◎ The Secret of China CNC Machine Tool "Counterattack"
◎ CNC technology is defeated by "dependence"
◎ The technical miracle of youth "creating a team"
◎ "Innovation" is not "a godsend"
At the moment when China’s economic development is facing a major turning point or adjustment, whether we can reach a consensus on the importance of industrial upgrading is related to the choice of the direction and approach of China’s economic development. But so far, there are many vague understandings about the contents and ways of industrial upgrading.
From the perspective of economic policy, there are currently two perspectives on industrial upgrading in a dominant position.
The first perspective is to look at industrial upgrading from the perspective of macroeconomic policy. Because this perspective focuses on the conditions of macroeconomic balance and long-term economic growth, it tends to regard industrial upgrading as a natural result under certain macroeconomic conditions. For example, from the perspective of macroeconomic balance, it is believed that as long as the market is cleared, excess capacity is eliminated and "zombie enterprises" are eliminated, industrial upgrading will happen automatically. Moreover, there has also been an argument that "consumption upgrading drives industrial upgrading", which has never been empirically proved.
The second is the traditional industrial policy perspective. This perspective often puts forward specific goals, such as "making a strong country" and "Made in China 2025". Specific measures, such as promoting "internet plus", "intelligent manufacturing", robots and their corresponding national projects and policies. From this perspective, the task of China’s industrial upgrading is defined as technological breakthroughs in a number of industrial fields, and then technological research and development in these fields is funded in the form of government projects, and finally the results are reviewed and "accepted" by experts organized by the government. This method places special emphasis on developing high-tech industries or "transforming traditional industries with high-tech", and in fact equates industrial upgrading with the development of high-tech industries.
And thisSome angles, more or less failed to really touch the three hard cores of China’s industrial upgrading:How to discuss and understand the motive force, process and mechanism of industrial upgrading from the perspective of industrial development itself? What is the content or scope of industrial upgrading in China? What is the way of industrial upgrading?
As the most representative enterprise of heavy industry and equipment industry in Northeast China, Shenyang Machine Tool Group has developed the world’s first numerical control system — to make machine tools an intelligent and interconnected product in the past 30 years, with the courage of "resisting the addition of soldiers and mourning for the victory" in the post-crisis period when the international market competition is unprecedentedly fierce. — The "i5" numerical control system is even ahead of German Industry 4.0.
An established state-owned enterprise and located in the core area of the so-called "Northeast Collapse",ShenyangMachine Tool Group, on the other hand, performed a dazzling industrial technological innovation event in China, revealing and answering the road choice that China should make for industrial upgrading in a brand-new and sharp way.
Text/Special researcher of Outlook NewsweekLufeng Wang Chen
In recent years, the economic sluggishness in Northeast China has been a hot topic of social discussion, but the old-fashioned Northeast state-owned enterprises — — Shenyang Machine Tool Group (hereinafter referred to as Shenji) has shown a prosperous scene. In the first quarter of this year, nearly 3,000 sets of i5 intelligent CNC machine tools independently developed by Shenji were shipped, and 12,000 sets of new orders were added at the same time. Together with the 3,000 orders carried over from last year, the number of orders now reached 15,000 sets, which does not include the cooperation framework agreement of 5,000 i5 machine tools signed with two Shenzhen enterprises in January this year & HELIP; … When many domestic industrial enterprises are worried about orders, they are struggling to increase production capacity for "explosive market demand". "i5" is the name of the CNC system developed by Shenji, and its meaning comes from five English words — — The first letter of Industry, Information, Internet, Intelligence and Integration. This is the world’s first intelligent and interconnected numerical control system, and it is also a revolutionary innovation event with epoch-making significance that is taking place in China industry under the grand background of industrial upgrading in China.
The unique performance of i5 CNC system is "intelligence and interconnection", which enables machine tools to produce data that can be transmitted in real time through the Internet while processing products. Therefore, the i5 machine tool has become an intelligent terminal. Through the cloud platform that can store and analyze big data, it can solve the problems of cost accounting and remote control, and can provide a series of services such as production task deployment, remote process support, product customization and machine tool rental. These functions can support China’s manufacturing industry which is in urgent need of upgrading.
This year, Shenji will join hands with Digital China to build 30 "i5" smart factories across the country. All their machine tools will be connected to the iSESOL cloud platform, forming a complete network and becoming the "head geese" of the "Made in China 2025" strategy.
