[How to develop new quality productive forces and move towards "new" ⑤]

Original title: The confidence to create a miracle of a thousand ton crane comes from a group of new and growing workers of XCMG (quotation)

They put "wings" on the factory (theme)

Worker's Daily - reporter Jiang Han of China Industrial Network

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The long-term technology accumulation, large-scale R&D investment and full cycle intelligent service guarantee have enabled XCMG to break the record of the world's first crane for seven consecutive times. Behind the "world's first crane" is a growing group of new workers, who put wings in the factory and contribute to enterprises' climbing the global construction machinery industry Everest.

On the mechanical equipment testing ground of XCMG Heavy Machinery Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as XCMG Heavy), the XCA4000 wheeled crane launched in March this year was particularly eye-catching. This "Big Mac" can lift 230 tons at 170 meters, known as "the world's first crane" - XCMG has broken the record of the world's first crane for seven consecutive times.

Innovation team members are discussing project solutions. Photographed by Dong Yueping

"Long term technology accumulation, large-scale R&D investment and full cycle intelligent service guarantee have given XCMG more confidence to create a miracle of a thousand ton crane," said Ding Honggang, technical director of XCMG Heavy Industries.

Behind the "world's first crane" is a growing group of new workers, who put "wings" on the factory and contribute to the enterprises' climbing of the global construction machinery industry Everest.

Keep investing in research and development in adversity

"The major change of the enterprise in recent years is the obvious increase of R&D investment," Jiao Guowang, director of the hydraulic department of XCMG Heavy All Surface Crane Research Institute, told reporters.

In 2010, when Jiao Guowang just graduated and entered the factory of XCMG Heavy Industries, there was no place to do experiments here, only in the headquarters of XCMG Group. "The laboratory resources of the headquarters are very tight, and the waiting period is very long, often three or five months." He said that later, the factory also built a laboratory, but it is very small, and the equipment is limited. Until 2017, an engineering center was set up in the new plant area, with 40 or 50 laboratories, large and small.

"Without this condition, many innovative ideas cannot be tried. If you try it on a car, it is too difficult to modify it, so you can only do some small experiments." Jiao Guowang said that the current hydraulic laboratory is very advanced, equipped with a lot of equipment. Previously, the flow was only 200 or 300 liters, but now you can do 23 or 2000 liters.

"We used to have to go to Mohe to do extreme cold tests in winter, but now we can do parts tests in the laboratory, pass the test, and then go to the site to do the vehicle test." He still remembers that he went to Mohe for the first time in 2016, and bought the most frost resistant down jacket and thick soled shoes in Xuzhou, but it still didn't work there.

On March 22, XCX4000 wheel crane of XCMG successfully completed the installation of wind turbine. Photographed by Ding Mingming

"Our R&D environment here is very good, and nothing can let you give full play to your ability better than a good innovation platform," said Chai Junfei, the R&D director of XCMG Heavy Control System.

Over the past 20 years, Chai Junfei has personally felt that the peaks and troughs of the construction machinery industry are obvious, but XCMG's investment in research and development is relatively stable. "Long term investment can only be made with determination and long-term goals." He said, "Especially in times of adversity, they are willing to keep investing in research and development. There are few such enterprises. G2 products are made when the market environment is relatively low."

Frontier technologies are all applied, researched and developed, and reserved, and the reserved frontier technologies are often seven or eight years ahead of the market outbreak. "The research and development of a cutting-edge technology carried out by the European R&D Center of the United Group has been carried out for five years, with an investment of nearly 20 million yuan, but the market has not yet broken out. Do you still want to do it? When can you create value in the market? My heart sometimes has doubts." He said, "The core problem is that if the only way technically represents the future direction, we should stick to it."

"As long as you want to do it, you can do it"

"Now is a good environment for innovation, and when I first came here, it was a good industry environment." Recalling the scene when I first started in 2010, Jiao Guowang said to reporters with a smile. At that time, users had to queue up for a long time to "grab the car". In the seller's market, the requirements for the car's performance were naturally not high. "At the beginning, I had no idea about the handling performance, as long as it could be used, compared with the attendance rate."

Until 2012 and 2013, the market was saturated and the industry declined significantly. "At this time, users have fed back the problem of products with high fuel consumption, and enterprises have also paid more attention to technology research and development." Jiao Guowang said that more energy saving and better controllability have become the pursuit of new generation products.

On April 8, XCMG G2 high-end crane brand was released. "G2 has a higher degree of intelligence, a higher accuracy of automatic retraction, and a higher control comfort - less noise, less shaking, and the ability to achieve arbitrary combination of multiple actions, which can be said to be developing in the direction of robots," said Jiao Guowang.

Looking forward to the next generation technology of "reserve generation", Jiao Guowang said that in addition to the eternal topic of energy conservation, the product will be more intelligent and the control will be more accurate. "At present, many actions are operated by people. In the future, just press a key and the equipment will operate automatically."

