Serial Production
MOSCOW – Serial production of the fifth-generation fighter, Su-57, has begun, according to the Russian aircraft manufacturer Sukhoi’s 80th anniversary brochure. “The 5th generation multifunctional aeronautical complex has a high intellect in onboard equipment, stealth capability and great.
- Mass production, also known as flow production or continuous production, is the production of large amounts of standardized products, including and especially on assembly lines. Together with job production and batch production, it is one of the three main production methods. The term mass production was popularized.
- To the maximum extent possible, the dates of manufacture shown were obtained from the original Winchester Factory Polishing Room serialization records; otherwise estimates were made using multiple sources of information (e.g. George Madis, Ned Schwing, etc.), in which case the data was extrapolated to the best of our ability.
Mass production, also known as flow production or continuous production, is the production of large amounts of standardized products, including and especially on assembly lines. Together with job production and batch production, it is one of the three main production methods.[1]
The term mass production was popularized by a 1926 article in the Encyclopædia Britannica supplement that was written based on correspondence with Ford Motor Company. The New York Times used the term in the title of an article that appeared before publication of the Britannica article.[2]
The concepts of mass production are applied to various kinds of products, from fluids and particulates handled in bulk (such as food, fuel, chemicals, and minedminerals) to discrete solid parts (such as fasteners) to assemblies of such parts (such as household appliances and automobiles).
Mass production is a diverse field, but it can generally be contrasted with craft production or distributed manufacturing. Some mass production techniques, such as standardized sizes and production lines, predate the Industrial Revolution by many centuries; however, it was not until the introduction of machine tools and techniques to produce interchangeable parts were developed in the mid 19th century that modern mass production was possible.[2]
- 2History
Overview[edit]
Mass production involves making many copies of products, very quickly, using assembly line techniques to send partially complete products to workers who each work on an individual step, rather than having a worker work on a whole product from start to finish.
Mass production of fluid matter typically involves pipes with centrifugal pumps or screw conveyors (augers) to transfer raw materials or partially complete products between vessels. Fluid flow processes such as oil refining and bulk materials such as wood chips and pulp are automated using a system of process control which uses various instruments to measure variables such as temperature, pressure, volumetric and level, providing feedback man
Bulk materials such as coal, ores, grains and wood chips are handled by belt, chain, slat, pneumatic or screw conveyors, bucket elevators and mobile equipment such as front-end loaders. Materials on pallets are handled with forklifts. Also used for handling heavy items like reels of paper, steel or machinery are electric overhead cranes, sometimes called bridge cranes because they span large factory bays.
Mass production is capital intensive and energy intensive, as it uses a high proportion of machinery and energy in relation to workers. It is also usually automated while total expenditure per unit of product is decreased. However, the machinery that is needed to set up a mass production line (such as robots and machine presses) is so expensive that there must be some assurance that the product is to be successful to attain profits.
One of the descriptions of mass production is that 'the skill is built into the tool'[citation needed], which means that the worker using the tool may not need the skill. For example, in the 19th or early 20th century, this could be expressed as 'the craftsmanship is in the workbench itself' (not the training of the worker). Rather than having a skilled worker measure every dimension of each part of the product against the plans or the other parts as it is being formed, there were jigs ready at hand to ensure that the part was made to fit this set-up. It had already been checked that the finished part would be to specifications to fit all the other finished parts—and it would be made more quickly, with no time spent on finishing the parts to fit one another. Later, once computerized control came about (for example, CNC), jigs were obviated, but it remained true that the skill (or knowledge) was built into the tool (or process, or documentation) rather than residing in the worker's head. This is the specialized capital required for mass production; each workbench and set of tools (or each CNC cell, or each fractionating column) is different (fine-tuned to its task).
History[edit]
Pre-industrial[edit]
Standardized parts and sizes and factory production techniques were developed in pre-industrial times; however, before the invention of machine tools the manufacture of precision parts, especially metal ones, was very labor-intensive.
Crossbows made with bronze parts were produced in China during the Warring States period. The Qin Emperor unified China at least in part by equipping large armies with these weapons, which were equipped with a sophisticated trigger mechanism made of interchangeable parts.[4]Ships of war were produced on a large scale at a moderate cost by the Carthaginians in their excellent harbors, allowing them to efficiently maintain their control of the Mediterranean. The Venetians themselves also produced ships using prefabricated parts and assembly lines many centuries later. The Venetian Arsenal apparently produced nearly one ship every day, in what was effectively the world's first factory which, at its height, employed 16,000 people. Mass production in the publishing industry has been commonplace since the Gutenberg Bible was published using a printing press in the mid-15th century.
