What is the origin of the company?
NEXT TRADE was founded in 1999. Since 2006, the company has become a manufacturer of original equipment with its own production facility. Our first products were spare parts for control and surge valves by Mokveld, which was at that time Gazprom’s main supplier. Having gained experience and perfected the technology, we decided to begin producing our own, similar equipment.
It took almost eight years to find and develop the technology, but we had a challenging task — applying new methods of metal processing, chemical and thermal processes to improve material properties. As a result, Voronezh-made equipment is no less reliable than foreign analogues. Between October 2015 and July 2016, NEXT TRADE’s surge valves passed all the necessary tests and received the corresponding approvals.
It should be noted that the control valves manufactured by NEXT TRADE contain 100% Russian components. We commissioned Voronezh manufacturer AUTOMATIKA to develop the first Russian control system for surge valves, specifically designed to be simpler and more compact than the imported analogue.
Currently, NEXT TRADE has patents for a number of its own developments: design and function of a needle valve, control valve and a wedge-gate valve.
What is the company’s development strategy?
There has always been a “single buyer” risk in the oil and gas industry. The logical solution is diversification of production and the development of new business directions. One of these has been NEXT TRADE’s proprietary foundry. Initially, the foundry site was created to accommodate internal production needs, but the NEXT TRADE PLANT foundry has since expanded its business geography and offers outsourcing services to other enterprises. The main volume of orders is obtained from manufacturers of agricultural machinery, which often require bespoke parts.
The second new direction is heat treatment of metals and workpiece parts. Heat treatment sites are normally located at military-oriented factories. These large, old businesses cannot deliver orders quickly, and tend to have high overheads which affect the final cost. We have opened our own heat treatment site, which accommodates not only NEXT TRADE’s needs, but can also serve orders from third-party enterprises.
We aim to make NEXT TRADE a group of companies including foundry, processing and thermal components. This strategy not only fulfills our own production needs, but also contributes to risk reduction by enabling the company to service outsourcing orders.
What is the company’s development strategy?
There has always been a “single buyer” risk in the oil and gas industry. The logical solution is diversification of production and the development of new business directions. One of these has been NEXT TRADE’s proprietary foundry. Initially, the foundry site was created to accommodate internal production needs, but the NEXT TRADE PLANT foundry has since expanded its business geography and offers outsourcing services to other enterprises. The main volume of orders is obtained from manufacturers of agricultural machinery, which often require bespoke parts.
The second new direction is heat treatment of metals and workpiece parts. Heat treatment sites are normally located at military-oriented factories. These large, old businesses cannot deliver orders quickly, and tend to have high overheads which affect the final cost. We have opened our own heat treatment site, which accommodates not only NEXT TRADE’s needs, but can also serve orders from third-party enterprises.
We aim to make NEXT TRADE a group of companies including foundry, processing and thermal components. This strategy not only fulfills our own production needs, but also contributes to risk reduction by enabling the company to service outsourcing orders.
What factors have a greater impact on product quality assurance?
Without delving into the quality management system, there is one simple answer: FEEDBACK. It is the Customer’s feedback and recommendations for improvements to the product’s performance that gives us the most complete information about the equipment’s weak points, thus forming the foundations for new ideas. The more open the dialogue between the manufacturer and the customer, the more efficient the product improvement process will be.
– What are the most successful technical solutions proposed by the NEXT TRADE group in the recent years?
Looking at the articles about our designs over the past three years, it is clear that the search for new technologies is ongoing. Under the import phase-out program, together with the MISIS National University of Science and Technology, we introduced the technique of smelting low carbon chromium-nickel steel CA6NM in 2018. This material is used for gate valve bodies operating in conformance with NACE MR 0175 requirements.
