The leading plant in Europe after the arrival of Pabradė to Visaginas: it will employ 1000 people Business

This company, with its products, says R. Kupstys, is like an intermediary between the medical team and the patient: the devices created and manufactured here help people breathe.

The devices are designed for respiratory care: anesthesia, resuscitation, oxygen therapy, and aerosols.

And, according to the head of the Visaginas division, efforts are being made to develop new products.

Second in Lithuania

The company originated in 1982 in Great Britain.

Its founder highlighted the market prospects for disposable respiratory products.

6 employees started the production of simple respiratory masks.

The Visaginas plant is already the second in Lithuania.

The former has been operating in Pabradė for more than 25 years, more than 2 thousand people work there. workers.

In total, about 2.5 thousand people currently work at the Visaginas plant together with the division. people. This is the vast majority of the global group’s employees, only about 3,000 in total, although factories are still operating in Britain, Italy and China.

And where are the representatives around the world, in about 20 countries.

According to R. Kupštis, the company may be proud to be one of the leading manufacturers of respiratory assistance products in Europe, but it is not resting on its laurels: in consultation with doctors and other representatives of medical institutions, information is collected on the needs . .

“It just came to our notice then. We sell less than 1 percent in Lithuania. Our products, our products, we have our representatives all over the world, on all continents. Our clients include hospitals, emergency medical services, home care.

This is the experience of the world’s doctors. We sell less than 1 percent in Lithuania. our products, our products, all over the world.

Basically we do everything from an idea: we collect them from doctors and create a vision of how the product should look, we choose materials, we place things that meet the requirements. We prototype products ourselves, when everything turns out to be true, we let them go into production. After production, we look at the feedback on the quality of all these products, whether they have worked or not, we look at what can be improved, ”said R. Kupstys.

3 thousand different measures

About 70% is produced in Lithuania. all the products of this group of companies, but, as the head of the Visaginas division admits, so many employees are needed here due to the huge range of products, more than 3 thousand. different products.

Some of them are produced automatically, basically no human hands are needed.

However, all components of other products are manufactured in Lithuania and must be assembled manually.

“Because there are around 1,500 different variations of these products, it is too complicated to automate the assembly of each product, it takes a certain number of products to automate production. These operations require a large amount of human resources, ”explained R. Kupstys about the need for employees.

Defeated abroad Visaginas and Alytus

Why was Visaginas, which seems remote, chosen for development?

R. Kupstys says there were many reasons.

In Pabradė, there is no more room for development, so attention was also paid to other countries: Romania, Bulgaria, Belarus.

There was talk of Alytus, but there were still some riots to develop there, so in the end Visaginas was chosen.

“It’s good for Visaginas because those obstacles have appeared,” smiles the head of the unit, who has lived here for 12 years and, as they say, has never regretted it. – There are currently 14,000 people on the ground at Visaginas. m square meters, since the first block consists of two floors, the total area is 16 thousand. square meters meter. Here is the first stage, according to the perspectives and possibilities, this plot will be twice as large as a building, more than 40 thousand. square meters m. “

The factory itself was built in about a year, and in March of this year, production started here on a site that once housed a military town, almost collapsing in recent years. While driving through the facility, R. Kupstys shows a frame building, which is divided into 2,000. square meters m blocks.

“This is the most acceptable type of building that we have developed, divided into blocks of this type, because we have to keep it clean, separate the flows so that the risks are managed,” said R. Kupstys.

Such a distinction is not important due to the pandemic, it is also necessary due to the production of medical equipment.

There are currently 14,000 people on the ground at Visaginas. square meters meter. Here is the first stage, on this plot there will be twice a building, more than 40 thousand. square meters meter.

The building has seven blocks. The first one is for the administration, it is now empty.

Surprised by who needs so much premises when there are few employees, R. Kupstys says that when we think of construction, we think of the whole factory, which will emerge here in the future.

“There would definitely be no need to build a factory of this size and allocate 2,000 square meters for administration, changing rooms, recreation areas, etc. In addition, two blocks for storage, this is also planned for the future.