Industrial[edit]
In the Industrial Revolution, simple mass production techniques were used at the Portsmouth Block Mills in England to make ships' pulley blocks for the Royal Navy in the Napoleonic Wars. It was achieved in 1803 by Marc Isambard Brunel in cooperation with Henry Maudslaym under the management of Sir Samuel Bentham.[5] The first unmistakable examples of manufacturing operations carefully designed to reduce production costs by specialized labour and the use of machines appeared in the 18th century in England.[6]
The Navy was in a state of expansion that required 100,000 pulley blocks to be manufactured a year. Bentham had already achieved remarkable efficiency at the docks by introducing power-driven machinery and reorganising the dockyard system. Brunel, a pioneering engineer, and Maudslay, a pioneer of machine tool technology who had developed the first industrially practical screw-cutting lathe in 1800 which standardized screw thread sizes for the first time which in turn allowed the application of interchangeable parts, collaborated on plans to manufacture block-making machinery. By 1805, the dockyard had been fully updated with the revolutionary, purpose-built machinery at a time when products were still built individually with different components.[5] A total of 45 machines were required to perform 22 processes on the blocks, which could be made into one of three possible sizes.[5] The machines were almost entirely made of metal thus improving their accuracy and durability. The machines would make markings and indentations on the blocks to ensure alignment throughout the process. One of the many advantages of this new method was the increase in labour productivity due to the less labour-intensive requirements of managing the machinery. Richard Beamish, assistant to Brunel's son and engineer, Isambard Kingdom Brunel, wrote:
Serial Production House In Delhi
So that ten men, by the aid of this machinery, can accomplish with uniformity, celerity and ease, what formerly required the uncertain labour of one hundred and ten.[5]
By 1808, annual production from the 45 machines had reached 130,000 blocks and some of the equipment was still in operation as late as the mid-twentieth century.[5][7] Mass production techniques were also used to rather limited extent to make clocks and watches, and to make small arms, though parts were usually non-interchangeable.[2] Though produced on a very small scale, Crimean War gunboat engines designed and assembled by John Penn of Greenwich are recorded as the first instance of the application of mass production techniques (though not necessarily the assembly-line method) to marine engineering.[8] In filling an Admiralty order for 90 sets to his high-pressure and high-revolution horizontal trunk engine design, Penn produced them all in 90 days. He also used Whitworth Standard threads throughout.[9] Prerequisites for the wide use of mass production were interchangeable parts, machine tools and power, especially in the form of electricity.
Some of the organizational management concepts needed to create 20th-century mass production, such as scientific management, had been pioneered by other engineers (most of whom are not famous, but Frederick Winslow Taylor is one of the well-known ones), whose work would later be synthesized into fields such as industrial engineering, manufacturing engineering, operations research, and management consultancy. Although after leaving the Henry Ford Company which was rebranded as Cadillac and later was awarded the Dewar Trophy in 1908 for creating interchangeable mass-produced precision engine parts, Henry Ford downplayed the role of Taylorism in the development of mass production at his company. However, Ford management performed time studies and experiments to mechanize their factory processes, focusing on minimizing worker movements. The difference is that while Taylor focused mostly on efficiency of the worker, Ford also substituted for labor by using machines, thoughtfully arranged, wherever possible.
