General Secretary Wang Mingyuan Visiting Abrasives Manufacturers Members (V)

13th May, at Zibo Riken Mount Tai and Zi bo Si Sha Mount Tai, in Shandong Province

On May 13th, secretary Wang and his escorts droved as far as more than 100 kilometers and  finally arrived at the last stop, Zibo. 

At north road of Zibo high-tech development zone, separated by a wall, there are two coated abrasives manufacturers, Zibo Riken Mount Tai Abrasive Company and Zibo Si Sha Mount Tai Coated Abrasives, Co., Ltd. 

Established in 2003, Shangdong Riken Mount Tai Abrasives Company is a sino-foreign joint venture. Through ten years striving, it has become a coated abrasives manufacturers,  on the technology front and with innovation ability. 

In the general manager office of Riken Mount Tai, general manager Zhai Jianchang, deputy general manager Zhang Xuejin had a heated discussion with general secretary Wang on the trend of enterprises and industry. In 2013, the sales income reached 180 million, and per capita labor productivity is close to one million. At present, the company owns 13 patents, including 3 America patents, 1 innovation patent. But general manager Zhai Jianchang stressed that there is still a big lag between our efficiency and that of similar foreign companies. In Japan, per capita labor productivity is 2 million and in German, the number has reached 4 million. To decrease that difference, Riken has kept on trying. 

In the showroom, their effort has been reflected. Plenty of productions, such as the innovation production made from no cloth no paper, the grid cloth, ultra fine-grained sandpaper have entered international market successfully and has been applied in high-end fields involving automobile manufacturing and the polishing of musical instruments and furniture. Depending on technology innovations, they have walked out the homogeneity competition and began to stride forward quickly. 

In the lab, there are several new purchased equipments. The test device can be used to do the 3D dynamic test, and the micro detector can magnified 10000 times. It is these expensive testing machines that guarantee production quality. 

In the finished goods warehouse, what we saw was the first domestic intelligent and automatic coated abrasive warehousing center. The total investment is over 15 million, and the center has the capacity of storing 300 container. It completely relies on computers and robots, and realized the unmanned warehouse operation. 

In the workshop, there is seldom pungent smell and dusty operators. Each working procedure is technical, and every worker is working with dignity. Their payment is much higher than average standard, and they don not need to work overtime all the time. Moreover, they enjoy the weekends and all national holidays. That may be the ideal work and living situation for workers in coated abrasives industry. 

In the afternoon, it was urgent to leave. The general manager Li Xianchao of Si Sha Mount Tai coated abrasives company continued the discussion with general secretary Wang at lunch. Sitting in his office, a string of numbers spewed out from his mouth, and he also talked a lot of the research and development of production. Traditional management methods and models of state-owned enterprises were inherited and developed in the enterprises. The elder workers still use their down-to-earth spirit to create extraordinary results. Each enterprise has its own core competitiveness and it has nothing to do with state-owned or private, traditional or stylishly. 

Despite that macroeconomic situation is not optimistic, and many coated abrasives manufacturers had difficulties in development, the economic index of Si Sha has increased 20% in 2013, and rose 40% on year-on-year basis in the first quarter of 2014. The good trend benefits from their continuously adjusted product structure, and should be attributed to their new products based on advanced technology. Besides that the controlling of quality and decreasing cost are another two important factors. General manager Li said that differentiation of market is evitable. Without differentiation and personalization, productions can not win the competition. In the past, one piece of sand paper could deal with various materials, while as present it is essential to use different kinds of sandpapers to cope with different materials. It is necessary to use the standard of craft to manufacturing common sandpaper. Now, their company has developed a kind of sandpaper which can be applied in both dry and wet condition, and the mose fine-grained sandpaper has reached 5000#. In order to develop that super fine abrasive, it took them and suppliers two years. Today, they still encourage and reward workers to put forward reasonable suggestions. Their enterprise spirit “people-oriented, considering factory as home, demanding for perfection and developing together” is advanced by a common worker and supported by the whole employees. In their company, general manager is leader and employees are owners. 

In six days, over 1000 kilometers have witnessed the change of coated abrasives manufacturers. The technology innovation has been changing the whole industry, but it is still a long way for their transformation and upgrading.