Moskvich auto plant transitions to complete production cycle

MOSCOW. May 14 (Interfax) - JSC Moskvich Moscow Automobile Plant, the former Russian plant of French automaker Renault, has switched automobile production to a complete cycle, the company said in a press release.

The plant began mass semi knocked-down (SKD) production of Moskvich cars at the end of 2022 and its line now includes three models: the city crossover Moskvich 3, electric vehicle Moskvich 3e and the Moskvich 6 sedan. The plant will now conduct completely knocked-down (CKD) assembly of the Moskvich 3 and Moskvich 3e.

The company said that since January the plant has localized welding, anticorrosion protection, painting, assembly and quality control processes. As a result, the share of manufacturing operations done in Russia increased by 18 times.

Automobiles will now be assembled from more than 900 parts, while SKD assembly involved about 50 components. The transition to CKD assembly created 490 new jobs at the plant.

"The transition to complete cycle production technology will reduce the plant's logistics costs significantly, by up to 25%, thanks to the optimization of vehicle capacity use," the company said.

The plant installed a new robotized welding equipment system for the launch of complete cycle production. The manufacturing process involves 114 new robots and 145 autonomous feeders.

Prior to launching CKD assembly, the plant assembled more than 70 pre-serial test vehicles that underwent all the necessary inspections for quality and confirmed readiness for production. In order to improve quality, the plant added and automated 49 additional quality control stages, including 3D measurement, ultrasound readings and body painting control, and conducts automatic control over fastening of automobile parts.