Southern Finance Report | Cultivating More Individual Champions to Uphold the "Hard Backbone" of Made in China

 

There are champions in the competition field, as well as in the manufacturing industry. In Guangzhou, there are a group of manufacturing enterprises that are not well known to the public, but are well-known in the industry, becoming leaders in the field of segmentation. They are single champion manufacturers in the manufacturing industry.
 

According to the definition of the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, a single champion enterprise in the manufacturing industry refers to an enterprise that has long focused on certain specific product segments of the manufacturing industry, leading the production technology or process internationally, and ranking among the top three in the global market share of single products. Since 2016, the country has started the selection of individual champions in the manufacturing industry. Today, a total of 24 enterprises (products) in Guangzhou have been selected as national individual champions in the manufacturing industry.
 

Recently, Guangdong Province and Guangzhou City have successively held high-quality development conferences to mobilize and deploy high-quality development work. As an important supporting force for high-quality economic and social development and an important component of industrial chain modernization, how can individual champion enterprises assist Guangzhou in "building a city through manufacturing" and achieving high-quality development? The Southern Metropolis Daily focuses on "Made in Guangzhou" among the individual champions, interviewing multiple national level manufacturing single champion enterprises in Guangzhou, talking to the leaders of the enterprises, and trying to find answers from the growth process of enterprise startup, rise, and transcendence.
 

"Ten years of sharpening a sword" products are sold nationwide and globally
 

At the end of last year, the seventh batch of single champion manufacturing enterprises (products) was announced, and the list of fourth batch of single champion manufacturing enterprises (products) was released at the same time. Guangzhou Ruxing Technology Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as "Ruxing Technology") was listed with its main product, crystalline silicon solar battery paste.
 

For Ruxing Technology, founded in 2000, it is appropriate to summarize its in-depth exploration in the field of crystalline silicon solar cell paste with "years of sharpening a sword". Xu Shan, Chairman and President of Guangzhou Ruxing Technology Co., Ltd., told reporters in Nandu that since the successful launch of crystalline silicon solar cell aluminum paste products in 2002, the company has continuously increased research and development investment to supplement key technical weaknesses. In 2009, the global market share of the company's crystalline silicon solar cell aluminum paste products exceeded 50%. In 2018, the company's global shipment of crystalline silicon solar cell back electrode paste ranked first in the world, and has continued to this day.
 

To "win", enterprises need to pass multiple "hard indicators". For example, the enterprise has been engaged in relevant fields for 10 years or more, and should have been engaged in new products for 3 years or more; The market share of products applied by enterprises ranks among the top three in the world. The fields of new generation information technology, equipment manufacturing, new materials, new energy vehicles and intelligent networked vehicles, new energy, energy conservation and environmental protection have been listed as key areas for the cultivation and selection of individual champions.
 

Guangzhou Ruisong Intelligent Technology Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as "Ruisong Technology"), the latest batch of single champion enterprises, has been established for just over 10 years and has long focused on the development and production of industrial robots and intelligent manufacturing equipment. Among them, intelligent welding robot integration technology is one of the "representative technologies". This technology realizes intelligent control of welding processes, greatly improves welding quality stability and process reliability, and saves costs. Today, Ruisong Technology has been widely used in intelligent manufacturing production in various industries such as automobiles, new energy vehicles, mechanical heavy industry, 3C electronics, elevators, rail transit, aerospace, marine engineering, shipbuilding, and so on. Ruisong Technology has also leapt to the first echelon in the country in the segmented field of intelligent welding robot integration systems.
 

Jingxin Communication Technology (Guangzhou) Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as "Jingxin Communication") is located in the 5G antenna production base of Guangzhou Science City. The newly developed antenna products are being assembled and molded on the production line. Small antennas are highly technical, responsible for receiving and transmitting communication signals, and are key equipment in mobile communication networks. Founded in Guangzhou Economic and Technological Development Zone in 1997, Beijing Telecom has been deeply engaged in the field of mobile communication antenna for more than 20 years. From scratch to excellence, antenna products are now one of the important products of Beijing Telecom.
 

"By strengthening intellectual property construction, brand building, and other paths, we have made a global layout of our independently developed core technologies, especially in overseas high-end markets." According to Bu Binlong, Executive Director, Senior Vice President, and Chief Scientist of the Antenna Feed Business Unit of Beijing CITIC Communications Group, Beijing CITIC Communications now has businesses in 100 countries and regions. By the end of 2022, the cumulative shipment of base station antennas exceeded 9 million sets, Stable ranking among the world's top tier suppliers. In the past decade, the supply volume of base station antennas of Jingxin Communication has steadily ranked among the top two in the world. Their base station antenna products are found in communication towers and community base stations scattered throughout the mountains at home and abroad.
 

The early mobile communication antenna market was almost monopolized by foreign industry giants, with high barriers to technology patents and brands. Bu Binlong still remembers that when building 2G networks in China, it is still necessary to import base station antennas from abroad at a high cost. "Due to the patent blockade, early domestic antennas could not form a sales scale in the foreign market, and could only be sold at low quality and low price in China." This dilemma made Bu Binlong clearly realize that only by surpassing them in terms of technical patents, domestic antenna manufacturers would have the possibility of winning.
 

