INTENSIFICATION OF ENTERPRISE OPERATIONS UNDER CONDITIONS OF SCIENTIFIC AND TECHNOLOGICAL PROGRESS

A. A. Budnikov

(Presented by the scientific seminar of the Department of Economics)

Scientific and technological progress, the leading principle of which is the scientific and technological revolution, has given rise to an objective law of the modern development of production. In brief, this law states that the rates of development of production are to a significant degree determined by the rates of development of technology, which, in turn, depend on the rates of development of science, which “gives birth to” technology.

At the same time, “outstripping development” envisages not technology in general, which increases the capital-labor ratio, the growth of the volume of capital investment, expenditures on restorative repair, and so forth, but new technology—technology produced for the first time and applied for the first time. More precisely, such technology as would correspond to the concept of the term new technology proposed by legislation [1].

This proposal states that technical products, systems, and processes developed on the basis of domestic and foreign inventions that are the most effective among those known by the time of development must legally be recognized as new technology; or products, systems, and technological processes that, in terms of their techno-economic indicators, reach or surpass the level of the best products, systems, and processes of analogous purpose known in world technology must legally be recognized as new technology.

However, three kinds of new technology, as well as the three quality marks applied to manufactured products, exist today:

a) fundamentally new technology, i.e., technology constructed on a new principle, which should lead to very significant shifts in the economic results of its application;

b) models with substantial qualitative techno-economic differences in comparison with preceding models;

c) models that are merely a modification (modernization) of old models without substantial qualitative changes.

And the development of all kinds of new technology, and their introduction into production, is not an end in itself, but a means of achieving savings in the costs per unit of output produced with its aid; of improving working and living conditions; of creating new needs and satisfying their entire complex; of successfully solving international tasks and strengthening the defense capability of the country and of the socialist commonwealth, and so on.

But scientific and technological progress encompasses not technology alone; it encompasses the entire system of productive forces, all aspects of human—

technical activity. It cannot develop without the anticipatory intellectual development of the human personality, without an intensive rise in the level of knowledge among all strata of the able-bodied population. The decisive effect of science is its effect, through technology, on management and education. The overwhelming share of the growth of labor productivity (80%) now falls to these three elements [2]. That is why “the further intensive development of science and technology and the broad introduction into production of the latest scientific and technical achievements is not only a central economic task, but an important political task” [3].

In order for scientific and technological progress to have a “green street” at enterprises, many problems must be solved; the main one is to carry out persistently the decisions of the Twenty-Fourth Congress of the CPSU, which point to the need for a significant expansion of research within industry itself, for the creation at enterprises of strong design bureaus, a powerful experimental base, and an influx into industry of a considerable number of scientific personnel. The time has come for factories, alongside their “shops” for planting greenery, amenities, catering, etc., to have creative shops capable of seeking out and introducing into production everything new and advanced known to science and practice. At present the staffing coefficient for research-profile personnel at enterprises of Western Siberia, according to data from scholars of the Siberian Branch of the USSR Academy of Sciences, is 0.3. This means that in a factory there is one scientific worker, usually employed in the Central Factory Laboratory or in the Technical Control Department, for every 330 workers. This is clearly too little, considering that the average number of workers at those same enterprises does not exceed 600 people.

Apparently, in the initial period the creative groups of enterprises will not have to search for innovations, but rather be the initiators of work on their introduction, especially if the work of the scientific and technical information service is revived.

Many such innovations have accumulated by the present time. In just the last two years (1970 and 1971), more than 68 thousand new inventions were registered. In 1971, however, 10 thousand were introduced, and the number of inventions introduced for the first time was even smaller. Over the last 10 years, in Western Siberia alone [4], of the total number of innovations that for one reason or another did not find practical use, 34% were not introduced because of weak “applied” development, 20% were not realized because of a shortage of the necessary equipment, materials, and allocations, and 37% of proposals continue to be “coordinated” and “linked up” because enterprises lack their own resources for organizing scientific and production work.

The matter, however, is not only the small number of creative groups at factories. The matter also lies in the weakness of the technological services of enterprises. In machine building, for example, there is one technologist for every 5–6 designers. And this at a time when the comprehensive program of scientific and technological progress, which is a component part of the current five-year plan, provides for the creation and broad introduction of fundamentally new instruments of labor and technological processes, which must be ensured by the anticipatory growth of machine building, which is to create about 25 thousand and master the production of 19 thousand new models of machines, equipment, and apparatus, instead of the 7 thousand mastered during the Eighth Five-Year Plan.

Under these conditions, there can hardly be any question of creating some sort of “research-and-implementation” departments of 2–3 people, modeled on past experience in organizing scientific labor organization departments. Here the matter must be approached with perspective. And already now the development of research-

… and experimental base must be conducted with due account of the subsequent transition to scientific-production associations, which would possess sufficiently powerful specialized services for the development and introduction of innovations and could bear full responsibility for the technical level of the output produced.

Obviously, their creation cannot be carried out according to a single recipe. It is important that scientific-production associations or complexes, regardless of their type [5], up to and including associations for the scientific servicing of enterprises, possess everything necessary for carrying out the “research—production” process from beginning to end, with internal links and coordination from a single center. Only such associations and complexes can achieve broad unification and, on its basis, the development of specialization (not only by product, but also technological specialization, opening the way to flow-line methods of production) and cooperation in production, without which its intensification is inconceivable. Only such associations or combines can draw up comprehensive plans for the scientific organization of labor and management that would include all aspects—technical, economic, organizational, psychological, and social.

Of course, in creating such powerful associations [6], many problems and difficulties have arisen and will arise. However, overcoming them is considerably easier than raising the efficiency of similar production at dwarf-sized sites and enterprises. Only powerful associations, possessing large basic production assets, substantial means, and broad rights to use them, can ensure the genuine union of science with production and a high level of technological progress.

LITERATURE

1. “Questions of Invention,” 1971, No. 3.
2. L. M. Gatovskii, Economic Problems of Scientific and Technological Progress. “Nauka,” 1971.
3. “Kommunist,” 1971, Nos. 17, 18.
4. “Socialist Industry,” 1971, November 20.
5. “Pravda,” 1971, December 1.
6. “Socialist Industry,” 1972, January 14.