In 1807, Eli Terry was hired to produce 4,000 wooden movement clocks in the Porter Contract. At this time, the annual yield for wooden clocks did not exceed a few dozen on average. Terry developed a Milling machine in 1795, in which he perfected Interchangeable parts. In 1807, Terry developed a spindle cutting machine, which could produce multiple parts at the same time. Terry hired Silas Hoadley and Seth Thomas to work the Assembly line at the facilities. The Porter Contract was the first contract which called for mass production of clock movements in history. In 1815, Terry began mass producing the first shelf clock. Chauncey Jerome, an apprentice of Eli Terry mass produced up to 20,000 brass clocks annually in 1840 when he invented the cheap 30 hour OG clock.[10]
The United States Department of War sponsored the development of interchangeable parts for guns produced at the arsenals at Springfield, Massachusetts and Harpers Ferry, Virginia (now West Virginia) in the early decades of the 19th century, finally achieving reliable interchangeability by about 1850.[2] This period coincided with the development of machine tools, with the armories designing and building many of their own. Some of the methods employed were a system of gauges for checking dimensions of the various parts and jigs and fixtures for guiding the machine tools and properly holding and aligning the work pieces. This system came to be known as armory practice or the American system of manufacturing, which spread throughout New England aided by skilled mechanics from the armories who were instrumental in transferring the technology to the sewing machines manufacturers and other industries such as machine tools, harvesting machines and bicycles. Singer Manufacturing Co., at one time the largest sewing machine manufacturer, did not achieve interchangeable parts until the late 1880s, around the same time Cyrus McCormick adopted modern manufacturing practices in making harvesting machines.[2]
Serial Production House In Kolkata
Mass production benefited from the development of materials such as inexpensive steel, high strength steel and plastics. Machining of metals was greatly enhanced with high speed steel and later very hard materials such as tungsten carbide for cutting edges.[11] Fabrication using steel components was aided by the development of electric welding and stamped steel parts, both which appeared in industry in about 1890. Plastics such as polyethylene, polystyrene and polyvinyl chloride (PVC) can be easily formed into shapes by extrusion, blow molding or injection molding, resulting in very low cost manufacture of consumer products, plastic piping, containers and parts.
An influential article that helped to frame and popularize the 20th century's definition of mass production appeared in a 1926 Encyclopædia Britannica supplement. The article was written based on correspondence with Ford Motor Company and is sometimes credited as the first use of the term.[2]
Factory electrification[edit]
Electrification of factories began very gradually in the 1890s after the introduction of a practical DC motor by Frank J. Sprague and accelerated after the AC motor was developed by Galileo Ferraris, Nikola Tesla and Westinghouse, Mikhail Dolivo-Dobrovolsky and others. Electrification of factories was fastest between 1900 and 1930, aided by the establishment of electric utilities with central stations and the lowering of electricity prices from 1914 to 1917.[12]
Electric motors were several times more efficient than small steam engines because central station generation were more efficient than small steam engines and because line shafts and belts had high friction losses.[13][14] Electric motors allowed also more flexibility in manufacturing and required less maintenance than line shafts and belts. Many factories saw a 30% increase in output just from changing over to electric motors.
Electrification enabled modern mass production, as with Thomas Edison’s iron ore processing plant (about 1893) that could process 20,000 tons of ore per day with two shifts of five men each. At that time it was still common to handle bulk materials with shovels, wheelbarrows and small narrow gauge rail cars, and for comparison, a canal digger in previous decades typically handled 5 tons per 12-hour day.
The biggest impact of early mass production was in manufacturing everyday items, such as at the Ball BrothersGlass Manufacturing Company, which electrified its mason jar plant in Muncie, Indiana, U.S. around 1900. The new automated process used glass blowing machines to replace 210 craftsman glass blowers and helpers. A small electric truck was used to handle 150 dozen bottles at a time where previously a hand truck would carry 6 dozen. Electric mixers replaced men with shovels handling sand and other ingredients that were fed into the glass furnace. An electric overhead crane replaced 36 day laborers for moving heavy loads across the factory.[15]
According to Henry Ford:[16]
The provision of a whole new system of electric generation emancipated industry from the leather belt and line shaft, for it eventually became possible to provide each tool with its own electric motor. This may seem only a detail of minor importance. In fact, modern industry could not be carried out with the belt and line shaft for a number of reasons. The motor enabled machinery to be arranged in the order of the work, and that alone has probably doubled the efficiency of industry, for it has cut out a tremendous amount of useless handling and hauling. The belt and line shaft were also tremendously wasteful – so wasteful indeed that no factory could be really large, for even the longest line shaft was small according to modern requirements. Also high speed tools were impossible under the old conditions – neither the pulleys nor the belts could stand modern speeds. Without high speed tools and the finer steels which they brought about, there could be nothing of what we call modern industry.
Tamil movies bge themes download mp3. Mass production was popularized in the late 1910s and 1920s by Henry Ford's Ford Motor Company,[17] which introduced electric motors to the then-well-known technique of chain or sequential production. Ford also bought or designed and built special purpose machine tools and fixtures such as multiple spindle drill presses that could drill every hole on one side of an engine block in one operation and a multiple head milling machine that could simultaneously machine 15 engine blocks held on a single fixture. All of these machine tools were arranged systematically in the production flow and some had special carriages for rolling heavy items into machining position. Production of the Ford Model T used 32,000 machine tools.[18]
The use of assembly lines[edit]
Mass production systems for items made of numerous parts are usually organized into assembly lines. The assemblies pass by on a conveyor, or if they are heavy, hung from an overhead crane or monorail.