What I personally like about Intersurgical is that when we think of an action, we think of three more steps, which we will have next, so that we do not have to re-plan later, ”said the head of the unit.

One thousand employees will work

When the entire plant is up, it will employ about a thousand people.

Many of them do not require special skills, but they also need and will need more specialists as more processes are automated.

Therefore, the decision on where to build the factory unit was influenced by the cooperation with the Visaginas Business and Technological Vocational Training Center.

According to R. Kupštis, the city was fortunate to have such an educational institution, and cooperation with his company has been successful from the beginning.

If we see potential, we attract that employee. If a place arises, we first look to our own resources for what can be taught.

“We collaborate very closely with the Vocational Training Center since 2016. The first employees of the center completed the training program in 2018, in total we have about 121 graduates at Visaginas, they work mainly at Pabradė.

The representatives of the center ask what the clients need: companies, what specialties, what to prepare. Now there is a program: plastic mold setters, mold operators. We will teach people that together. Other companies often invite trained specialists to come and choose the best ones.

We are not afraid to teach people. If we see potential, we attract that employee. If a place arises, we first look to our own resources for what can be taught. We are really not afraid to send these people to study, to cultivate. It’s good that we have and where to teach, ”said R. Kupstys.

The first in Lithuania

Director of the Center for Technological and Business Professional Training Visaginas dr. Vytautas Petkūnas says that Intersurgical was the first company in Lithuania to start an apprenticeship learning model.

“Such a thing was still under consideration, when Sigitas Žvirblis (Managing Director of Intersurgical – ed. Past.) Involved us in this issue through” Invest in Lithuania “, we signed a cooperation agreement. 70 percent. Learning takes place carried out in the workplace under the guidance of an experienced teacher, 20 percent – in an educational institution.

Our job is to teach basic job skills, and in the workplace we need to improve and deepen them.

All the theoretical material is produced in a very good virtual learning environment, although extremely expensive. We can see how many times a student has visited there, what they have seen, what exams they have taken, etc. Our task is to teach basic job skills, and it is necessary to improve and deepen them in the workplace, “said its director. about training at the center.

He is convinced that this business initiative was out of date, as only a few years later, various ministries and education experts began to think and talk about it. However, no bicycle was invented; the Germans use this model. Now also in Lithuania, many commercial companies use it, and many of them cooperate with Visaginas Vocational Training Center.

“This way of teaching is of higher quality, it builds trust between the company and the educational institution and focuses on the student himself. From the first day you socialize in that company, it is not necessary to take a diploma somewhere after graduation and show what you can do, ”V. Petkūnas is convinced.

He considers it a good success story, although it was not easy; it is true that no one in Lithuania applied such a form of training before them.

There is a great need during a pandemic

The year of the pandemic presented its own challenges for the company’s factories: The need for respiratory equipment for resuscitation and intensive care has increased enormously.

This was due to the abundance of patients treated in the COVID-19 wards.

“It was a challenge to meet that unexpected need. We did separate campaigns, the administration staff went to help in the production of those products, stayed after work just to supply the hospitals as much as possible.

We did not intend to make more money, but we tried to help control the pandemic as much as possible.

We, unlike other manufacturers, did not raise the price of our products last year, we look from the side that we help, we do as much as we can to help those patients, the people who are in the hospital. We did not have the goal of earning more and we tried to help manage the pandemic as much as possible, “said R. Kupstys.

Because the company employs a large number of people, there have been outbreaks of coronavirus, and there are still cases, but, according to the managers, they have already learned to trace contacts as soon as possible, to isolate people without waiting for instructions from the Center. National Public Health.

By the end of the year, the Visaginas unit should already have about 300 employees, these are the plans, but according to the manager, it will depend on how well he gets to work, although the start has been successful.

When asked if it will be possible to find the 1,000 workers expected in and around Visaginas in the future, R. Kupstys answers in the affirmative.

“Our processes are not complicated, also physically. Perhaps this is our advantage compared to other companies: we have people who cannot work elsewhere due to certain health problems.

Both in Pabradė and here people work who are already of retirement or pre-retirement age and can work, they do their job perfectly. So I think we can definitely find as many employees as we need, ”says R. Kupstys.