After 14 years of immersing himself in research and development, Jiao Guowang was tired and happy to see the product iterate step by step. "The company is very supportive of research and development, and you can do anything you want. The company has no problem with scrapping a lot of things in the process. It can do anything to do experiments, but it must have no problems with products," he said, "Over the years, individuals have grown and contributed to enterprises. I hope our products will contribute to energy conservation and emission reduction and bring users a better operating experience."

Zhang Yanwei, structural engineer, graduated from mechanical design with a master's degree in 2012 and entered XCMG. In 2023, he won the national CAD gold medal and was awarded the national technical expert. He is mainly engaged in the structural design of rough terrain tire cranes, which should adapt to desert, oil fields, mountainous areas and other environments. "I really enjoy the process of seeing the drawings become reality," he said.

Over the years, he learned a lot from various trainings of the company. Zhang Yanwei thinks that TRIZ innovation method training is very helpful for opening up his mind. For example, the general method was originally used to design the arm adjustment, but this training encourages divergent thinking and realizes innovative design through the inspiration of cross industry cases. "Everyone around you is on the same road, and you can find that the other way can also lead to the end." He said that he was considering using TRIZ innovation method to put forward his own suggestions for the company's development plan.

"I like this atmosphere very much," said Zhang Yanwei.

Pushing employees forward

Different from the growth path of technical talents in R&D, skilled talents hone their real skills in the competition.

"The company will 'push' you on the skill level," said Shao Wei, an equipment maintenance worker.

Shao Wei has participated in many skill competitions. In 2023, he won the silver medal in the second National Skills Competition and became a national technical expert. "Many technologies were learned in the competition, and the ultimate goal of the competition is to serve production," Shao Wei said.

When the skill level reached the "ceiling", he set himself a "small goal": to become a technical talent in three or four years. "This is to make greater contributions to the enterprise and generate greater value for the enterprise."

At present, his main task is to install safety detection devices in the painting area, and intelligent manufacturing has given him a greater use.

In the past, equipment maintenance workers were only responsible for mechanical maintenance, but now there are electrical maintenance. "It is not easy to troubleshoot electrical faults, and it is even more difficult to repair robots. You need to check the program, find out where it is stuck, and then find out the damaged components to replace them," Shao Wei said, "The more advanced intelligent manufacturing is, the more advantageous our position will be. We can transform the unreasonable equipment and improve the efficiency of equipment utilization, for example, from one person looking at one machine tool to one person looking at two machine tools, and from manual replacement of machine tools to automatic replacement of keys."

The "No.1 Project" of XCMG's Chairman of the Board of Directors of XCMG Digital to Internet Connection is also pushing Shao Wei forward.

On January 29, XCMG held the "No. 1 Project" of the Chairman of the Board of Directors of Smart Digital to Netlink and the conference on the implementation and promotion of reform and transformation. Yang Dongsheng, Chairman of XCMG, said that we should firmly shoulder the major core task of "building new quality productivity and transforming to medium and high-end development", further enhance confidence, pool joint forces, and unswervingly transfer the intelligent transformation to the Internet as planned.

"The workload of technical transformation of old equipment is very heavy." Li Penglong, the champion and equipment maintenance worker of the 6th Jiangsu Skills Competition in 2022, told reporters that XCMG's goal is to build a pilot plant, and its data base is the IOT Internet of Things project. At present, the first phase is to do the data collection and networking work of refined, large and rare equipment in the whole plant area, and 392 equipment need to be networked. "We cooperated with Xugong Hanyun to build the IOT platform, and I was responsible for installing the bridge and testing the single machine networking. Digital signage was built step by step." He said, "I'm glad to participate in this process, to reduce costs and increase efficiency with data drive, and to control the quality of the whole chain."

Another thing Li Penglong is doing is to install the health monitoring system in the paint booth of the painting branch, which can analyze the equipment status and carry out preventive maintenance in advance. "It's very interesting." He said cheerfully, "I will be responsible for the planning and installation. Later, I can also access the data acquisition platform. At present, 12 have been transformed, and 6 are still in the process of transformation."

According to Lin Hai, chairman of XCMG Heavy Duty Trade Union, according to the just drafted Three Year Action Plan for the Construction of XCMG Heavy Duty Employees' Innovative Work System, we will adhere to echelon construction in the next three years (2024-2026), and define the "three-level advanced" innovative talent management. Taking the cultivation of "innovative masters" as the general traction, we will increase the training of innovative thinking, build a talent pool of innovation first, second and third echelons, with the number of echelons accounting for more than 40% of the total number of enterprises. We will use the three-level echelon model to drive the innovation enthusiasm of employees, build an innovative industrial workforce, and help enterprises develop high-quality.

"We will also build an innovation incentive system to stimulate employees' innovation motivation. We will define the goal of employees' innovation incentive, expand incentive forms, and form five incentive models, namely, spiritual incentive, salary incentive, promotion incentive, performance incentive, and welfare incentive, to ensure that employees retain a sustained innovation motivation," said Lin Hai.

"While promoting the connotative high-quality development of enterprises with new quality productivity and striving to build world-class enterprises and industrial clusters, we also need to work hard to cultivate a group of new workers to contribute to enterprises' climbing of the global construction machinery industry Everest," said Lin Hai.