In a factory for a complex product, rather than one assembly line, there may be many auxiliary assembly lines feeding sub-assemblies (i.e. car engines or seats) to a backbone 'main' assembly line. A diagram of a typical mass-production factory looks more like the skeleton of a fish than a single line.
Vertical integration[edit]
Vertical integration is a business practice that involves gaining complete control over a product's production, from raw materials to final assembly.
In the age of mass production, this caused shipping and trade problems in that shipping systems were unable to transport huge volumes of finished automobiles (in Henry Ford's case) without causing damage, and also government policies imposed trade barriers on finished units.[19]
Ford built the Ford River Rouge Complex with the idea of making the company's own iron and steel in the same large factory site as parts and car assembly took place. River Rouge also generated its own electricity.
Upstream vertical integration, such as to raw materials, is away from leading technology toward mature, low return industries. Most companies chose to focus on their core business rather than vertical integration. This included buying parts from outside suppliers, who could often produce them as cheaply or cheaper.
Standard Oil, the major oil company in the 19th century, was vertically integrated partly because there was no demand for unrefined crude oil, but kerosene and some other products were in great demand. The other reason was that Standard Oil monopolized the oil industry. The major oil companies were, and many still are, vertically integrated, from production to refining and with their own retail stations, although some sold off their retail operations. Some oil companies also have chemical divisions.
Lumber and paper companies at one time owned most of their timber lands and sold some finished products such as corrugated boxes. The tendency has been to divest of timber lands to raise cash and to avoid property taxes.
Advantages and disadvantages[edit]
The economies of mass production come from several sources. The primary cause is a reduction of non-productive effort of all types. In craft production, the craftsman must bustle about a shop, getting parts and assembling them. He must locate and use many tools many times for varying tasks. In mass production, each worker repeats one or a few related tasks that use the same tool to perform identical or near-identical operations on a stream of products. The exact tool and parts are always at hand, having been moved down the assembly line consecutively. The worker spends little or no time retrieving and/or preparing materials and tools, and so the time taken to manufacture a product using mass production is shorter than when using traditional methods.
The probability of human error and variation is also reduced, as tasks are predominantly carried out by machinery; error in operating such machinery, however, has more far-reaching consequences. A reduction in labour costs, as well as an increased rate of production, enables a company to produce a larger quantity of one product at a lower cost than using traditional, non-linear methods.
However, mass production is inflexible because it is difficult to alter a design or production process after a production line is implemented. Also, all products produced on one production line will be identical or very similar, and introducing variety to satisfy individual tastes is not easy. However, some variety can be achieved by applying different finishes and decorations at the end of the production line if necessary. The starter cost for the machinery can be expensive so the producer must be sure it sells or the producers will lose a lot of money.
The Ford Model T produced tremendous affordable output but was not very good at responding to demand for variety, customization, or design changes. As a consequence Ford eventually lost market share to General Motors, who introduced annual model changes, more accessories and a choice of colors.[2]
With each passing decade, engineers have found ways to increase the flexibility of mass production systems, driving down the lead times on new product development and allowing greater customization and variety of products.
Socioeconomic impacts[edit]
In the 1830s, French political thinker and historian Alexis de Tocqueville identified one of the key characteristics of America that would later make it so amenable to the development of mass production: the homogeneous consumer base. De Tocqueville wrote in his Democracy in America (1835) that 'The absence in the United States of those vast accumulations of wealth which favor the expenditures of large sums on articles of mere luxury.. impact to the productions of American industry a character distinct from that of other countries' industries. [Production is geared toward] articles suited to the wants of the whole people'.
Mass production improved productivity, which was a contributing factor to economic growth and the decline in work week hours, alongside other factors such as transportation infrastructures (canals, railroads and highways) and agricultural mechanization. These factors caused the typical work week to decline from 70 hours in the early 19th century to 60 hours late in the century, then to 50 hours in the early 20th century and finally to 40 hours in the mid-1930s.
Mass production permitted great increases in total production. Using a European crafts system into the late 19th century it was difficult to meet demand for products such as sewing machines and animal powered mechanical harvesters.[2] By the late 1920s many previously scarce goods were in good supply. One economist has argued that this constituted 'overproduction' and contributed to high unemployment during the Great Depression.[20]Say's law denies the possibility of general overproduction and for this reason classical economists deny that it had any role in the Great Depression.
