Innovation is the Lifeblood of Enterprise

By Shi Huashan

What is the spirit of craftsmanship in this new era? I would say from my own experience that innovation is the key to successful business.

Let me tell you the story of how our drainage pump came into being.

This small drainage pump for household appliances, which our factory currently manufactures more than 100,000 per day, costs about twenty to thirty yuan per unit to make. What was the market for drainage pump like when we first started our business? Italy’s Askoll accounted for 38% of the global share; coming next was Emerson of the United States, accounting for 33%; the third was Hanning of Germany, 15%. We were in the lowest echelon and could only take repairing jobs when people’s pumps broke down. To put it in another way, it’s like other people had biscuits, and we had the crumbs that accidentally dropped out of their hands.

Yet, the landscape has changed now. The drainage pump manufactured by Jiangmen Hanyu Group accounts for 30% of the global market. How did we make it? We started with the impeller, which involves a patented technology. We made further improvements on one patent, then went to Samsung Electronics of South Korea for testing, which proved that our product could last 23.7 years, while other peer products then could only last for 4.8 years. Therefore, our product surpassed the industry leader in quality, and the price was lower. Now, after three generations of development, the average service life of our pumps has increased a lot, to such an extent that it won’t break even after being used millions of times.

Another more important innovative technology was to replace the main material from copper to aluminum, which we pulled off against all kinds of odds and difficulties.

In the summer of 2006, the price of copper rose sharply, from about 30,000 yuan per ton to more than 80,000 yuan in the international market. Copper wire is traditionally the main material for drainage pumps, accounting for 30% to 40% of its cost. This once caused more than 3 million yuan loss in one month when we took Samsung’s order. I was on a business trip in Thailand. While staying in a seaside hotel, I sat there cross-legged, and contemplated what to do next. In this distraction-free moment, an idea hit me. Since copper was so expensive, could we replace it with aluminum wire?

Aluminum wire indeed can replace copper wire, for the former is very thin, only a little thicker than hair. Moreover, aluminum is easily oxidized and not electrically conductive. So how do we solve the problem of corrosion resistance? This was a difficult technical problem. Since aluminum wire is susceptible to oxidation, we wrapped it up and completely isolated it from oxygen, after which we did many experiments on it, like soaking it in salt water, exposing it to salt spray, etc. While other people run 24-hour tests, we ran ours for a week. We didn’t just test on one or two products, but several batches. After several improvements, we won the international patent for aluminum wire packaging technology.

How much is the value saved by replacing copper wire with aluminum wire? It reduces the cost of one pump by 1 US dollar. The price of aluminum is only one-third that of copper. Meanwhile the specific density of aluminum is 2.7, while copper is 8.9, which means, with the same amount of money, we can buy much more aluminum than copper. When these factors add up, the cost difference is obvious.

Now everyone wants to have the aluminum-based technology. A competitor at home even threatened to veto our patent with 10 million yuan in legal personnel. We had ten patent lawsuits against him, competing with the 10 million yuan at a very low cost. This was a patent in 2007. During the 9 years from then until now, we have built many safeguards in the form of patents, which protect our technology and products.

As our competitors pressed harder, I began to think whether we could form another innovation mechanism. Later we started the 008 project. The pump originally had a plastic wall that was 1 mm thick, with a clearance of 0.5 mm. I wondered if we could reduce the 1 mm to 0.1 mm and make the whole pump into a completely integrated structure. In this way when the pump gets hotter, the heat can be conducted away through other channels, in which case the pump would never break. Was it possible? I had worked on it before, to no avail. Later on an engineer told me that this should be feasible. I told him that I failed, but he was more than welcome to try.

This engineer worked on it for two months and went nowhere. Later I found out it’s because he was doing his research work under poor conditions—he was afraid of using good expensive materials for his experiments. I told him not to worry about the materials and do whatever needed to be done. In the end he succeeded, reducing the overall material cost of the pump by 15%.

Take the washing pump of dishwasher as an example—the weight of our pump is one third that of a conventional pump. We use a small amount of aluminum wire, while others use a lot of copper wire; we use a small amount of silicon steel sheet while others use a lot of silicon steel sheets. Our product does not leak water easily because it’s a completely isolated design. When our new product came out, we put it to trial with small numbers of customers for a period of time. It ended up winning the approval of Whirlpool Corporation of the United States, who asked to purchase it right away. Our first customer turned out to be our biggest one.

I rewarded the team of the 008 project with one million yuan in cash. I like to reward my employees with money these days. Recently, I allocated another 20 million yuan for a new project. I reckon it’s better to give money to our employees for their research and development work rather than using other people’s patents and pay tens of millions to lawyers for possible lawsuits when disputes arise. The best thing is, this core intellectual property belongs to our own company. With ten million, we can try hundreds of technologies and file hundreds of patents. I also innovate in the ways I reward employees. For example, I’d divide into a few parts the reward, say, one million yuan, for one particular project. Let researchers get the corresponding sum at different stages of the project, and eventually all of it is theirs when the project is done.

