution. And the challenge now is to get maximum synergy in the business processes between these two companies: "We believe that this platform will give maximum synergy." Oracle The E-Business Suite is scheduled to launch on January 1, 2023.
In terms of sales planning and operations, this system was built on the basis of the Anaplan solution. And on the basis of it, in the future, the company plans to build a rolling planning system.
| | Many still live in the concept of annual planning, and with the help of this planning system we want to make sure that planning is moving - so that we see for a year, or even two years in advance, - said the head of the IT department at Uralchem. | |
Another system is a "unique product" that Kaspersky Lab helped develop. The uniqueness is that the product is made entirely according to the terms of reference of Uralchem: this is a system for automating the scoring assessment of counterparties. It receives either automatically or manually applications for scoring of either individuals or counterparties, and the system conducts scoring both on external bases and on the internal bases of Uralchem using a customizable scoring model.
And within the framework of operational, production or business process analytics, the company uses the Power BI application - and its cloud version, first of all, and local.
There is no getting away without working with corporate data. In 2020, Uralchem began a large program to develop and prepare an ecosystem for working with corporate data. It includes three layers: data acquisition and quality checks, a storage layer, and a third data layer. There is also an emphasis on the development of a corporate data culture.
| | It's no secret: not all representatives of our conservative industry understand what data work is, and how the whole story can be monetized, "Valery Fokin emphasized. | |
And a lot of attention is paid to the development of the infrastructure component. The company decided to organize two data centers for itself: one main, the other - reserve. Moreover, the first data center "Uralchem" did not build, this site was rented from a large provider of such services. And now the company is building a backup data center to back up its critical functions. As a basic version, it is planned to be made cloud.
The next direction Valery Fokin called, perhaps, the most important - the production unit. Here, all tasks and effects are achieved by reducing costs or increasing the number of products produced. The company began to introduce a single MES platform at all its plants. It needed to be modernized. And the PI System platform from OSIsoft was chosen as the base.
The company also has a large portfolio of production data analytics projects. For example, Uralchem created an online adviser to one of the installations - a drum-granulator-dryer, which showed the effect of increasing the production of marketable products from 2% to 6%.
There is also a modernization of the laboratory management system at enterprises: here Labware was chosen as the base. And there is automation of labor protection and industrial safety processes.
And a separate project - mobile rounds, when a crawler uses a set of tools and a tablet to bypass equipment, records all violations, and then this is all transferred to the TOIR database, where repairs are planned. In addition to mobile rounds, it is planned to organize mobile repairs using the same application.
Other systems that Valery Fokin spoke about include CRM, e-commerce platform, mobile application for employees, HR microservices and a number of others.
The TAdviser SummIT conference, held in traditional offline mode, has become one of the largest in the history of its holding: in total, more than 700 delegates attended the event. Also at the exhibition within the framework of the summit, the most extensive exhibition of IT solutions in the history of the event was presented: suppliers of products and services deployed 21 stands. In total, about 100 speakers spoke in the plenary part and the five parallel sectoral sessions that followed. The event was supported by the Ministry of Digital Development of Russia.
2020: How digital transformation increases staff efficiency: Uralchem case
OKHK URALCHEM JSC is one of the largest producers of mineral fertilizers in Russia and the CIS. The company is constantly working to improve production efficiency by introducing new solutions based on digital technologies. Vyacheslav Grishkin, head of the digital transformation department of the digitalization and technological development department of OKHK URALCHEM JSC, told about some digitalization projects. [1]
A comprehensive strategy for the digital transformation of URALCHEM enterprises has been implemented since 2018. We identified three goals of digitalization of production: strengthening the efficiency and safety of personnel, optimizing production processes and improving the quality of asset management.
URALCHEM operates especially hazardous industrial facilities, so the technologies being introduced, on the one hand, help to establish uninterrupted operation of the equipment in accordance with technological regulations, on the other hand, increase the safety and efficiency of employees.
We focus on two main groups of personnel: employees who ensure the functioning of production, as well as specialists who are engaged in the maintenance of production infrastructure.
Apparatchiks, machinists, operators working in production are highly qualified specialists who have been learning to do their job for years and have rare and unique competencies. So far, there are no cars that can replace them. But there are solutions that help them do their job more effectively.
The second group is employees who are involved in monitoring the condition of the equipment and its maintenance. Great opportunities are hidden here to improve their efficiency by introducing additional tools for visualizing and monitoring the state of production infrastructure and performance of units.
Mobile detours
One of our first projects in the direction of digitalization of the enterprise is the automation of the work of shift personnel, which daily monitors the state of technological equipment. According to a certain schedule and a special route, they bypass the territory, check pumps, compressors, pipelines and other units, recording the results of the visual inspection in the log. Any enterprise where maintenance and repair processes (MR) of equipment are required faces a number of human-related problems:
No scheduled inspection when log entry is made without bypassing;
- Subjectivity of the assessment when the conclusions do not reflect the actual state of the equipment;
- Ignoring problems based on one's own circumstances and beliefs.
There can be many situations when a big problem grows out of a minor incident. For example, the pump makes minor extraneous noises, but a person knows that this is not yet critical. He is running out of shift and does not want to understand the situation at all. He records that everything is in order. The next shift also arrives. A week later, the pump "suddenly" breaks. It is not always possible to promptly correct the situation, because spare parts and resources are required, which will not be available on time, or the backup unit is also in the process of repair. The enterprise "gets up" - these are colossal financial losses. In chemical continuous production, you can't just press a button - and it has worked. Unscheduled stops bring tens of millions of rubles in losses.
