How "black technology" in university laboratories can "show off" on the production line
——Focus on the transformation of new manufacturing discipline achievements in universities
[Exploring new ways to transform scientific and technological achievements in universities ③]
"This technology is very promising. It should not be 'hidden' in the laboratory, but should be taken out and transformed." Huang Guangyan, a professor at the School of Mechanical and Electrical Engineering of Beijing Institute of Technology, still remembers that after the explosion-proof prototype of flexible materials was developed, Chen Baiqiang, then deputy director of the school's technology transfer center This sentence was said when the whole school was collecting the latest results.
The report of the 20th National Congress of the Communist Party of China stated: “Build a modern industrial system, insist on focusing economic development on the real economy, promote new industrialization, and accelerate the construction of a manufacturing power, a quality power, an aerospace power, a transportation power, a network power, and a digital China. ." Promoting the high-quality development of new manufacturing industries is an important starting point for building a strong manufacturing country. How can "black technology" from university laboratories be better applied to production lines, improve product performance, optimize production management, and play a magical role in cultivating new development momentum and winning new advantages in future competition?
Need to find technology, technology to find investment, how to "hold hands" more smoothly
A specialized enterprise in Jiangsu Province that produces high-resistance electric heating alloy wires. Its output of iron-chromium-aluminum alloy wires (strips) and nickel-chromium aluminum alloy wires (strips) accounts for two-thirds of the domestic market. The output of these two alloy wires is not only large, but also the process is complicated. The final packaging and boxing process alone involves 10 processes such as raw material transportation, resistance measurement in meters, and wire diameter measurement. It requires two assembly lines to run at the same time and at least 20 workers. Synchronous operations can meet production needs.
"As labor costs continue to increase, the burden on enterprises becomes heavier and heavier, and it becomes more and more difficult to recruit workers. There is an urgent need to carry out packaging automation transformation." In August 2018, he was appointed by Wuhan University of Science and Technology to become the eleventh batch of science and technology town mayors in Jiangsu Province Guan Dehua, a member of the group, learned of this situation when he was investigating the technology needs of local companies.
"After I proposed the company's needs at the regular work meeting, a professor from Nanjing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics immediately announced the list, and then a team of professors from Zhejiang University, Beihang University, and companies from Wuxi, Changzhou and other places came to connect. However, All ended in vain due to various reasons." After in-depth analysis of the company's situation and needs, Guan Dehua found that these teams have not solved the problems of investment cost control and key technologies well. Therefore, the person in charge of the company is worried that once production is actually launched, , there will be a problem that the actual situation is not as good as the experimental results.
Through technical research and judgment and referring to past transformation experience, Guan Dehua actively communicated with Zhao Yuntao, associate professor at the School of Information Science and Engineering at Wuhan University of Science and Technology, and asked him to conduct on-site inspections to confirm the technical requirements, understand the project background, and go deep into the workshop to carefully inspect the company's corresponding production lines. and production process flow, supplementing the key points and indicators in technical requirements. The plan designed by Zhao Yuntao's team was finally recognized by the other party, and a cooperation agreement worth 1.2 million yuan was successfully signed. "After applying this technology, alloy wire packaging production can save at least 15 labors, which can save 700,000 yuan a year." Guan Dehua said.
Alloy companies have needs and are looking for technology, while Huang Guangyan is faced with having technology and looking for investment.
“In 2017, the school transformation center organized a project roadshow in Changsha. At that time, flexible explosion-proof technology only had product concepts and principle prototypes. In order to promote the implementation of more scientific and technological achievements, the center invited many investment institutions to participate, and there were some enterprises and investments on the spot. The organization expressed its intention to cooperate. In the subsequent transformation of results, the center also arranged dedicated personnel to provide full service, design transformation plans, accompany me to negotiate with local governments and cooperative enterprises, and standardize relevant procedures. In the second half of 2018, 'Rouweijia' After the product is certified by the public security department, it is officially launched on the market." Huang Guangyan said.
