For more than 3 years, Avtomatika has been KELLER ITS' sales partner for the Russian market, which is currently not very easy in political and economical respect. Even though right at the beginning of this relationship the documentation necessary for opening up the market, such as brochures, operating instructions, technical and application reports, as well as the business documents for quotation and order processing in the ERP system were created and set up in Russian, the processing of orders continued to involve a great deal of bureaucracy. In addition to the need for special approvals, orders had previously been processed through German companies specializing in exporting goods to Russia.
The situation is aggravated by the fact that the customers of pyrometers in Russian are often state-owned enterprises, which require a so-called EAC certificate (formerly known as Gost certification) for the purchase. However, a state-approved certificate is specified only for instruments requiring calibration. Optical temperature measurement, however, is not a legal-for-trade physical measurement method. Therefore, there is no official approval possibility for pyrometers. Complicated communication was always necessary to clarify this issue.
Being aware of all these circumstances, it has always been the long-term goal of KELLER ITS to handle orders independently via its Russian sales partner Avtomatika. Fortunately, all hurdles have now been overcome for this. The first orders, among others for one of the world's largest mining and metallurgical companies, have already been successfully processed directly. For this purpose, KELLER ITS supplied 12 complete measuring systems of the CellaTemp PA pyrometer series, by means of which the temperature of the air valves of a conveyor belt divided into 12 sectors is measured and controlled. Due to the high measuring distance, devices with a high optical resolution - one of the special technical features of KELLER pyrometers - were required here.
In order to continue the positive development of the KELLER ITS market in Russia, we hope for a normalization of the German-Russian relations in the near future.