Where is the strength of product innovation?

In recent years, the days of the Shenyang Machine Tool Group have gotten better, and it seems very good to outsiders. What makes Chen Huiren, Chairman of the Board of Directors, bemoaned is that “Some people even forgot the difficult days of the year. Shenyang machine tools have always been such a scene!” Outsiders only see the lively, only the Shenyang machine tool people understand how much sweat they pay for it.

Since 2003, China has become the world's largest machine tool consumer for four consecutive years. In 2006, the total machine tool consumption was 13.1 billion US dollars, accounting for 22% of the world's machine tool market. With the increasingly prosperous market, why Shenyang Machine Tool has become the industry leader?

After several days of interviews, the reporter found that customer-oriented product innovation is an important factor in the emergence and rapid growth of Shenyang machine tools, and Shenyang Machine Tool Company has created a number of “impossible possibilities” stories with innovative products.

2551 track beams “fail-free” offline

Machine tools are the mother machines of the equipment manufacturing industry. Low-end products are difficult to meet the needs of the national economy. High-end machine tools mostly rely on imports.

"Five years ago, we envy many of our foreign counterparts' machine tools. It is simply looking up," said Wang Sheng, deputy general manager of Shenyang Machine Tool Group. "We always feel that we can't do it so well."

It may or may not be possible.

"Later, through vigorous research and development, we can produce such a good product and our confidence has increased greatly. We will be able to catch up with our foreign counterparts in two years. I say this is not conceited because we have this strength and foundation. "Wang Sheng said.

In the processing project of Shanghai's magnetic levitation track beam, it must be mentioned that this matter has far-reaching significance for the Shenyang machine tool man.

In 2000, the Shanghai maglev orbital beam manufacturing equipment was tendered around the world. Its high-precision requirements for machine tools were marked with the “double star” symbol, indicating that this is the primary prerequisite for the equipment. Guan Xiyou, the current general manager of Shenyang Machine Tool Group, was the project leader at the time and still remembered the competition so far. “The exact time for bidding in Shanghai was very hurried, and it was too late to return to Shenyang. Several of our designers were in Shanghai. The hotel completed 6 days and 6 nights with the borrowed 6 computers and completed the design proposal and bid."

After winning the bid, the product development staff of Shenyang Machine Tool Group ushered in more sleepless nights, and finally succeeded in resolving the “coordinate positioning error within 30 meters of processing stroke is less than 0.08 millimeters” and "more than 200 tons of heavy workpieces can not be moved, and the production line is automatically Complete the core problems of workpiece measurement, calculation, and processing. This accuracy, even conventional measuring instruments, cannot be measured. It still represents the ultimate level of China's machine tool industry and can be compared with international counterparts.

This project was designed by a foreign company as a "two-and-a-half million mark, two-and-a-half-delivery" project. Shenyang Machine Tool was shocked by the result of "RMB 64 million yuan, half-year delivery." Guan Xiyou said, "In terms of delivery time alone, I myself felt that this was an impossible task at the time." And afterwards, Wu Xiangming, general manager of the magnetic levitation engineering, also admitted that according to his psychological expectations, 10 months delivery would be considered Perfect.

In general, even if the domestic machine tool technology can pass, the initial failure rate is inevitable. However, 8 sets of track beam processing equipment of Shenyang Machine Tool worked on 2551 track beams, and the machine did not experience a failure and did not produce a waste product. Does Guan Xiyou also think this is "very amazing"? Is it accidental? It is inevitable that there are accidents!

Grab the improvement of the production environment

There are some unimaginable details that determine the direction of things. At 6 o'clock on the evening of the bidding for the orbital beam, the Shanghai Maglev Engineering Headquarters sent personnel to visit Shenyang Machine Tool. The inspection team summed up their impressions to the headquarters in three sentences. “This is a very old state-owned enterprise. The glass of the factory building is not broken. From the workshop, there was no oil under your feet.” The command informed Guan Xiyou and his party and immediately rushed back to the headquarters for business negotiations.

It was this experience that gave Shen machine tools a deep understanding. The production environment and the quality of the producers played a decisive role in the quality and taste of the products. To improve product quality and achieve product innovation, this is a good entry point.

Today, the reporter walks in the assembling section of the machine tool's drilling and drilling workshop in Shenyang. There is no dust, there is no trace of “black noise” in the traditional industry, and a Taiwan blue-white and light green machine is arranged categorically on both sides, and the tool trolley of the assembly staff is in sequence. In the middle of the vertical line, the tools on the car were neatly laid out. The employees' beige-colored work clothes are bright in the sun.

According to Hou Zhicheng, the director of the workshop, they are now vigorously implementing "standard manufacturing," which was carried out on the basis of the "primary coating" implemented in 2005.

