China News Service, Handan, September 27th: Tang Xiaoyu: The "hot" life of a "post-85" steelmaker
Reporter Chen Lin Ai Guangde
Faced with many "olive branches", why did you choose to be a worker when you graduated from a famous university?
As a steelmaker, why can he solve the technical problems of the industry again and again, and even win the international competition?
For the many honors and achievements you have achieved, you still keep repeating that you still need to work hard and learn more?
... This "post-1985" steelmaker has many "incomprehensible" in the eyes of ordinary people.
In the eyes of this steel-making man who is nearly 1.8 meters tall, the "fiery red" in the converter is even his favorite color.
Behind the "always habitually looking a few more times" at work is "feeling very cordial".
In the "hot red", there are his dreams 14 years ago and a new goal to start again.
After thinking for a while, he added seriously, "(I) also rely on this to eat."
He is Tang Xiaoyu, the representative of the 20th National Congress of the Communist Party of China, the technical director of the special gear of the Hanbao Steelmaking Plant of the Handan Iron and Steel Company of Hegang Group, and the deputy director of the converter workshop.
start the furnace
The white helmet can't hide the slightly messy hairstyle.
Lightweight half-frame glasses also cannot hide the stunt of "hot eyes":
Through the observation window of the steel furnace, he can quickly identify the ratio of molten steel and steel slag in a furnace "red" with the naked eye, and instantly shout "start the furnace".
As one of the most important links in steelmaking, this short and high-pitched "start-up" is a unique "note" in the rumbling and noisy production workshop, and it is also the exclusive "privilege" of the converter chief (steelmaker).
To be a steelmaker, to be the best steelmaker in the whole factory, has also become Tang Xiaoyu's dream after entering the factory.
In 2008, Tang Xiaoyu, who walked out of the gate of Beijing University of Science and Technology, resolutely chose to enter the steelmaking plant and started from the most basic loader.
He understands that if you want to make the best steel by yourself, you cannot do without first-line innovative practice.
Half a year later, he wrote on the social platform: "I am determined to become the best steelmaker in the whole factory."
From famous college students to front-line workers, "how big is the gap" is a question often mentioned by the media.
He majored in metallurgical engineering during college, and there is no gap in general.
After repeated questions, the 37-year-old will only talk about the influence of his family: his father is a chemical expert, and he has been in the field for many years after graduating from college. After retirement, there are still process flow charts in the bedroom; his grandparents are college teachers and have been working on the "three-foot platform" for a long time. ...The influence of his family has formed Tang Xiaoyu's complete puzzle for his career growth.
The picture shows Tang Xiaoyu checking relevant production data through a computer.
Photo by Zhai Yujia
It only took Tang Xiaoyu more than two years to go from material worker to alloy worker and steel worker, while others usually take seven years.
He also became the youngest furnace chief in the whole factory.
Compared with the hard work behind the scenes, he would rather talk about the "nervousness" when he shouted "fire up" for the first time:
"After the steel mirror is made, the staring eyes keep staring, staring at the converter, not daring to blink the whole process, and must concentrate on distinguishing..."
"You have to shout at that juncture, not even a second before or after." He recalled that he no longer shouted "start the furnace", and he would not breathe a sigh of relief until the furnace worker heard it and started the furnace.
In the eyes of "Master" He Shunsheng, Tang Xiaoyu "has a lot of energy", is not afraid of hardships, and will definitely do his best.
Perseverance and self-confidence are his persistent persistence and the obsession flowing in his blood, which deeply affects the team around him.
Tang Xiaoyu, who was busy with technological innovation in his first year as furnace chief, hardly had any holidays.
For a period of time, my throat became inflamed, and I dragged my hoarse voice and shouted "start the furnace" for more than ten days.
For a few days, the pain was unbearable, and when the furnace started, I would pat the workers and ask others to shout on their behalf.
On his way to work, he was hit by an electric car and bled a lot from his fingers.
After getting up, he patted the soil on his body, and he reluctantly went to work again.
When the foreman asked him to rest, he said playfully, "You don't need to hurt your fingers, you can still produce good steel."
This year, the quality and efficiency improvement of their class ranked first among the 12 steelmaking teams in the whole plant, and set a record for 10 consecutive months that the composition of molten steel did not exceed the internal control.
