NEWS

Four new HTECs Bring Total in Russian Federation to 12!

Zaventem, Brussels. January 2010 - Haas Automation Europe (HAE) is pleased to announce the opening of four new Haas Technical Education Centres (HTECs) in Russia: two in Moscow and one each in the Federal Republics of Dagestan and Tatarstan.  The new facilities were launched in December 2009, with the collaboration of HAE’s Russian Haas Factory Outlet (HFO), a division of Abamet Ltd (www.abamet.ru) – which is one the longest established and best performing HFOs in Europe.  HAE and Abamet have now helped to establish 12 HTECs in Russia, reflecting their commitment in the region to developing the next generation of machine tool engineers.

Some 260 people attended the four launches in, including leading industrialists, senior ministers from the regional governments, HTEC industry partners, and reporters from local trade publications and TV stations.  All were keen to support the HTEC initiative, which aims to change the way CNC engineers of the future are educated.

The celebrations started on 2 December in Georgievsk, which is one of the largest industrial towns in the Stavropol region of Dagestan and an important educational centre with five vocational schools and fifteen universities.  The new HTEC at College Integral Georgievsk specialises in training mechanical engineers and metal workers for the electric power industry, which is a big employer in the region.

As the director of the college, Sahovsky Dmitry Aleksandrovich, said: “It is our purpose to supply local companies with enterprise-ready, qualified experts.  We are keen to work with the world’s leading CNC manufacturers in our region who offer reasonable pricing and consistent support in training our students from theory to practice.  Haas and their HTEC Industry Partners deliver what we need.”

Mr. Artyem Nesterov, the HFO area sales manager for Abamet-South, supported this and added: “Opening the HTEC at the College Integral Georgievsk underlines the scale of our support for and co-operation with local educational establishments. Such long term investment also demonstrates the commitment of Haas and its HTEC Industry Partners to our customers, enabling them to grow with professionally trained employees.”

The next two openings were in the Moscow area on 3 and 4 December at the Polytechnic Colleges n° 42 (in Moscow itself) and n° 50 (in the Zelenograd district).  Both colleges specialise in economics and metalworking (including CNC machine tooling) as well as other technology subjects – something that is particularly important in Zelenograd, which is home to the Moscow Institute of Electronic Technology. 

Speaking at the HTEC launch for College n° 42, the school’s director Natalia Bokatuk said: “Being part of the HTEC network enables us to achieve several of our missions, such as increasing student motivation, expanding our existing co-operation with enterprises in Moscow and beyond, and boosting the prestige of Polytechnic College n° 42.”

Key to the success of the HTEC programme is the fact that it gives students access to the latest machine tool technology, as College n° 50’s director Victor Andreev stressed: “The HTEC programme makes it possible for our school to work with the most modern metal cutting technologies, such as those from Haas, Renishaw, KELLER, Sandvik Coromant and Air Turbine Tools.”

The final Russian HTEC launch of 2009 took place on 7 December at the Kazanskiy Energiticheskiy Technikum (Kazan Energy College or KET) in Kazan, the capital of Tatarstan, and the seventh largest city in the Russian Federation.  KET specialises in training experts in the field of power generation, including turners and milling specialists for repair work; so it was fitting that the guest of honour was Fardeev Ilshat Shaehovich, the General Director of Tatenergo, Tatarstan’s leading electricity generation and distribution company (www.tatenergo.com). 

As KET’s director Shakurov Zumejra Munirovna said: “This new step will raise our school’s appeal to students considerably and enables us to play a vital role in preparing the highly-skilled personnel that our republic urgently needs. We will develop further as an innovative centre covering all modern technologies.”

Kazan is an important educational centre, with some 28 vocational technical colleges and 55 institutes of higher education; it also hosts the scientific centre for the Russian Academy of Sciences.  Which explains why the HFO’s director for the Volga region, Igor Zimnyakov was so proud of the launch.  “It gives us great pleasure to support KET with its development.  Tatarstan has great industrial potential and the HTEC programme opens up new possibilities for our schools to prepare the CNC experts of the future.”

Commenting on the recent spate of HTEC launches, HAE’s managing director Peter Hall says: “Companies around the world face great difficulties in recruiting CNC operators with the right competencies.  These HTECs show students that precision engineering is an exciting world with well-paid jobs."

HTEC – The Concept

The HTEC initiative is a partnership between European educational establishments, Haas Automation Europe (HAE), its distributor-owned HFOs (Haas Factory Outlets) and an alliance of industry leading, CNC technology partners.  HAE launched the HTEC programme in 2007 to counter what it regards as one of the greatest threats to the continent’s sustainable economic development: a shortage of talented and motivated young people entering the precision engineering industry with CNC machining skills.

The programme provides Haas CNC machine tools to educational establishments in Europe, so enabling HTEC students to become familiar with the latest CNC machining technology.  This hands-on experience ensures students graduate with transferable skills and better employment opportunities.  The HTECs also benefit local and national engineering companies by increasing the supply of well-educated apprentices.

Since launch, the HTEC initiative has expanded rapidly across Europe.  Governments – from Sweden to Romania and from Portugal to Russia – have enthusiastically backed the programme because they recognise the need to build a stronger manufacturing infrastructure.  This requires well trained, highly motivated CNC technicians; people with access to the very latest CNC technology and with the knowledge and skills to get the best from it.  That’s what the HTEC programme aims to deliver and that’s why HAE and its partners will continue to develop the programme in 2010.

The HTEC Industry Partners are some of the best-known names in precision manufacturing technologies and have demonstrated a strong, ongoing commitment to the HTEC objectives, backing them with the investment of time and resources.  Currently, the HTEC Industry Partner network comprises KELLER, MasterCam, Esprit, Renishaw, Sandvik Coromant, Schunk, Blaser, Urma, Chick, Air Turbine Technology, Hainbuch, and CIMCOOL.

The European HTEC programme in numbers:

At the end of 2009 there were 36 HTECs in 12 European countries:

• Russia: 12
• Portugal: 4
• Austria: 3
• Poland: 4
• Germany: 4
• Denmark: 2
• Sweden: 2
• Belgium: 1
• Belarus: 1
• Estonia: 1
• Romania: 1
• Ukraine: 1

HAE plans to open a further 24 HTECs in Europe in 2010, bringing the total to 60 HTECs in 15 countries.