"Specialized, Specialized and New" debuted in the government work report to speed up the resolution of technical problems with stuck necks
How the "little giant" ran out of acceleration
This year, a new word appeared in the government work report - "specialized, special and new".
The report proposes to "focus on cultivating 'specialized, special and new' enterprises, and give strong support in terms of capital, talents, and incubation platform construction."
"Specialized, refined and new" refers to small and medium-sized enterprises with the characteristics of "specialization, refinement, specialization, and novelty", and the outstanding ones are called "little giants".
In recent years, a large number of "little giant" enterprises have emerged to provide technical support for solving the problem of "stuck neck".
According to statistics, the total sales and patent achievements of such enterprises are more than 2 times that of other small and medium-sized enterprises.
In 2019, 2020 and 2021, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology successively announced three batches of lists of 4,922 national specialized, special and new "little giant" enterprises. "The key segment of "fill in the blanks".
In 2022, my country plans to cultivate about 3,000 national-level "specialized, specialized and new" small and medium-sized enterprises on the original basis, driving the cultivation of provincial-level "specialized, specialized and new" small and medium-sized enterprises to increase from the current 40,000 to 50,000. around home.
From only one customer to the first domestic supplier——
"Long-term focus can become an industry champion"
There is a private enterprise called "Huawei Technology" in Chengxi Industrial Zone, Zhuji City, Zhejiang Province.
If you don't introduce it, most people don't know what this company does.
But when it comes to its partners, everyone is familiar with it - Hongqi, Geely, Chery... Huawei Technology is the spring supplier of these car brands, and the domestic market share of the company's leading product "suspension spring" is independent The brand ranks first in the passenger car series.
In the industry, companies like Huawei Technology are known as "hidden champions".
Because compared to the car brands that everyone is concerned about, which car spring is stronger?
Most people probably don't know.
However, in a market segment like spring, there are many "masters" who have core competitiveness and are difficult to replace with products or services.
A common feature of "specialized and new" enterprises is "small and specialized".
"Small", not only because of the small scale, but also because the products they produce are small parts and small parts in "big manufacturing".
More than 90% of the list of specialized, special, and new "little giants" companies released by the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology are concentrated in the fields of core basic components, key basic materials, advanced basic processes, and basic industrial technology.
Although the products are "small", they occupy an indispensable basic position in the industrial chain. If any of them is broken, the security of the entire industrial chain will be threatened.
Take spring as an example, as a basic spare part for industrial manufacturing and automobile manufacturing, it is widely used in automobiles, trains and even various mechanical equipment. Although it accounts for a small proportion of the overall scale of the manufacturing industry, it is the base of a complete industrial chain. .
Therefore, "specialized, refined and new" small and medium-sized enterprises have become the key to the security, stability, independence and control of the national industrial chain and supply chain.
Even some specialized and special new "little giant" enterprises are in the key areas of "stuck neck" in my country's manufacturing industry.
"Focus on professionalism" is the primary requirement of "specialized, refined, and new" SMEs. Most of these companies have long-term focused and deep-rooted in a certain link or a certain product in the industrial chain, tirelessly, and eventually reach the top of the industry.
Huawei Technology started as a motorcycle shock absorber spring, and then transformed into an automobile spring.
The company's chairman Jin Lei told reporters that the company has been insisting on spring research and development, production and sales for more than 40 years since its establishment, and does not engage in any business unrelated to the main production.
In 1998, Jin Lei's father established this enterprise. At that time, the factory area covered 30 acres, with 38 employees and only one customer for auto springs. With a small amount of support from the maintenance market, the annual profit was about one million yuan.
After years of deep cultivation and accumulation, the company currently has more than 800 employees and an annual net profit of more than 59 million yuan, becoming a leader in the domestic spring field.
Fengguang Precision is a manufacturer of precision machining parts in Qingdao, Shandong Province. For 20 years, it has been producing guide rail sliders, a core component used in high-end equipment and high-speed trains.