Mass production allowed the evolution of consumerism by lowering the unit cost of many goods used.
See also[edit]
References[edit]
- ^Production Methods, BBC GCSE Bitesize, retrieved 2012-10-26.
- ^ abcdefghHounshell, David A. (1984), From the American System to Mass Production, 1800-1932: The Development of Manufacturing Technology in the United States, Baltimore, Maryland: Johns Hopkins University Press, ISBN978-0-8018-2975-8, LCCN83016269
- ^Wolf 1974, pp. 67f.:
From old price tables it can be deduced that the capacity of a printing press around 1600, assuming a fifteen-hour workday, was between 3,200 and 3,600 impressions per day.
- ^Mass-Produced Pre-Han Chinese Bronze Crossbow Triggers: Unparalleled Manufacturing Technology in the Ancient World. by David Williams. Arms & Armour, Volume 5, Number 2, October 2008 , pp. 142-153(12) http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/maney/aaa/2008/00000005/00000002/art00003Archived 11 December 2013 at the Wayback Machine
- ^ abcde'The Portsmouth blockmaking machinery'. makingthemodernworld.org
- ^Brumcarrier
- ^'Portsmouth Royal Dockyard Historical Trust: History 1690 - 1840'. portsmouthdockyard.org.
- ^Osborn, G.A. (1965). 'The Crimean War gunboats, part 1'. The Mariner's Mirror. 51 (2): 103–116. doi:10.1080/00253359.1965.10657815.
- ^The Times. 24 January 1887.Missing or empty
title=
(help) - ^Roberts, Kenneth D., and Snowden Taylor. Eli Terry and the Connecticut Shelf Clock. Ken Roberts Publishing, 1994.
- ^Ayres, Robert (1989). 'Technological Transformations and Long Waves'(PDF): 36Fig. 12, Machining speed for steel axleCite journal requires
journal=
(help) - ^Jerome, Harry (1934). Mechanization in Industry, National Bureau of Economic Research. p. xxviii.
- ^Devine, Jr., Warren D. (1983). 'From Shafts to Wires: Historical Perspective on Electrification, Journal of Economic History, Vol. 43, Issue 2'(PDF): 355.Cite journal requires
journal=
(help) - ^Smil, Vaclav (2005). Creating the Twentieth Century: Technical Innovations of 1867-1914 and Their Lasting Impact. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press.
- ^Nye, David E. (1990). Electrifying America: Social Meanings of a New Technology. Cambridge, Massachusetts and London, England: MIT Press. pp. 14, 15.
- ^Ford, Henry; Crowther, Samuel (1930). Edison as I Know Him. New York: Cosmopolitan Book Company. p. 15 (on line edition).
- ^Hounshell 1984
- ^Hounshell 1984, p. 288
- ^Womack, Jones, Roos; The Machine That Changed The World, Rawson & Associates, New York. Published by Simon & Schuster, 1990.
- ^Beaudreau, Bernard C. (1996). Mass Production, the Stock Market Crash and the Great Depression: The Macroeconomics of Electrification. New York, Lincoln, Shanghi: Authors Choice Press.
Further reading[edit]
- Beaudreau, Bernard C. (1996). Mass Production, the Stock Market Crash and the Great Depression. New York, Lincoln, Shanghi: Authors Choice Press.
- Borth, Christy. Masters of Mass Production, Bobbs-Merrill Company, Indianapolis, IN, 1945.
- Herman, Arthur. Freedom's Forge: How American Business Produced Victory in World War II, Random House, New York, NY, 2012. ISBN978-1-4000-6964-4.
External links[edit]
- Quotations related to Mass production at Wikiquote
- Media related to Mass production at Wikimedia Commons
Rollout of the first serially-produced An-148 at AVIANT's gigantic hangar in Kiev, 2009. An An-124 under maintenance seen in the far corner of the hangar. | |
Серійний завод «Антонов» | |
State-owned company | |
Industry | Aircraft manufacturing |
---|---|
Founded | 1920 |
Founder | Soviet government |
Headquarters | , |
Key people | Dmytro Kiva (chairman of the Board of Directors) |
Products | Antonov-designed airplanes |
Parent | Antonov |
Website | www.antonov.com/services/antonov-serial-plant?lang=en |
“Antonov” serial production plant (Ukrainian: Серійний завод «Антонов»), formerly AVIANT (Ukrainian: АВІАНТ), is an aircraft manufacturing company in Kiev, Ukraine, the serial manufacturing division of the Antonov. “Antonov” serial production plant's office and industrial premises are located at the Sviatoshyn Airfield in Kiev, between the districts of Nyvky, Svyatoshyn, and Bilychi.
