[Leading Companies in Fangzi] Impressive: This Fangzi Company Is Now a Shandong Province Single-Champion Enterprise

Weifang FuYuan Turbocharger Co., Ltd. is a company dedicated to the development of and innovation in turbocharging technology and a leading turbocharger manufacturer in China. It has concentrated on turbocharger technology since 1989. Its core products today are turbochargers, air-bearing centrifugal blowers and air-bearing centrifugal compressors for hydrogen fuel cells. The company's marine turbochargers in particular hold a leading position in the Chinese market.The company's research platforms include a provincial technology center, a provincial engineering research center and a provincial "One Enterprise, One Technology" center.The company is a high-tech enterprise, a leading enterprise of the China Internal Combustion Engine Industry Association, a national contract-abiding and creditworthy organization, a Shandong Province single-champion enterprise, a Shandong Province outstanding small and medium-sized enterprise, a Shandong Province specialized-and-innovative enterprise and a Weifang hidden-champion enterprise.

Standing at the forefront and daring to be first

— How Weifang FuYuan Turbocharger Co., Ltd. became a Shandong Province single-champion enterprise

The air-bearing centrifugal vacuum blower leads a generational upgrade in energy saving and noise reduction for the blower industry

A single technological innovation can transform an entire industry. In the paper machine hall of a large paper group, four series of air-bearing centrifugal vacuum blowers newly developed by Weifang FuYuan Turbocharger Co., Ltd., rated 50 HP, 75 HP, 100 HP and 150 HP, have been started up and are running successfully.This blower is a customized product that Weifang FuYuan Turbocharger Co., Ltd. developed, after intensive technical work, to the customer's operating requirements, and it is the first of its kind in the world.Its successful operation has solved the problems of high energy consumption, high noise and difficult maintenance that have troubled tissue paper producers. The paper company's equipment operators carried out an on-site comparison of a 75 HP FuYuan air-bearing centrifugal vacuum blower and a 75 HP multistage centrifugal blower. With the FuYuan blower, 1820 sheets were folded per kWh, against 1200 sheets per kWh with the multistage centrifugal blower. The folding quality of the paper machine was also clearly better with the FuYuan blower. The energy saving is about 50%, and equipment noise is kept below 75 dB. With 10% less electricity consumed, the productivity of the paper machine rose by 40%.

The air-bearing centrifugal blower developed by the company was launched successfully in 2017, breaking the foreign monopoly on the technology and the market. The blower is quiet, maintenance-free and well suited to round-the-clock operation, and it uses more than 35% less electricity than a conventional Roots blower.Besides the air-bearing high-speed centrifugal blower, its air bearing technology can also be used in high-end products such as air compressors for hydrogen fuel cells, industrial air compressors and gas turbines.The air-bearing centrifugal blower is now in volume production. It can be used widely in municipal wastewater treatment, all kinds of industrial compressed-air applications, the conveying of powders, and in food, pharmaceuticals, textiles and other duties that need clean, oil-free air.

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Building China's leading brand of air-bearing centrifugal compressors for hydrogen fuel cells

Clean energy is developing rapidly, and hydrogen fuel cells have become a focus for many companies looking to the future. FuYuan Turbocharger, which develops and produces air compressors for hydrogen fuel cells, is already among the leaders in this field. The company's air-bearing centrifugal compressor technology is covered entirely by its own intellectual property; the product was the first of its kind in China and has now been launched successfully on the market.

According to the company's management, this air-bearing centrifugal compressor for hydrogen fuel cells saves electricity, delivers oil-free air, and is compact, quiet and long-lived, which makes it very well suited to hydrogen fuel cells. It is already supplied to several major Chinese new-energy vehicle manufacturers and has become the leading Chinese brand of air-bearing centrifugal compressor for hydrogen fuel cells. The next step is to plan and set up volume production.To make sure the project proceeds smoothly, the company plans to invest RMB 150 million in it over three years, and to become a Shandong Province demonstration enterprise for the shift from old to new growth drivers by 2022. The project will break the foreign monopoly on this technology and product in China, break foreign companies' control of prices in the Chinese market, and promote the rapid and healthy development of the hydrogen fuel cell industry in China.

The company's products are now widely used by China's main engine manufacturers, including Weichai, Yuchai, Jichai, Dongfeng, Yunnei, Sida, Chaochai, Lovol and Shangchai (SDEC), and within the China Aerospace Science and Industry Corporation (CASIC) system. They are exported to Ukraine, the United Kingdom, India, Greece, Austria, Lithuania and other countries.

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Innovation is the inexhaustible driving force of a company's development

Walk into FuYuan Turbocharger and, from management to technical staff to shop-floor workers, you sense in everyone a tenacious pursuit of excellence and a refusal to accept defeat. Innovation-driven development, the R&D principle of "guided by demand, combining internal and external resources", and a path that combines independent innovation with industry–university–research cooperation are the key to the company's lasting capacity for innovation. FuYuan has a group of self-described "shop-floor engineers", technical staff who have grown up with the company. Decades of experience have given them a familiarity with the products that few can match. With a keen sense for the industry and its products and no fear of failure, they have time and again produced remarkable innovations.

To stand at the forefront of technology and at the top of the industry, a company needs the help of top talent and research institutions, and here too FuYuan has spared no effort. It has established long-term technical cooperation with a number of research institutes and universities in China and abroad. It has set up research platforms including a provincial technology center, a provincial engineering research center and a provincial "One Enterprise, One Technology" center, and has established cooperation with R&D specialists including one senior foreign expert and two Changjiang Scholars in China.The company now has more than 500 employees, of whom 86 are research staff, 18% of the total. It has built a high-caliber research team that gives strong support to the company's high-quality development.

At present, the company holds more than 40 technical patents. Its project "Key Technologies and Engineering Application of High-Pressure Turbocharging over the Full Operating Range of Internal Combustion Engines", developed in 2013, won the Second Prize of the National Science and Technology Progress Award; in 2015, "Development of a Single-Stage High-Pressure Turbocharged Power System for High-Altitude Long-Endurance Unmanned Aerial Vehicles" won a National Defense Science and Technology Progress Award. Other research projects have won the Shandong Province Science and Technology Progress Award, the Shandong Province Technological Invention Award and the Weifang Science and Technology Progress Award. Among the company's products, the air-bearing centrifugal blower, developed over three years, was launched successfully on the market in 2017 and was well received by customers; in March 2018 it was included in the Scientific and Technological Achievements Database of the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT), and the newly developed air-bearing centrifugal compressor for fuel cells was included in the same MIIT database in January 2019.

As the old verse has it, a time will come to ride the wind and cleave the waves, to set the cloud-white sail and cross the sea. Weifang FuYuan Turbocharger Co., Ltd. is actively advancing the shift from old to new growth drivers, pressing ahead with technological innovation and speeding up the development and launch of high-end products, writing a new chapter of high-quality development.