"After so many years of deep cultivation on the guide rail slider, we have accumulated a certain amount of its entire processing process, possible problems, as well as the technologies and processes used. No matter the product quality, delivery time or team, They are leaders in the same industry, so they can retain core customers.” Li Jun, chairman of Fengguang Precision, said frankly, “Only long-term focus can become the industry champion. The products have excellent performance in terms of quality and precision, and the company has cooperated with many high-quality customers. A stable cooperative relationship has been formed, and from this perspective, the company's core competitiveness has formed a certain threshold for peer companies."
Exit the low-end market and set up a national laboratory——
"Without unique skills, enterprises can't go far"
"Precision" is an important indicator to measure the quality of most core components.
As a manufacturer of precision machining parts, the precision tolerance of Fengguang precision die-casting products is controlled within ±0.02 mm at most, far ahead of its peers.
In the precision manufacturing industry, a few millimeters and a few microns are of great significance.
"In the processing and manufacturing industry, the technology and quality requirements of ordinary parts are low, and many small workshops can also produce them. Their low cost will form low-price competition. In recent years, China's manufacturing industry has developed towards high quality. If the company cannot provide High-quality products will be eliminated by the market, and they will not be able to develop together with world-class companies." Li Jun said that in order to improve precision, the company has been increasing investment in research and development over the years, independently developed light-load robots, and developed four-axis , Six-axis robot, step by step to improve the production process.
In China, many small and medium-sized enterprises like Fengguang Precision have achieved the transformation from small to large and from specialized to refined through innovation.
Pan Helin, Executive Dean of the Digital Economy Research Institute of Zhongnan University of Economics and Law, believes that most of the "little giant" companies that specialize in new products are driven by R&D and technology. They are competitive in the industry and can dominate the entire industry chain through their industry advantages.
On the one hand, it can fill the domestic technology gap and break the foreign technology monopoly on key nodes of the industrial chain; on the other hand, it can influence and strengthen the entire industrial chain by achieving technological breakthroughs in the small node industry.
For Huawei Technology, the first breakthrough point of innovation was 2000.
That year, the company's first CNC computerized spring coiling machine was put into production.
It has carried out scientific research on imported brake springs, and produced domestic brake springs with the same functions as imported products, rewriting the history of brake springs that must be imported, and taking a key step from manufacturing to research and development.
Tasting the sweetness of innovation, the company began to further upgrade its technology.
Jin Lei said, "The quenched steel wire is an important material for the production of springs. In the past, this material has always been purchased from external sources, and the quality is very unstable. After thinking about it, I finally decided to produce it myself." In 2004, Huawei Technology built the first one. Oil quenching production line; In 2014, the first material water quenching production line was developed and built, with the international leading technology level, which solved the material demand for new product development.
At the same time, a fully automatic spring production line was built, and machines were replaced.
At present, the company has 5 automatic spring production lines and 4 material water quenching production lines.
The self-developed water-quenched spring steel wire production process provides technical support for the production of quenched steel wires required for the production of high-stress spring products, breaking through the current technical blockade of high-strength steel wires by foreign-funded enterprises in the market.
"Without unique skills, an enterprise can't go far." Core technology is an essential weapon for almost every "little giant" enterprise that wants to develop in the long run.
In Jinlei's view, taking the spring industry as an example, the shallow product is to learn foreign spring manufacturing technology and copy a similar domestic version; while the deep product is the type that has the right to define the development and changes of the industry, and then What is needed is a large and lasting R&D investment support.
Therefore, they gradually withdraw from the competition in the low-end spring market, and regard the research and development of spring technology as a more important business. In 2016, they established a national spring laboratory.
Over the years, Huawei Technology’s R&D investment has always accounted for about 5% of its sales revenue. There are hundreds of R&D and technical personnel, accounting for 15.16% of the company’s total number of people; the annual R&D expenditure is more than 20 million yuan; it has 9 invention patents, 115 utility model patents.
When it was first founded, the company had only two technicians.
Funds and policy support help "grow tall and grow strong"——
'We're on the fast track to good policy'
Xinwu District, Wuxi City, Jiangsu Province is a place where local "specialized, refined, and new" small and medium-sized enterprises are inhabited—there are 189 "specialized, refined, and new" small giant enterprises and 208 private enterprises exceeding 100 million yuan.