He introduced that under the guidance of the school's technology transfer center, flexible explosion-proof technology has established a production line with an annual output of tens of thousands of sets in the Changsha High-tech Zone, Hunan, in the form of price-setting shares. Thanks to the support of the enterprise, the technology has been implemented smoothly. More than 20 types of equipment products including flexible explosion-proof tanks have been developed, which have been demonstrated and applied in high-speed railways, airports, museums and other crowded places, and have been rapidly promoted and applied in public security and other fields, greatly increasing the technological influence. .
"In areas such as energy and electric power with large demand, projects with strong technical application and fast update and iteration are particularly popular." A staff member of the General Office of the Technology Transfer Center of North China Electric Power University said: "In terms of 'face', we have adopted We held results matchmaking meetings and widely sent results brochures to power grid companies, etc., which fully demonstrated the scientific research results. At the 'point', we received corporate needs from different channels, and more than a dozen technical brokers will accurately respond according to the type of company and technical direction. Match the appropriate teacher.”
Can institutionalized innovation bridge the “last mile” of transformation?
More often than not, the “hand in hand” between results and needs may not be smooth sailing. For new manufacturing industries, why do universities, scientific research institutes and enterprises often face "last mile" obstacles in industry-university-research cooperation and achievement transformation?
Guan Dehua said that most small and medium-sized enterprises have insufficient funds and R&D personnel, weak technical foundations, limited ability to verify the results of universities and scientific research institutes, and are usually unwilling to bear the risk of continuing development based on laboratory results, resulting in the vast majority of Scientific research results that are still in the pilot stage cannot leave the laboratory.
"No matter how good the technology is, it will be difficult to put into application if it does not meet the actual situation of the enterprise. Therefore, the most important thing for universities, scientific research institutions and enterprises to cooperate is to find suitable cooperation partners and establish long-term exchanges and cooperation involving all parties from industry, academia and research. mechanism to ultimately achieve win-win results and mutual success." Guan Dehua analyzed.
"The Science and Technology Town Council of Jiangsu Province is a local organization that promotes the shift of the focus of government science and technology management work, bridges the gap between the science and education resources of universities and scientific research institutes and county economic development, and comprehensively enhances the independent innovation capabilities and industrial competitiveness of enterprises. An innovative measure." Guan Dehua said that each member of the league combines their own and the school's advantages to effectively connect with local enterprises, which can more accurately connect technology and needs. "After arriving at the grassroots level, through full investigation and visits, we can understand what is available and what is lacking in the local area, and find the integration point between our own professional expertise and rear resources and local development, so that we can promote the transfer of scientific and technological achievements." Guan Dehua said.
Huang Guangyan said that the transformation of scientific and technological achievements is a systematic project that involves policies and regulations, state-owned assets management, market analysis, business planning, investment and financing, etc. Most of them are areas that scientific researchers are unfamiliar with. "Many scientific researchers are afraid of dealing with the market. They don't know how to price results, how to design equity, how to protect intellectual property rights, etc. For this, the transfer center has been a big help. Moreover, it is handled by specialized institutions instead of teachers. It will also be taken more seriously.”
The reporter learned that in early 2016, Beijing Institute of Technology innovatively established a new professional technology transfer institution with "business management + market-oriented operation" - Technology Transfer Center, and at the same time registered Beijing Institute of Technology Technology Transfer Co., Ltd. as its market-oriented operation platform. The center mainly performs functions such as transfer of scientific and technological achievements, licensing, and review and approval of valuation and shareholding, while the company mainly promotes the transfer and transformation of scientific and technological achievements through market-oriented means.
"This idea of transforming scientific and technological achievements can not only achieve deep integration of industry and education, support talent training, but also feed back scientific and technological innovation." The relevant person in charge of the school said, facing the world's technological frontiers, the main economic battlefield, major national needs and people's lives and health , the institution has established a number of disciplinary companies that implement the transformation of major scientific and technological achievements, with significant economic and social benefits.
From the laboratory to the production line, can industry, academia and research parties pass the "baton" well?