To automate MR, we have chosen a mobile solution. It involves the use of compact devices that read data from instrumentation devices and measure various parameters (general vibration level and temperature), as well as specialized software including an analytical platform and a mobile application that additionally allows you to digitize what the machine sees visually. Each unit in production is supplied with an RFID tag. With its help, the employee is identified by specific equipment, and the mobile application issues a set of actions that need to be taken with him. With the help of the device, the necessary parameters are measured, which are transmitted via the Bluetooth channel to the tablet, the results of a visual inspection are entered into the program. All information is automatically sent to the shift supervisor at the workplace. And so for each unit or group of equipment.
This solution allows you to minimize the human factor: control discipline, avoid accidental or deliberate errors, falsification of data. In addition, it is possible to make decisions on equipment maintenance without waiting for serious problems. The system automatically determines the criticality of the level of deviation of measurement parameters from the norm: the green level is all right, yellow is an event, and only then red is a defect. The shift supervisor sees the yellow border and organizes repair work in advance. As a result, the number of unscheduled outages and serious accidents and, accordingly, the losses that accompany them are reduced.
For many enterprises, such an organization of MR allows you to switch to equipment maintenance according to technical condition, and not in a planned and preventive manner, which is also economically profitable. But so far this is not really our story. We, as a continuous chemical production, are legally obliged to service the infrastructure in a planned and preventive manner. Plants bring workshops for major repairs with a certain frequency. However, if we see any deviations in operation, we can carry out unplanned maintenance - switch to reserve on time, as well as plan to repair a potentially dangerous unit during interruptions provided for by the technological process, for example, during planned preventive stops.
In 2019, we implemented the Mobile Crawler pilot project in the steam water supply workshop of the Azot branch, this year we are scaling the project to the main production of the branch, as well as to Voskresensky Mineral Fertilizers JSC. Several dozen employees will be equipped with measuring devices and tablets for conducting rounds.
Main article: "Mobile crawler" earned in "Akron"
Automation of bypasses is the first stage in the introduction of analytical systems using digital technologies. We have begun to collect data on the state of the infrastructure and can already analyze them, predict the operation of equipment based on real risks, not expectations. In the future, we will develop this direction towards an integrated intellectual solution that can not only prevent possible failures, but also give recommendations on the necessary actions on the part of personnel, as well as maintaining an optimal operating mode. At the next stage, we will install wireless IoT sensors on the equipment, which will measure parameters in real time and transmit the data accumulated per day to the mobile device of the crawler who came for inspection. And all this in a matter of seconds.
Personnel tracking
Another project that complements mobile rounds and allows you to strengthen control over the movement of personnel throughout the enterprise is staff tracking. In hazardous production, employees must be in their places and move along certain routes. First, in order to control the situation on the territory. Secondly, for personal safety. Therefore, we have implemented a solution based on Internet of Things technology and continue to develop it.
We have installed beacons that record the movements of people in production and transmit data to the workplace of the manager. You can monitor the location of each employee in real time, view a report on the route and deviations from it during the day.
Security is provided to a greater extent not by control "from above," but by self-control: people understand that surveillance is being carried out and each violation will be visible, they are more willing to observe discipline. On the other hand, it is not possible to evade the performance of their duties, to fulfill them not in full or at their discretion. Employees understand that in the event of a problem, it is easy to establish who "missed" it and for what reason. Equipment maintenance processes become transparent, which increases personnel discipline and efficiency.
One of the key areas we are developing is the introduction of video analytics systems. In the context of personnel control, I would like to highlight two projects - control of wearing personal protective equipment (PPE) and control of the physical condition of responsible specialists.
The specificity of our enterprise involves the use of overalls, helmets, gas masks, etc. To monitor compliance with this rule, we are introducing a technology for recognizing the presence of PPE. The project is under pilot implementation. Its implementation will allow automatically to identify violations and report them - to the person himself, his management, employees who are nearby, as well as in the form of reports for the period with the statistics of violations.
And the second direction of video analytics that we are starting to implement is facial recognition and facial expressions of people who are engaged in responsible positions that require high concentration and attention. For example, specialists of the central control room. When a person needs to visually monitor a process during a work shift, it is not always possible to maintain high concentration. Someone can get distracted by a call or a message, and just fall asleep. Therefore, monitoring the attention of employees involved in production management is an important project to ensure the safety and efficiency of the entire enterprise. The system analyzes the direction of gaze, movement, actions and determines how much a person is involved in the process and whether he controls the situation. If you suspect a decrease in attention, the specialist and his colleagues receive a signal.
"Kitchen" digitalization
As part of digital transformation projects, we work with large vendors and system integrators. On the other hand, we have internal activities to attract small teams and startups with unique developments and solutions that could be interesting for us. Last year, we held accelerators, hackathons and other events aimed at attracting interesting competencies to solve our problems. This year we held a competition-accelerator "URALCHEM" - ELEMENT OF GROWTH, "aimed at finding and supporting breakthrough solutions in the field of agro and biotechnology, digitalization of agriculture, automation and robotization of production processes, as well as related topics. In addition, we participate in the Promtech program, which is carried out by the Skolkovo Foundation and the Ai-Teko Innovation Center. As part of the program, startups offer innovative solutions to large industrial enterprises.
For large and even more dangerous industries, the level of suppliers is important, who know how to work, observing high quality standards of the offered solutions, know our processes and have knowledge and experience in implementing projects. Therefore, in most cases with startups, we work through integrators who attract small teams with interesting ideas. The integrator assumes all risks and conducts the project within the framework of the regulations presented by the customer. So, for example, we are working on a video analytics project.
URALCHEM has been engaged in comprehensive digitalization not so long ago, but the results that we see inspire the further introduction of new technologies. While we are implementing point projects that can quickly and effectively improve individual processes in production. These are links that will then be combined into a single system - a digital enterprise management platform.
IT projects at JSC CSU URALCHEM
{{# ITProj: Uralchem ОХК АО}}
Notes
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