On July 23rd, the customer end of China Daily published the article Break Germany Monopoly! The Worker with Senior Middle School Education Background Researched and Developed Equipment of Chinese!
Batching, casting, crimping, peeling......, the production lines operate with full load in order. However, different from the imagined metal processing workshop full of big noise, the sound value of the whole workshop does not exceed 90dB, and there are not many workers too. It is just a daily view of the nonferrous smart manufacturing industrial park of Hailiang.
These automatic and smart productions line are just a minority of Feng Huanfeng’s research achievements. Feng Huanfeng is the magician engineer of smart manufacturing of nonferrous materials of Hailiang. Over more than 20 years, harboring the craftsmanship, he has explored in the technical innovation frontier of manufacturing industry, applied nearly 70 patents as the first inventor, and achieved at least 1000 technical transformations and innovations for optimizing the working environment and improving the production efficiency by leading his team.
In November, 2020, Feng Huanfeng received honorary commendation by the Party Central Committee and the State Council as a national labor model at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing.
The Progress Road of a Layman in Copper
In 1992, Feng Huanfeng started to work in Hailiang, and became a general operator. At that time, he had just senior middle school education background, and hardly had any knowledge of copper processing. Owing to the lack of fundamentals and operation experience, as a layman in copper, he felt great difficulty in his work at the beginning, so he had to learn from the colleagues all time and stayed at the dormitory to read books concerning copper processing, as he was deeply aware that “knowledge is power”, and he didn’t dare to waste any time for study at that time.
When working as a grass-root worker, Feng Huanfeng used to work as an electrician as well as a repair technician. With more and more knowledge reserve, as well as the diligence and thirsty for knowledge, he grew gradually, and became more and more skilled in practical operation, and mastered all the mechanical equipment and technology processes on the whole production line perfectly. Today, even if he has become a technical leader in the copper processing field, the workshop is still the place where Feng Huanfeng goes most frequently and has the most concerns for. Feng Huanfeng said that you can only discover problems after going to the frontier workshop, the employees will also feed back problems, and we will progress if we improve these problems.
Thinking of improvement, with the spirits of being pioneering and dauntless, Feng Huanfeng leads the technical team for innovation, research and innovation, fills many blank points of copper bar processing at home and abroad, and achieves the great transformation from catching up to leading.
China is the biggest copper material production country as well as the consumption country, but not a power in copper production. Before 2005, domestic copper processing industry needed to adopt the reversal extrusion equipment imported from Germany with the investment cost more than RMB80 million, and our country had nearly no initiative in bargain as Germany monopolized the intellectual property of the equipment.
To change such a pattern of being restricted by others, Feng Huanfeng actively took the task, and worked at the design frontier of the domestication of reversal extruder. “What the foreigner can do, we can do too!” With such an unwillingness of lag behind, he began to look up a lot of foreign reversal extruder data, learn from experienced masters of other enterprises, and had the test, demonstration, re-demonstration again and again...
Though the hardship was unavoidable and he had great determination, Feng Huanfeng still said that the process was too painful, far exceeding his prediction at that time. Looking up data, conceiving, discussing, testing..., the design solution got complete in repetition and progress one after another. In numerous deep nights, Feng Huanfeng’s team always worked under the lights in the workshop.
However, there is a will, there is a way. After more than 3 months of work day and night, Feng Huanfeng and his team finally broke through the key technology of reversal extrusion, and successfully researched and manufactured the reversal extruder of Chinese.
Only the Innovating will Succeed, and Everyone May Become an Inventor
In the nonferrous smart manufacturing industrial park of Hailiang, the production lines operate with full load in order, but the whole workshop is still very quiet, as they are smart production line designed by Feng Huanfeng.
In recent years, smart factory has become the new development direction of processing enterprises, and Feng Huanfeng also casted his eyes to the smart production line innovation in the copper processing field naturally. However, such a concept is unprecedented in the copper processing industry and needs to start from scratch, full of difficulties. In his counterparties’ eyes, it is a task which is impossible to complete.
However, Feng Huanfeng’s persistence is beyond all’s imagination. He always wears a simple expression, without harshness, but with some persistence, and in his eyes, there is always insistence. “We always think there is a slim chance for achieving such a concept, however, he just put himself into it, and dedicate to it”, his colleagues sighed.
Feng Huanfeng finally succeeded in it. He proudly introduced: “the new production line all adopts the technologies independently researched and developed by the company, and achieved the automatic production line operation from the raw material warehousing to the product delivery. Compared with traditional production, we have improved the production efficiency by 2 times, but reduced the labor by a half and saved the electricity by 30% at least.” However, behind such an initial practice in the world, it is his persistence year after year and his fight day and night.
“Only the innovating progress, get powerful and succeed.” The inventor of the manufacturing industry, Feng Huanfeng breaks through people’s bias that inventions are only done by sciences and in labs with his personal experience. He said that, as the industry workers of the new age, it is a must to integrate personal ideal and pursuit into the cause of the state and the nation, keep the craftsmanship, inherit the labor model spirit, do the work to the ultimate with persistence, so as to manufacture the products of world level and create our excellent life adapting to the age.