Earlier this month, Wuxi's first "specialized, special and new" Little Giant Enterprise Service Center was established here.
The establishment of the service center is to cultivate more "specialized and special new".
Han Jianzhong, director of the Bureau of Industry and Information Technology of Xinwu District, Wuxi City, said: "The service center hopes to further establish and improve a working system in which the functional departments of the district, the streets and parks cooperate and advance together, and provide financial venture capital, technical support, data-to-intelligence for enterprise development. Change the service."
The industry threshold for "specialized, specialized and innovative" is high, and SMEs cannot grow into "specialized, specialized and innovative" without external support.
Strengthening the construction of the service system for SMEs is the focus of supporting the development of SMEs during the "14th Five-Year Plan" period.
In recent years, in response to the difficulties encountered by "specialized, specialized, and new" small and medium-sized enterprises in their development, many local governments have introduced many support policies and measures.
Unilink Technology Co., Ltd., which settled in Xinwu District, Wuxi City in 2009, is currently the largest R&D and manufacturing enterprise of precision X-ray technology and testing equipment in China.
Since its establishment in 2002, the company has continued to carry out technology research and development, investing tens of millions of yuan every year, and finally overcome the "stuck neck" technology, realizing the independent control of core technology.
In 2017, the company's products are about to be industrialized after research and development. In the face of difficulties such as funds and land use, Xinwu District, Wuxi City took the initiative to provide relevant policy services, paving the way for the rapid development of the company.
"The soul of 'specialization, specialization and innovation' lies in R&D and innovation. From the growth pattern of specialized, specialized, and new enterprises in Xinwu District, it often takes ten years of grinding, especially for manufacturing small and medium-sized enterprises to develop a core product with independent intellectual property rights. One sword. With continuous capital investment, enterprises must continue to bear the pressure of loss, face greater risks, and it is also difficult to obtain financing from banks and other financial institutions. "Han Jianzhong said, because of this, Xinwu District has set up a set up for such enterprises. Special subsidies, government support funds and incentives.
Digital transformation is also an effective way for many small and medium-sized enterprises to become "specialized and innovative".
"Customers at home and abroad have higher and higher requirements for product quality. Digitalization is an important method to improve product quality, improve production efficiency, and reduce costs and increase efficiency." Meng Kairen, administrative director of Huawei Technology, gave an example. In spring production, Data collection is a big pain point.
For example, it takes more than 60 minutes for a workpiece to come out after entering the heat treatment process. Workers need to manually count and fill in the form, and this data is often inaccurate.
Once the statistics are too many, it will directly affect the inventory cost.
Ideally, precise piece counting is achieved through digitization.
In the process of development, many small and medium-sized enterprises like Huawei Technology have realized the urgency of digital transformation, but it is not easy to realize the transformation.
Relevant industry reports show that 90% of my country's small and medium-sized enterprises have a low degree of intelligent manufacturing, and the main influencing factors are the cost of intelligent upgrades and financing channels.
"At this point, we have caught the express train of good policies." Meng Kairen said that in recent years, Zhuji City has formulated a five-year digital economy doubling plan and a digital empowerment policy.
The government department has a certain percentage of incentives for the company's equipment investment, machine replacement, and digital transformation.
"In 2020, we will carry out intelligent integration transformation of all production, inspection and other related equipment, and customize the development of Huawei Technology's intelligent manufacturing execution system, and build a benchmark workshop for digital and intelligent production in the spring industry. In 2021, according to the city's introduction The support policy of 'manufacturing high-growth enterprises grow taller and grow stronger', the company won a support award of 2 million yuan. Compared with before the digital construction, the company's production efficiency has increased by 20%, operating costs have been reduced by 20%, and the rate of defective products has been reduced. 20%."
According to statistics, at present, Zhuji City has invested more than 1.5 billion yuan in supporting "specialized, refined and new".
Looking at the whole country, according to the plan, during the "14th Five-Year Plan" period, the central government will arrange more than 10 billion yuan in awards and subsidies, focusing on supporting the development of national-level specialized, special and new "little giant" enterprises, and more small and medium-sized enterprises will be cultivated in the policy. Under "Grow tall and grow strong".
Our reporter Wang Yajing