Editor's note: At the start of the new year, companies across Weifang are full of confidence and energy as they compete for a strong first quarter, so that a good start drives progress for the whole year. Dazhong.com Weifang presents a special report on the theme of a strong start for companies. From today, Dazhong.com reporters take you inside Weifang companies to see how they are giving their all to the first leg of the year and pushing for a strong first quarter.
Dazhong.com reporters Yao Shuangyu and Dai Chuanren, reporting from Weifang
The whole year's work depends on a good start in spring. At the beginning of the new year, companies in Weifang sounded the call to return to work early, and are working at full capacity to produce, fill orders and open up sales, starting the year at a run.
At Weifang FuYuan Turbocharger Co., Ltd., the CNC machining lines are running at high speed, workers are busy with production and orders are being filled at full pace; the whole plant is alive with activity.
Ready to go: working for a strong start
On entering FuYuan's showroom, the visitor sees a wall full of certificates and trophies awarded between 1993 and 2024, which have encouraged and witnessed more than 60 years of FuYuan's growth and development.
Weifang FuYuan Turbocharger Co., Ltd. was founded in 1958, originally as a township ironwork and woodwork factory. As society developed rapidly, however, its founder saw clearly the enormous business opportunities that the growth of the automotive industry would bring, and resolutely decided to stake the company's future on the turbocharger, a product in which almost no one was then interested. FuYuan began to produce turbochargers, and it is this far-sighted decision that laid the foundation for its present position as an industry leader.
One of the strongest turbocharging technology companies in China, Weifang FuYuan Turbocharger Co., Ltd. is also the only company in the industry to have won a National Science and Technology Progress Award. It has worked in high-speed turbomachinery for more than thirty years and is currently the only supplier in China able to provide a full range of high-speed turbomachinery products for many applications. Its independently developed turbochargers are widely used in passenger cars, commercial vehicles, construction machinery, ships and power generation; its air-bearing centrifugal blowers are widely used in municipal wastewater treatment, cement, paper, textiles, food, pharmaceuticals, chemicals, thermal power and aquaculture.
To open the new year, the Fangzi District Bureau of Industry and Information Technology, acting on the principle that "the start is the decisive battle and the first step is a sprint", sent key staff to FuYuan to study the situation in depth, help resolve difficulties and problems in production and operation, and provide on-site services, acting as the company's home base and supporting its return to full production.
In 2023 FuYuan produced 400,000 turbochargers and 1,000 air-bearing centrifugal blowers. The company currently holds domestic and foreign orders for more than 100,000 units, 20% more than in the same period last year, and its order book extends into May. To deliver on time, FuYuan officially resumed work on the sixth day of the Lunar New Year with 100% of employees at their posts. The plant is busy with production and orders, and the company has stepped up its pace, ready to work for a strong start to the Year of the Dragon.
Innovation by everyone, advancing all the way
Green, low-carbon development is the principle now guiding the economy and society, and raising the energy efficiency of industrial equipment is essential to saving energy and improving efficiency. There is currently enormous room for energy-saving and emission-reducing technology in manufacturing. Only companies that achieve technical breakthroughs in key areas through independent innovation, fill gaps and develop energy-saving equipment can seize the opportunity and join the fast track of green, low-carbon development.
FuYuan is one of them. In 2019, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology published the National Catalog of Industrial Energy-Saving Equipment and "Energy Efficiency Star" Equipment Products (2021); all 12 air-bearing centrifugal blower models submitted by FuYuan, each covered by its own intellectual property, were shortlisted, the largest number in the industry.
The air-bearing centrifugal blower is FuYuan's star product and was developed in-house. It offers low energy consumption, low noise, maintenance-free operation and intelligent control, uses more than 35% less electricity than a conventional Roots blower and is a benchmark product for energy saving. FuYuan's air-bearing centrifugal blowers are benchmarked against the products of the international leaders, yet their development cycle was only one tenth as long, and their technical indicators and stability are better than those of comparable products from China and abroad.
Innovation has always been the soul of FuYuan's growth and a key to maintaining its leading position in the industry. FuYuan spends about 8% of its sales revenue on technological innovation every year, and more than 60% of each year's profit goes into upgrading and renewing equipment.
FuYuan also encourages its front-line employees to innovate, to put forward ideas and to try new things. At FuYuan, employees can propose innovations in any area they are involved in, from the working environment to manufacturing processes, and are rewarded according to their ideas. In 2023 FuYuan collected more than two hundred ideas from front-line employees. A climate of innovation by everyone has been created throughout the company, which has further stimulated its capacity to innovate and played a very important part in driving innovative development.
Building strength from within, building the brand step by step
In FuYuan's precision machining workshop, blanks of aerospace-grade aluminum are precisely machined one by one into compressor wheels, the core component of the marine turbocharger.
In the past, the turbochargers FuYuan produced were used mainly on coastal vessels, and the market for turbochargers for ocean-going ships was controlled by foreign companies. In recent years FuYuan has set its sights on turbochargers for large ocean-going ships. Through a series of technical breakthroughs it has produced units whose core indicators, pressure ratio and efficiency, are both better than those of comparable foreign products. This broke the foreign technological monopoly at a stroke and replaced high-end branded products from Germany, Switzerland and other countries. FuYuan has become the leading Chinese brand of turbochargers for seagoing ships, with the largest share of the domestic market, and its products are sold to many countries and regions.
Focus, professionalism and steady progress are the secret of FuYuan's success. Over the years FuYuan has kept its course, concentrated for the long term on its main products, attached importance to building its brand and followed a path of specialization in high-speed turbomachinery, anchored in turbocharging technology. The more than 1,000 turbocharger variants that FuYuan has developed and manufactured fully cover all current engine models. It is worth noting that, apart from standard parts, all the core components of FuYuan turbochargers are made in-house, which ensures product quality and also keeps what is critical firmly in the company's own hands.
One step at a time, FuYuan has worked its niche for the long term and has ultimately gained a say in the industry. FuYuan will continue to seize opportunities, build on its own strengths and characteristics, concentrate on turbocharging technology and achieve breakthroughs in key technologies and core components. It will work to become the largest developer and manufacturer of high-speed turbomachinery in China while stimulating the development of the industrial cluster and further raising the profile and influence of this Chinese brand.
As the verse says, the landscape so adorned looks better still today. In the new year FuYuan will keep seizing every moment and pressing forward, forging real skill into real strength and writing a new chapter.
Editor: Wang Feifei. Approved by: Zhang Kun