However, who would have thought that in 2012, just four years ago, Guan Xiyou, the chairman of Shenji, stood on the roof of a German hotel all night, feeling that he would not be able to hold on. "The mature technology of i5 has not been worked out yet, but the R&D funds have been spent. The cooperation projects with Germany have also made little progress, and the market sales have declined again … … I spent more than 1.1 billion yuan in five years, and I don’t know if I can make it. Once it fails, even if the money hits Shui Piao, as the person in charge of state-owned enterprises, it is difficult for me to explain. "
A leader’s inspection
Guan Xiyou remembers very clearly that in July 2006, a national leader visited Shenji. This leader graduated from the Department of Electrical Engineering of Harbin Institute of Technology, and served as the deputy director of Shenyang Electromechanical Industry Bureau, knowing both the machine tool industry and Shenji. After seeing at the inspection site that all the CNC systems of Shenji were dependent on imports, he gave the leaders of Shenji a "training": "I made this broken iron block when I was in Shenyang Machinery Bureau, and I still do it now. This is not the future and there is no future."
Guan Xiyou still remembers that the leader gave them a list of the world’s information technology trends, such as several generations of Photoshop and Apple systems. "At that time, I was stunned, and I quietly asked the leader how you knew better than us. He whispered that it was his personal hobby. " Then, the leader said to Guan Xiyou, "Xiao Guan, you can’t run. You must develop a numerical control system."
Another person in charge of Shen Ji asked, shouldn’t this be done by scientific research units? The leaders said four meaningful words: they take the leaders as the audience, win prizes as the purpose, use papers as the means, and take the warehouse as the final destination … … If we want to do this, the enterprises should do it themselves, and it is best to do it by market mechanism.
Guan Xiyou thinks that the last sentence left by the leader is the most embarrassing: "After comprehensive investigation and thinking, if Shenyang Machine Tool doesn’t do this, the CNC system can’t be done in China."
This inspection has an important historical background. In January 2006, the central government put forward the policy of independent innovation and building an innovative country. This is the first time that the leadership of China has advocated independent innovation in China’s technological progress since the reform and opening up, which has aroused great social repercussions.
No matter what the managers of Shen Ji thought at that time, the leaders’ "orders" during the inspection attracted the attention of provincial and municipal leaders. Subsequently, the top leaders of provinces and cities took turns to investigate Shenji, and also held a national expert symposium for this purpose, with the purpose of figuring out one thing. If we develop a numerical control system, what is still missing? But the actual situation is not that Shen Ji still lacks anything, but that there is nothing, no core technology, no development experience, no R&D team, and no source of R&D funds … …
Li Yingjie, the former mayor of Shenyang who died two years ago, played a key role in the government’s decision-making. He went to Shenji several times to hold on-site office meetings and listen to reports. Although he doesn’t know CNC technology himself, Mayor Li insists on "doing the most advanced technology if you want", denies other schemes and decides to develop a CNC system using digital bus technology.
In order to obtain technical resources, Li Yingjie, who has cancer, went to Europe to talk with Company A personally. After the boss of Company A promised to cooperate, he came to China twice to conduct business negotiations with the leaders of Shenji, and finally negotiated with Guan Xiyou to develop a cooperative CNC system. However, although Company A has software technology, numerical control technology and servo technology, it does not have the necessary motor technology for servo system. So Guan Xiyou brought An Chuan Company, a world-renowned motor manufacturer, into cooperation, and together with Shenji himself and the Institute of Computing Technology of Chinese Academy of Sciences, formed a "three countries and four parties" cooperative development plan.
When reporting the development plan to Mayor Li Yingjie, he asked Guan Xiyou how much money he needed. Guan Xiyou replied that it would cost 100 million yuan a year anyway. Mayor Li said yes, he would give Shenji 100 million yuan every year for four consecutive years to develop a numerical control system. However, when it was time to give money the next year, Mayor Li changed his mind and said to Guan Xiyou, "No, I can’t pay all the money. I give you half, the city gives 50 million yuan a year, and your group takes 50 million yuan. If you don’t pay for it yourself, you won’t feel bad. " Mayor Li Yingjie gave Guan Xiyou three tasks — — Lay a foundation, build a team, and industrialize in five years.
In hindsight, the government plays an important role in the research and development of CNC system by Shenji — — Promote the launch of R&D projects, and subsidize the projects. Equally important, the government has not interfered in the process of project implementation.