How can we break through? Bu Binlong led the team to ponder this issue day and night. He and his team carefully studied and analyzed the new products in the industry, and finally found the breakthrough of miniaturization and spatial overlap reuse technology. They proposed our independent and innovative technical route, successfully breaking the foreign patent barriers. Since then, Jingxin Antenna has continued to innovate in two directions: "miniaturization of multi-system and multi-standard shared antennas" and "smooth flow production mode of human-machine collaboration".
 

At present, Jingxin Communication has applied for more than 2300 antenna patents, including more than 150 international PCT patents and European and American patents. The basic patents of the two technology platforms have won the China Patent Gold Award jointly issued by the China National Intellectual Property Administration and the World Intellectual Property Organization for three times, and it is the only enterprise in the industry that has won this honor. "Every product and industry has its life cycle. When this product is doing very well, it is necessary to think about what should be done next, technology should be able to meet demand, and design should be able to lead the market," said Bu Binlong.
 

Conductive paste for crystalline silicon solar cells has also been subject to foreign control. Crystalline silicon solar cell paste is a key raw material for the preparation of crystalline silicon solar cells, which has an important impact on the photoelectric conversion efficiency, service life, and other performance of crystalline silicon solar cells. However, the conductive paste for crystalline silicon solar cells in China started relatively late and was mainly imported in the early years.
 

Xu Shan told Nandu that the product nature of Ruxing Technology is a formula type product, and its formula design needs to integrate multiple disciplines and technologies such as semiconductor materials, metal materials, polymer materials, and inorganic materials. The formula system is complex, so the technical barriers are relatively high. "After more than 20 years of precipitation, we have cultivated a technology development team with continuous innovation capabilities and accumulated rich experience in product formulation design." Xu Shan introduced that in recent years, Ruxing Technology has also attached particular importance to cooperation with external scientific and technological units, actively carrying out "production, education, and research" cooperation with universities and scientific research institutions, strengthening cooperative research and development with suppliers and customers, in order to improve the enterprise's independent innovation ability, Ensure the market competitiveness of products.
 

"Intelligent manufacturing" to catch up and surpass
 

Create broad application scenarios for automation and intelligence in the manufacturing industry
 

As a traditional manufacturing city, transformation and upgrading is the main way for the development of Guangzhou's manufacturing industry. In recent years, Guangzhou's manufacturing industry has been empowered by "four modernizations" in digital transformation, promoting the development of digital, networked, intelligent, and green manufacturing. The production scene of traditional industrial manufacturing with high intensity and intensive work has gradually withdrawn from the stage, replaced by intelligent and automated equipment such as robotic arms, AGVs, and robots.
 

In the production workshop of Jingxin Communication, application scenarios of 5G+industrial production can be seen everywhere. On the screen beside the production line, real-time data graphs such as compliance rate and reported production rate are displayed. The 5G cloud station on the ceiling of the workshop can achieve accurate positioning through multiple access multiple edge computing (MEC) platforms. The positioning camera can follow the track of personnel, and the production situation of the workshop is clear at a glance. Based on the independently developed 5G base station product, Jingxin Communication has developed multiple scenarios and practical applications such as 5G based AR remote technical support, production process high-definition identification, 5G cloud based AGV, cloud based face recognition, and applied them to its own production. Nowadays, one worker can simultaneously monitor multiple production lines, greatly improving production efficiency.
 

Risong Technology is one of the earliest companies in China to provide intelligent solutions for automotive equipment, and is also the largest manufacturer of automotive intelligent equipment technology research and development in China. According to Sun Zhiqiang, Chairman and President of Ruisong Technology, the single champion enterprise in the manufacturing industry not only attaches importance to research and development investment, but also has advanced technology and high gold content, and owns core independent intellectual property rights. What's more important is to achieve industrial transformation through technology research and development, form a complete process equipment industry chain, and create broad application scenarios for automation and intelligence in the manufacturing industry.
 

Taking the manufacturing of passenger cars as an example, welding stamping parts into a complete body in white requires thousands of welding points to be completed, which can be completed in less than 60 seconds with the support of the Ruisong Technology robot flexible intelligent welding production line. Relying on intelligent manufacturing technology, Ruisong Technology has achieved unmanned production for its own brand GAC MOTOR for the first time in its entire production line, achieving or even surpassing world-class production line efficiency and intelligent flexibility; Providing technical support for the production of independent brand GAC new energy vehicles using aluminum body and lightweight design for the first time, successfully breaking the technical blockade imposed by international giants in this field.
 

Sun Zhiqiang introduced that at present, Ruisong Technology has mastered core products and technologies such as robots, lasers, vision, software, and digital chemical plants, and is vigorously developing intelligent technologies for the entire process flow of intelligent manufacturing industry such as intelligent welding, intelligent assembly, intelligent testing, and intelligent logistics. He hopes that through continuous breakthroughs in different industry segments, from meeting the needs of a large number of fragmented application scenarios, to gradually completing the entire industrial chain intelligence, ultimately enabling the transformation and upgrading of manufacturing to intelligent manufacturing.