At the Nanjing Special Event Conference of the Jiangsu Province Patent (Achievements) Auction Season held in early November last year, participants successfully signed and converted 21 patents (achievement), with the contract amount reaching 14.4 million yuan. “The province has issued a total of 1,440 open license patents, involving 59 units, mainly in the fields of high-end equipment, biomedicine, software and information services, new materials, new generation information and communications, etc., which will further promote scientific research and innovation results to benefit more people Enterprise." The relevant person in charge said that in recent years, through holding auctions of scientific research results and expanding the service scope of "technical managers", more and more scientific and technological achievements of universities have "settled" in the Yangtze River Delta.
In the future, how should efforts be made to allow more “black technologies” from universities to smoothly move from laboratories to production lines?
"From energy storage, charging stations, to smart power plant monitoring, there are actually quite a lot of achievements in various colleges in the achievement brochure. However, through research and discussions, we found that the teachers who are really willing to invest in transformation are always the 'old faces'. Why? Because they The researched technology is aimed at market demand and is more accurate. It has maintained close contact with the enterprise during the research and development process and has a practical basis for successful transformation." Relevant staff at North China Electric Power University told reporters, asking why some teachers were unwilling to submit their results. "Launching the laboratory", most of the answers I received were "the results are basic and no one buys them" and "I would rather devote my energy to teaching and educating people than do these 'mind-consuming' things."
"Technology promotion, from the perspective of the school, is actually a large project that is 'continuous'." Wang Xin, deputy director of the Intellectual Property and Technology Transfer Center of Beijing Jiaotong University, said, "Not all university scientific research teams are suitable for going from original innovation to results. The last link in the transformation chain requires different people to take over at different stages. For example, after the results of a basic research or applied basic research team are produced, the team or other teams in related fields need to "take another step forward" to improve Its maturity and process, optimize technical indicators; in the actual implementation stage, engineers may be needed to solve problems such as actual production."
"Profit margins are often relatively low when manufacturing-related achievements are transformed. Enterprises have technical needs but are concerned about the application effects." Li Bin, chairman of Wuhan Intelligent Equipment Industrial Technology Research Institute and professor at the School of Mechanical Engineering at Huazhong University of Science and Technology, analyzed that social transfer enterprises must Give greater play to the role of platform building to help transforming enterprises overcome initial difficulties. “The first is to hire a professional industrialization team to conduct a comprehensive assessment of the project and clarify the advantages and disadvantages; the second is to recruit social personnel and a technical team that can provide mature support to provide technical empowerment for the enterprise; the third is to explore and mobilize its own resources to find suitable Investment Opportunities."
"To form a virtuous cycle, we must give full play to the feedback effect of achievement transformation on teaching and scientific research." Huang Guangyan said that the team uses corporate R&D, design, testing and production conditions to provide students with services including robot design, intelligent equipment design, product industrial design, Engineering practice opportunities such as bulletproof material design and industrial numerical simulation have strongly supported students to participate in innovation and entrepreneurship competitions; the industrialization base of disciplinary enterprises has provided strong support for the school to establish the "Explosion Protection and Emergency Disposal Technology Engineering Center of the Ministry of Education". We have formed multiple "academic + technology + engineering" joint scientific and technological research teams with school professors to regularly carry out technical discussions and cooperation and exchanges, and actively promote the application of scientific research tasks such as unmanned IoT cloud explosive disposal, comprehensive protective clothing, explosion-proof fuel tanks, and ultra-high pressure protection. and planning projects, etc.
"In the future, first, we should further 'break the five only' tendencies, especially the 'hat only' tendency, actively create a strong innovation atmosphere, guide college teachers to sink their minds, do research in a down-to-earth manner, and produce a number of high-level, valuable results , this is the source of transformation; second, we should establish and improve the internal policy system of the school, solve problems such as intellectual property rights, state-owned assets management, personnel management, equity management, legal affairs, etc., sort out the process lines, and clear up internal blockages." Wang Xin suggested .
(Guangming Daily reporter Zhou Shixiang)