The Jarosław Gowin’s visit to the ZM Tarnów facility, and talks with the President of the plant, Henryk Łabędź, covered the implementation of research projects that are being pursued by the company, also at the recently expanded R&D Centre. Gowin also talked about potential collaboration between the company and Universities.
The defence sector industry, both for economic, as well as for the reasons stemming from security of Poland, is treated by our government as one of the most important areas. I had a chance to get acquainted with the new proposals issued by ZM Tarnów. When it comes to engineering, these initiatives are nothing short of the best projects of that kind pursued globally. I am convinced that the plans made by the management, related to the emphasis placed on research and development, will lead to further development of the company, and expansion of the global export.
“We hope to see development and create new jobs, and this is how I interpret the declaration of support made by Prime Minister” - as it was stated by Henryk Łabędź, President of th ZM Tarnów facility, during the press conference. The Research and Development Centre of the ZM Tarnów facility has planned to conclude 48 R&D initiatives until 2022. 23 out of the aforesaid projects are being implemented in order to create new functional and qualitative features of the firearms, onboard armament, air defence systems and rocket and tube artillery.
We should develop the defence industry. And here I do not mean solely the security. Numerous countries act as an example, in case of which transforming the defence industry into the driving wheel of the economy took place. We may witness such situation in Israel, South Korea or Turkey. Our ambitions are similar.
The centre’s operations are focused on mechanics, including precision mechanics, automation and robotics, as well as electronics. The R&D Centre has already concluded implementation works concerning five programmes. One of the initiatives was related to modernization of the UKM-2000P machine gun, which resulted in introduction of 25 changes which, consequently, led to replacement of around 60% of the weapons’ components and assemblies, for the purpose of improving its operation and ergonomics. The modification resulted in reception of relevant orders, placed by the Polish Armed Forces.
As a result of the development works, and thanks to the transfer of the aforesaid results into production, innovative profile of the products is being continuously stimulated. There is also an option of competing against similar products within domestic and foreign markets. At the moment, ZM Tarnów sells around 30% of the manufactured products outside Poland. The company’s signature products are contained within the offer of armament and military equipment, which, in its majority, includes sniper rifles, machine guns, grenade launchers, mortars, anti-aircraft systems based on artillery and artillery combined with missiles, as well as training equipment.