Zhu Zhihao who is "not doing business"
Just as Guan Xiyou accepted the development task, he began to look for someone who could lead the development of CNC system. At that time, such technical talents could not be found not only from within Shenji, but also from all over the country. Guan Xiyou later recalled: "I thought this way when I was looking for these leaders. Who can tell me what you did wrong in the past 5 to 10 years, and I may choose you. But I can’t find this person after I have basically traveled. "
What he is looking for is actually such a person: he has accumulated enough technology and experience, but he is not bound by foreign technology.
The last person Guan Xiyou thought of was Zhu Zhihao, the brother who helped him in the Shanghai maglev project. Zhu Zhihao, born in Shanghai in 1965, stayed as a teacher after graduating from the School of Mechanical Engineering of Tongji University in 1987. Because he was not interested in writing papers and evaluating professional titles, Zhu Zhihao was always a marginal figure in the school. Until he resigned from Tongji University in 2015, he was still a senior engineer.
Zhu Zhihao’s personality is stubborn, "doing nothing" because the machine tool itself is more attractive to him, "getting excited at the smell of engine oil". In 1986, Tongji University purchased a lathe-milling compound machine tool equipped with Siemens numerical control system from German INDEX, which was the most advanced in China at that time, and the docking person of this machine tool was Zhu Zhihao, who was still an undergraduate.
In 1987 ~ 1988, after catching up with the loan from the World Bank, a large number of CNC machine tools entered China. Zhu Zhihao held training courses for machine tool users all over the country in Shanghai, and every class was full. Moreover, Zhu Zhihao and his students translated all the numerical control materials that Siemens entered China in the first three years. He spent a whole year reading these materials carefully from beginning to end, which laid a solid foundation.
In fact, Guan Xiyou approached Zhu Zhihao in 2006 and tentatively asked him, "Can we make our own CNC system?" Zhu Zhihao made it clear that he couldn’t, and gave four reasons: the gap between domestic and foreign CNC knowledge and experience is too big; The domestic market has long been firmly occupied by foreign products; There is no basic software and hardware supply chain in China, and the source of chips and computer technology is not in China; The continuity of R&D investment of state-owned enterprises cannot be guaranteed. Although a pot of cold water was poured on him, Guan Xiyou, who had walked around in the domestic numerical control field in July 2007, went back to his alma mater to find Zhu Zhihao again.
Guan Xiyou has trust in Zhu Zhihao. He said that Lao Zhu dares to repair all the imported complex equipment, but most people dare not. He once again proposed to Zhu Zhihao to develop a numerical control system, saying that if all the money is given, it will not work. In any case, this 50 million yuan will have to be spent this year. Guan Xiyou showed Zhu Zhihao the "bottom card": Shenji was responsible for solving the market, and the "three countries and four parties" cooperation model was responsible for solving technical problems, and invested 100 million yuan in research and development every year for four consecutive years.
This time, Zhu Zhihao was tempted. Subsequently, Guan Xiyou and his party went to Europe to inspect the technology of Company A..
Founded in 1974, Company A is one of the major global manufacturers of CNC systems, high-speed milling machines and CAM software. Its numerical control system adopts world-class digital bus technology and is based on the latest PC system platform. These latest technologies inevitably made Zhu Zhihao excited, and promised to set up a team to start developing CNC systems after returning to China.
However, Zhu Zhihao also put forward several conditions to Guan Xiyou: first, I don’t know when the development will be successful, one can’t force it, and the other can’t control it; Second, we must start from the foundation, and we must not fool around; Third, the team should be located in Shanghai, not in Shenyang, because it is easier to find professional talents in Shanghai, so we should leave room for ourselves to build a team.
After returning to China, Zhu Zhihao found Professor Fan Liuqun, a classmate who also taught at Tongji University. On the one hand, Zhu Zhihao invited him to be a consultant of the team, on the other hand, he asked him to introduce some students to work in the team. Zhu Zhihao’s selection criteria are simple: young people, capable officers, and not bound by the "frame". This "frame" refers to China’s thinking pattern of developing CNC system by taking foreign technology as the only technical source for a long time and developing it in reverse by disassembling.
Therefore, Professor Fan Liuqun recommended five graduate students whom he had supervised, and together with two people seconded from Shenyang Joint Venture Company, a research and development team consisting of two teachers and seven newly graduated graduate students took shape.
It is worth mentioning that these seven young people are all amateurs of CNC machine tools, and their professional backgrounds include systems engineering, software, microelectronics, electronic control and electric drive. Before they joined the team, they didn’t even know what CNC system was. There are only two teachers in the whole team who know about CNC system. This team structure also makes the Shanghai team form a culture and organization mode different from other R&D institutions in enterprises. The way of "teachers leading students" has been passed down in this team.