History[edit]
“Antonov” production aircraft plant' was established by decision of the War Industry Council on September 9, 1920 under the name of 'State Aircraft Plant 12' (GAZ-12). It consisted of small uncoordinated workshops and until the war was located on Garmatna Street.
The plant performed overhaul of foreign aircraft models used by the military. It had no aerodrome of its own, and aircraft were tested at Post-Volynsky aerodrome (Kyiv International Airport (Zhuliany)). In 1922 the plant was renamed “Remvozdukh-6”. In 1925 the first domestic aircraft, the K-1, was designed and built under guidance of the designer Konstyantyn Kalinin. The maiden flight was July 26, 1925. In 1931 the plant was renamed “Plant 43”. In 1932 the facilities produced the first domestic gyroplane “4-EA” TSAGI. That same year, production of the first domestic high-speed 6-seater aircraft began, the KHAI-1. It had a speed of 324 km/h, a ceiling of 7000 m and a range of over 1000 km with a payload of up to 1000 kg. It was the first in European airplane with retractable landing gear. The maiden flight was on October 8, 1932 . A total of 43 KHAI-1 were manufactured. In 1937 the works manufactured the OKO-1.In 1939-1941 the facilities began assembly of MiG aircraft. When the plant was bombed on June 25, 1941, the works were evacuated to Novosibirsk, to V.P. Chkalov Facilities where it produced the fighters Yak-3, Yak-6 and Yak-9 designed by Alexander Sergeyevich Yakovlev.
After Kiev was liberated from the Nazis, the plant was returned there, where until the end of the war it overhauled PO-2 aircraft and assembled Yak-3 and Yak-9 fighters from parts manufactured elsewhere. In 1944 the plant was renamed 'Plant 473', or 'Organization Mailbox 11'. After the end of the war the plant was moved to the present location in Sviatoshin, which it had started to develop before 1941.
In 1947-1948 the plant manufactured a pilot batch of five helicopters Mi-1 designed by Mikhail Mil, but the series production was transferred to another enterprise.
In 1948 the works started production of the An-2, the ancestor of the great Antonov family, designed by Oleh Kostiantynovych Antonov. The plant produced 18 modifications of the An-2: transport, passenger, agricultural, water bomber for fighting forest fires, a version for fish shoals exploration, a version for scientific and rescue operations in Arctic conditions, etc. The “Aviant” plant manufactured 3,320 An-2s.
Between 1954 and 1956 the Aviant produced the prototype of the military transport aircraft An-8, a twin-engine turboprop. It was the first of a long line of Antonov aircraft with high wings and rear loading cargo ramps. Between 1959 and 1978 the plant manufactured the An-24 (1,028 airplanes produced). It is in 1967 that the plant was renamed “Kiev Aircraft Plant”, or “Organization Mailbox M-5249”.
From 1969 to 1985 the plant manufactured the transport An-26 (1,402 airplanes produced). In 1973 an aerial photography aircraft was produced, the An-30 (123 airplanes produced). On April 30, 1974 the plant was renamed once again to be baptised “Kiev Aviation Production Association”.
Between 1976 and 1979 the plant manufactured a pilot batch of the An-72 (5 airplanes produced). Series production of the An-72 was transferred to Kharkiv facilities, and “Aviant” was charged with mastering production of the unique An-124 'Ruslan', the world's biggest aircraft. Between 1979 and 2004 the plant produced 19 An-124s. Since 1979 the plant has been manufacturing the An-32 (as of May 1, 2004, 361 had been produced. From 1985 to 1988 the plant participated in the manufacture of parts for the An-225 'Mriya', designed to carry the shuttle Buran. Yet, as the space program was suspended, only one An-225 'Mriya' was produced.
On August 5, 1992 the plant was yet again renamed “National Enterprise Kiev Aviation Plant” before being renamed on August 27, 1995 to “Kyiv Aviation Plant Aviant” and in 2010 to its present name “Antonov Serial Production Plant”.
See also[edit]
External links[edit]
- ANTONOV Serial Plant / Branch of ANTONOV Company, company page on Antonov's official web site