In the past, most of China's machine tool industry was not painted once because there were second-time paintings that could be relied on, and employees developed a lot of bad habits. No matter whether it was processing, assembly, or lifting, it was not careful enough. Bumps and falling paint often happened, let alone " Black handprints. “In November 2004, the group had a painting idea and requested that it be implemented from our workshop in January 2005. The time is urgent.” Hou Zhicheng knew that this was revolutionary for the machine tool manufacturing process; and More than 95% of front-line employees think this is impossible.

It is also a powerful force that "the impossible becomes possible" is at work. After a series of redesigns such as spreaders, process flow, rewards and penalties, and so on, in January 2005, the rocking drill shop achieved a 50% export product coating once, and the target was gradually increased. At the end of the year, all products were painted once. At present, the paintability rate of one painting is more than 94%, and the efficiency has also been improved by adjusting the procedures. “In the past, production employees were proud of dirt. The more dirty they are, the more work they have done. Now everyone’s ideas have completely changed!” said Hou Zhicheng.

Sun Chunjun, general manager of Zhongjie’s large-scale CNC milling and boring machine division, said, “One coating solves the problem of dirty products, and standard operations solve loose and falling problems, while standard manufacturing is based on this to achieve excellent manufacturing of the products.” For the standard operation and standard manufacturing, the business department specially invited a master who had 47 years of factory operation experience from abroad to conduct instruction on front-line employees.

Regarding standardized manufacturing, Guan Xiyou had a deep impression during the Japanese training in the 1990s. "Twist the screw 90 degrees. Do you know how the Japanese workers screw it? - Draw a cross flower and twist it to a quarter. They The initial movement angles of screwing and raising arms are exactly the same. Behind these details is a strict and detailed working process! Only in this way can we guarantee a hard product quality.” Shenyang Machine Tool people believe that they will also adopt standardized Process reengineering achieves this effect.

In recent years, in addition to welcoming customers to visit, Shenyang Machine Tool often invites some old customers to visit the company. The changes in the workshop made the customers who had been here a few years ago were shocked and have more confidence in the products of Shenyang Machine Tool. A technical service official told reporters that if they go out and run for two months and come back, they will feel that the company has changed a lot.

These seemingly small, trivial changes have won great customer trust.

To serve customers forever

Wang He, the general manager of Zhongjie Vertical Machining Division, is technically advanced, but he spends more than half of his time running the market. Li Haipeng, technical director of the Sino-Jaw Radial Drilling Division, also said, "We have 60% to 70% of our energy on the market."

The market, after all, is the "customer." The fully marketed machine tool industry is a typical buyer's market.

There was once an aircraft manufacturer customizing a high-end CNC machine tool from Shenyang Machine Tool Group. As the customer had some special conditions during the processing, the technicians of the Shenyang machine tool stayed there for one year until the end of all the customer's manufacturing work. . The marketing department of Shenyang Machine Tool has also set up a special marketing technology room. There are full-time technical personnel engaged in marketing to provide customers with pre-sale, sales, and after-sale technical support. "Market Research - Tailor Made - Rolling Services - Continuous Improvement" is the common product development path for 10 complete machine divisions of Shenyang Machine Tool.

In order to achieve a "customer"-oriented product development path, Shenyang Machine Tool Group boldly enabled the "4S" store sales and management model, which is a major undertaking in the Chinese machine tool industry. The 4S store's marketing model is to directly set up products display, technical service, after-sales service, spare parts supply and other functions on the front of the market, providing customers with more direct, faster, and higher level of professional services. In fact, another important reason why the magnetic levitation project was won by the Shenyang Machine Tool was that their design took into consideration the customer's production management problems. As long as the raw materials for processing were brought in, nothing was left to control and they only had to wait for the finished products. "4S" shop is responsible for such a "processing expert" role. In 2005, Shenyang Machine Tool Co., Ltd. established the first franchise sales center and special service center in Ningbo, and in 2006, it successively built 3 "4S" stores in manufacturing regions such as Wenzhou, Guangdong and Jiaodong.

On August 8, 2005, Shenyang Machine Tool Group issued a message to implement a "recall" of CNC machine tools provided to the first batch of key users before 2000. This is the first time that China's equipment manufacturing industry and the world's machine tool industry have taken the initiative to implement product recalls. This operation code-named “A Plan” has implemented overhaul, repair, and replacement of 78 CNC machine tools sold by Shenyang Machine Tool Group before 2000, and Shenyang Machine Tool Group has invested 20 million yuan for this purpose. .

What is the result of the investment of 20 million yuan? Obviously, it is the respect and reputation of the old customers, the attention and trust of the target customers, and the great opportunity for technical training... The final implementation is a large number of orders!

Many marketing experts are impressed with this multi-purpose plan. However, the Shenyang Machine Tool Group has come up with sincerity! As Guan Xiyou said, “Service must be forever!”