The Lviv Automobile Factory (Ukrainian: Львівський автомобільний завод), mostly known under its obsolete name Lvivskyi Avtobusnyi Zavod (Ukrainian: Львівський автобусний завод, literally "Lviv Bus Factory") was a bus manufacturing company in Lviv, Ukraine. Their brand-name is LAZ (ЛАЗ), and the company and its products are often referred to with this acronym rather than the full name.
It was one of the major bus manufacturers in the Soviet Union and the largest-ever industrial company in the city of Lviv. The factory was held by a private holding company.
History
The Lviv Bus Plant LAZ was built in 1945 to produce ZIS buses for the USSR. The LAZ 695 bus was designed and approved by the Moscow Ministry of Transport. Production began in 1956 and continued until 2006.
During the 1970s many new models were developed such as the LAZ 699, and 697 both of which are coach buses. In 1967, LAZ was awarded the best bus producer in Europe at the Brussels Auto Show. LAZ is known to be the first company to create the low floor bus, which came in 1963, was called the LAZ 360, and was designed by Nami USSR.
After the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991, LAZ suffered economic issues due to the loss of funding. Production was halted due to low demand. After Ukraine's economy started to stabilize, LAZ began producing their newer model, the LAZ 52523.
In 2001, LAZ was sold to Russian business tycoon Igor Churkin, and a new business model was implemented. The whole line of production was re-engineered to produce new buses for a lower cost. LAZ used a system called a "flexible assembly line", which gave the ability to produce a variety of different models simultaneously. Additionally, LAZ buses were hand assembled.
Some of their most widely known products included the LAZ-695 city bus and its stretch, tourist-oriented version, the LAZ-699. ElectroLAZ, the LAZ trolleybus, was used by over 25 cities around the world.
LAZ provided transportation for the UEFA Euro 2012 championship held in Ukraine and Poland in 2012. The Ukrainian government signed a contract to purchase 2500 new "CityLAZ", with a possibility of 800 more. After the championship, LAZ buses were used as regular city transportation in the cities hosting EURO 2012. In 2012, three new models were introduced: The LAZ 695 Soyuz, the LAZ 4207 DM, and the LAZ A183 CNG.
Facilities
LAZ Holding had two factories located in Ukraine: LAZ and DAZ
LAZ headquarters and factory were in Lviv, Ukraine. This consisted of over 300 buildings. It was equipped with its own water pumping system, power transforming plant, gas filtration system, water cleaning and discharging system, machinery cooling system, centralized compressed air, fire house, police team, internal telephone/PA system, press building, laser cutting shop, chroming shop, metalworking shop, painting center, design bureau and a marketing center.
DAZ's headquarters consisted of 20 large buildings located in Kamianske. The DAZ factory plant had a large assembly hall, central compressed air system, welding and painting machinery and a testing center.
The central office for LAZ Holding was headquartered in Kyiv city center, Ukraine.
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