The article celebrates the 115th anniversary of the Irkutsk heavy engineering plant (IHEP) and describes its operation experience. During this time, IHEP worked its way up from a workshop supplying the army, an agricultural and mechanical plant to one of the largest Russian machine-building plants with a full production cycle in the Commonwealth of Independent States. The scientific base developed at the enterprise makes it possible to automate the same type tasks, as well as to upgrade equipment in order to improve its technological performance. The article analyzes the operation results of the enterprise. A consideration is given to the line of manufactured equipment, its improvement and modernization methods. A distinctive feature of IHEP is the availability of foundry facilities, which carry out melting, molding and heat treatment of products. A key element contributing to the development of the enterprise is the design office, which is constantly in search of new solutions that best meet the needs of customers in terms of industrial and economic efficiency, safety, reliability and service life of the designed equipment. The IHEP Design Bureau uses modern tools for equipment design and flow processes modeling for subsequent calculation of the technical and design parameters of thickening equipment, which ensures high performance, as well as safe and efficient operation. Today, the enterprise has launched a serial production of mining and processing equipment, as well as mine machinery and metallurgical equipment. IHEP equipment is supplied to more than 20 countries around the world. The plant's customers are the largest companies of the Russian Federation, which operate in the field of mining, metallurgy and oil production.