The nuances of the organizational preparation the electrification of the Kharkiv plant of the Russian Locomotive-building and Mechanical Society (1895–1896)

Abstract

The transition to an electromechanical drive of equipment has become a new milestone in industrialization, which has led to significant: an increase in labor productivy and a decrease in the energy intensity of production processes. But on the Ukrainian lands of the Russian Empire, this innovation was not introduced until the mid-1890s, and only since that time the process of electrification of production at Ukrainian enterprises has been developed, however, with a simultaneous retain the steam-mechanical drive of equipment also. The Kharkiv plant of the Joint-Stock Company Russian Locomotive-building and Mechanical Society became the first enterprise not only in the Ukrainian provinces of the Russian Empire, but throughout the country, which used solely an electromechanical drive for all equipment. Taking into account this priority, the organizational preparation for the process of electrification of this enterprise also became the first experience in the country of introducing such an innovation, comparable, perhaps, only with the experience of switching from a mechanical to a steam-mechanical drive, which, however, was not studied in the Russian Empire. Simultaneously, the level of technical literacy of a part of the management of the Joint-Stock Company Russian Locomotive-building and Mechanical Society was not high enough to give a technical and economic assessment of the relevant innovations. Therefore, the organizational preparation for the electrification of the Kharkov plant of this Society was carried out without any clear methodological approaches, which in the discussion regarding the electrification scheme of the enterprise led to the replacement of the issue of choosing the best option from the most effective ones to the question of choosing the best one from the cheap ones. As a result, the Society's experts developed terms of reference for a compromise version of the electrification project, the essence of which was to install relatively new electrical equipment in terms of technical level, but operated according to an already outdated scheme, which made this electrification option neither efficient nor cheap, but politically acceptable for the entire leadership of Society. Eventually, it was possible to achieve the expected benefits from the electrification of the plant not from the implantation of the chosen scheme for its implementation, but by concluding strategic agreements with Siemens & Halske, according to which the Company's Management Board ensured it won the competition for the electrification of Society's enterprise at an affordable price, and Siemens & Halske, in turn, subsequently supplied the Company with its products at significant discounts.