The Fabric Aguilar Noriega Mechanical Company of Santa Clara has the merit of having been the first Cuban factory to mark one of the most important milestones of the industrialization stage in the country, as described by Commander Ernesto Che Guevara when he served as Minister of Industries. , at the opening ceremony of May 3, 1964.
From the first day, the entity produces and repairs parts and pieces for sugar power plants, currently with a more comprehensive business portfolio to which it has incorporated lines for the chemical, oil, cement and construction materials industries, due to its capacity to melt and shape large pieces.
The flagship industry of Villa Clara arrives at 2019 immersed in a process of technological change, which will allow it to raise the quality of the assortments aimed at Cuban entities and promote exports. Here the figure of Che is present in each workshop as a benchmark that encourages them to make greater commitments.
Carlos Miguel Pupo Mejías, the Holguin native settled in Villa Clara, returns to his mind the moment when, at the call of the Revolution, he joined the youth who formed the working force capable of moving the machinery acquired in the former socialist field .
After training as a middle technician, Pupo went through various industries in the construction process. It was in Nicaro where he saw Che for the first time. He remembers him as a cheerful but demanding man. Later, when inaugurating the Gonzalo Esteban Lugo, Nuevitas, barbed wire and electrode factory, he had the opportunity to meet again with the Cuban-Argentinean.
«That day I was sweating because I had come from an encounter with macheteros. He entered the Galvanizing Workshop and greeted us with that smile that always accompanied him. Then we crossed paths again when I was asked to promote the assembly of the Mechanical Plant. I still seem to be seeing him in the hallways the day he founded this factory. I did not know that the man who encouraged us to study would become a paradigm for the world.
«Mechanical Plant is my life. For her I settled in Santa Clara, and when I retired, I returned again, now hired. Why did I do it? Imagine the nostalgia I felt.
«This place constitutes a school for the graduates of the Central University" Marta Abreu "of Las Villas and polytechnic education. I am proud to contribute to the training of new generations of technicians ».
Young people who mark continuity
A preview of what will be a Mechanical Plant at the conclusion of the technological reconversion, is already a reality in the Computerized Numerical Control Machines Workshop.
Six of them — recently acquired as part of the new investment — are managed by five young graduates of Industrial Mechanics at the Raúl Suárez Gayol Polytechnic Institute in Santa Clara, who spent their active military service here. In fulfilling that duty, they swelled the factory factory template, and entered the Villa Clara high-school house in careers related to their trade.
At only 21 years old, Roberto Andrés Rodríguez leads the brigade that works on modern machines. When inquiring, if he was prepared to assume that responsibility, he claimed to feel comfortable having the wise transmitted by the most experienced.
Among the young people who are here to stay is the machine tool operator Osbiel Lázaro Rodríguez Martín, who strives to ensure that the bushings and screws are tailored. Also Lesder Delgado Socorro, director of the UEB of Pailería, Welding, Machining and Tooling, who arrived here 23 years ago, said that in these teams they obtain pieces of complex profiles that demand a lot of precision.
Castings waiting for technological change
The high temperatures of the furnaces of the Smelting Workshop indicate that the previous night the casting of one of the pieces proceeded to the Ciro Redondo plant in Ciego de Ávila, a plant where one of the bioelectric plants built in the country is erected. .
The molder Adán Feitó López, with 19 years of experience in the trade, says that the task here requires sacrifices, since they still carry out the preparation of the molds manually with the help of a pneumatic piston. On the difficult profession, he insists that he is used to the swaying of cranes with high-temperature casting.
Challenges for the present and future

Mechanical Plant is going through a stage of technological change. Leiry Cespón Mustelier, director of Engineering, Development, Exploitation and Quality, specified that the investment is at a crucial moment.
“We proceed to the foundation of the place where the rolling machine - the device with the largest volume - will be located, and we await the arrival of a balancing machine and automatic welding equipment, as well as the Chinese specialists to advance in this first stage.
«The other investment has to do with the Foundry Workshop, where we will use state-of-the-art technology and resin in the preparation of the molds. This will result in a better finish of the pieces. We intend that the quality of those destined for export and at borders corresponds to the demands of customers. "
Despite technological obsolescence - awaiting modernization - the ingenuity of workers works wonders with the equipment of yesteryear that still meets the demands of prioritized programs.
Mechanical Plant up to the founding date with the fulfillment of the production plan for the first quarter of the year, thanks to the diversification of the orders directed to the Electrochemical Company of Sagua la Grande, the Chemical Industry and the Tannery of Caibarién, despite facing difficulties with the raw material used in the foundry.
The engineer Raquel Rivera Rodríguez, deputy director of that entity, said that they also continued the local development program with the delivery of molds for the construction materials minindustries.
From now on, the prospects point to a better time, as the raw material is assured, a situation that puts them in a position to arrive at the end of the year at the expected 17.9 million pesos, and comply with the delivery of spare parts. for the mills that will intervene in the 2019-2020 contest.
Mechanical Plant is called to become a modern industry equipped with state-of-the-art technology, to give continuity to the factory born five and a half decades ago, to achieve technological sovereignty and to replace imports.