Later, he also innovatively proposed methods such as "slag retention method smelting", which solved the technical problems of the industry.
win the championship
In September 2017, Tang Xiaoyu became famous in the "Chongke Cup" National Simulated Steelmaking-Rolling Competition.
He won the individual championship of the enterprise group and helped the team win the team championship.
Years later, Tang Xiaoyu still insists that the game is to win the championship.
Behind the confidence lies enough effort.
He still remembers that when the contestants walked out of the elevator door in the lobby to participate in the competition, he played the music from the movie "God of Gamblers" on his mobile phone, "thinking that he must win".
As he spoke, he hummed this tune involuntarily.
After a short period of time, I stopped and said a little embarrassedly that I was a little "crazy" when I was young, "but self-confidence must always be there, and there must be."
After winning the championship this time, Tang Xiaoyu started new preparations.
The goal is to be the winner of the 12th Mock Steelmaking Challenge World Finals.
To this end, he practiced almost every grade of steel he could find, studied the impact of every factor in a simulated steelmaking system on cost, and wrote down hundreds of long, irregular numbers and formulas...
In the end, Tang Xiaoyu, who had previously advanced to the final with a steel cost difference of 1 cent/ton and the second place in China, won the championship of the professional group with an absolute advantage of $4.29/ton ahead of the second place.
He admitted frankly that he believed in winning the championship before the game, and even joked with his co-workers that "the game is to win the championship".
During the interview, he also took the initiative to talk about the details of wearing the five-star red flag badge to receive the award, hoping to use the spirit of craftsmanship to polish the shining business card of "Made in China" in the world.
Suddenly, he felt that he should carry a five-star red flag, "you can hold it high after winning the championship."
Behind the desire for champions is Tang Xiaoyu's creed.
Just like to be "the best steelmaker in the whole plant", everything he chooses to do "must be the best".
start again
At a national steel industry symposium, Tang Xiaoyu called himself a "steel-making youth in the new era". In his speech, he deeply felt the great changes in China's steel industry: when the People's Republic of China was first established, the crude steel output was only 156,000 tons, accounting for 0.1% of the world. It has developed into the world's largest steel country and has made important contributions to the rapid development of the national economy.
The rapid development of steel has dazzled even Tang Xiaoyu, who was born and raised in a "steel city" in the northeast.
His hometown is an important old industrial base in the country, where there are childhood memories and emotional concerns, and now the high-quality development of steel is being carried out.
His company, Hegang Group, is taking technological innovation as the guide and making efforts in the transformation from "steel to material" and "manufacturing to service". Its products cover automobiles, home appliances, shipbuilding, machinery manufacturing, petrochemicals, aerospace, engineering and construction, etc. field.
In two years, Tang Xiaoyu and his team worked together to reduce the oxygen content at the end of molten steel from 712ppm to the current average of about 400ppm, helping the production of automobile sheets to achieve a leap from ordinary steel grades to high-strength steel grades.
As the world's largest iron and steel country, China's iron and steel enterprises are also undergoing changes: extensive development has become a thing of the past, and more and more iron and steel enterprises are continuously optimizing and improving in innovation-driven, intelligent manufacturing, and green and low-carbon.
Tang Xiaoyu still remembers that when he first became a steelmaking worker, he saw that 14 people needed to operate a 30-ton converter in the old steelmaking plant, and now only 3 people are needed for a 260-ton converter.
The stereotype of "stupid, black and rough" in the steel industry is a thing of the past, and converters have been moving from experience steelmaking to automated steelmaking for many years, and are moving towards intelligent steelmaking.
In recent years, Tang Xiaoyu has won many honors such as National Outstanding Communist Party Member, National Labor Model, China Youth May Fourth Medal, etc.
Especially when he was elected as the representative of the 20th Party Congress, he looked forward to "feeling this historic moment on the spot".
As a "post-1985" steelmaker, Tang Xiaoyu hopes to temper his excellent skills in the future, and in the future, through technological innovation, he will produce more high-end steel and high-quality steel for the country, and provide more Chinese samples for the world's steel industry.
On his WeChat page, there is such an image: an adult asks three children what they like to do, and the three answer: study, study, study.
Tang Xiaoyu said that with the rapid development of science and technology, the development of his industry is much faster than imagined.
No matter what his grades were in the past, he had to keep learning and innovating, which was also his new goal.
Only in this way can we make a difference in the high-quality development of steel.
(Finish)