(From Business Review, January 2017. Translation: Lu Qiongyao)

創(chuàng)新是企業(yè)護(hù)城河

文/石華山

什么是新時(shí)代的工匠精神？從我自己的經(jīng)歷來說，那就是：不創(chuàng)新，我不敢做企業(yè)。

講一下我做排水泵的故事吧。

家用電器的小排水泵，二三十元人民幣一個(gè)，現(xiàn)在我們的工廠每天要生產(chǎn)十幾萬個(gè)。這個(gè)排水泵，我們剛創(chuàng)業(yè)的時(shí)候是什么狀態(tài)呢？意大利的阿斯科占了全球份額的38%，第二是美國艾默生，占33%，第三是德國漢寧，15%，我們?cè)谧钅┨蓐?duì)，別人的水泵壞了，我們就去做點(diǎn)維修。我常常這么比喻：當(dāng)時(shí)是別人吃餅干不小心掉了一點(diǎn)餅干屑，我們靠舔餅干屑活下來。

現(xiàn)在，格局已經(jīng)逆轉(zhuǎn)，我們地爾漢宇生產(chǎn)的排水泵占據(jù)全球市場(chǎng)30%的份額。我們?cè)趺茨孓D(zhuǎn)的？首先從葉輪開始，它是有專利技術(shù)的。我們就改造了一個(gè)專利。當(dāng)時(shí)我們到韓國三星電子去測(cè)試，我們的產(chǎn)品可以用23.7年，意大利原來的當(dāng)時(shí)國外同行的專利只能用4.8年，我們?cè)谄焚|(zhì)上就超越行業(yè)老大，成本也更低。如今，葉輪又經(jīng)過三次迭代，整體壽命提高很多，使用幾百萬次也壞不了。

比葉輪更重要的以鋁代銅技術(shù)，更是被逼出來的創(chuàng)新。

2006年夏天，國際銅價(jià)大幅上漲，從每噸3萬元左右漲到8萬多元，而銅線是我們生產(chǎn)排水泵的主要材料，占排水泵成本的30%到40%。那時(shí)，地爾漢宇接下三星的訂單，有一個(gè)月就虧損300多萬元人民幣。我在泰國出差，在一個(gè)面朝大海的酒店里，我盤腿靜坐。心無雜念的時(shí)候能想出一些東西：銅這么貴，能不能用鋁線來代替？

鋁線可以替代銅線，但是鋁線非常細(xì)，只比頭發(fā)絲粗一點(diǎn)。而且鋁容易被氧化，氧化鋁是不導(dǎo)電的，怎么解決耐腐蝕的問題？這是很難的技術(shù)問題。既然鋁線怕氧化，我們就把它封裝起來，讓它跟氧氣完全隔離，然后做大量的實(shí)驗(yàn)，在鹽水里面泡，做鹽霧實(shí)驗(yàn)。人家測(cè)試24小時(shí)，我們泡一個(gè)星期。而且不是做一兩個(gè)，是幾批一起來做。經(jīng)過幾次改良，我們拿下鋁線封裝的國際專利技術(shù)。

鋁線代替銅線價(jià)值在哪兒？一個(gè)泵的成本降低1美元。鋁的價(jià)格只是銅價(jià)格的三分之一，關(guān)鍵是鋁的比重是2.7，銅的比重是8.9，就是一樣的錢買回來的銅只有一點(diǎn)點(diǎn)，買回來的鋁卻很多。這兩個(gè)因素加在一起的話，它的成本差別非常大。

以鋁代銅的技術(shù)，大家都想仿。國內(nèi)有一個(gè)競(jìng)爭(zhēng)對(duì)手，揚(yáng)言要花一千萬元把我們的專利否決掉。我們跟他打了十場(chǎng)專利官司，用非常低的成本跟一千萬元較勁。這是2007年的專利，從那時(shí)起到現(xiàn)在9年時(shí)間里，我們通過專利做了很多道圍墻，這是我們的護(hù)城河。

因?yàn)楦?jìng)爭(zhēng)對(duì)手步步緊逼，我開始思考能不能形成一個(gè)創(chuàng)新的機(jī)制。后來我們又啟動(dòng)008項(xiàng)目。水泵原來有一個(gè)塑料壁厚1毫米，間隙0.5毫米，我們想，能不能把1毫米降到0.1毫米，把整個(gè)泵做成完全一體化的結(jié)構(gòu)，這樣水泵發(fā)熱就可以通過其他地方導(dǎo)走，水泵幾乎永遠(yuǎn)不會(huì)壞。這項(xiàng)研發(fā)我以前干過，沒成功。后來一個(gè)工程師跟我說，這應(yīng)該是可行的。我告訴他，我反正沒成功，你愿意做就做。

這個(gè)工程師干了兩個(gè)月也沒成功。后來，我發(fā)現(xiàn)原因是條件太差，舍不得用好材料做實(shí)驗(yàn)。我告訴他，你愛怎么折騰就怎么折騰。最后成功了，這讓水泵整體的材料成本降低了15%。

拿洗碗機(jī)的洗滌泵來說，我們?nèi)齻€(gè)泵的重量跟傳統(tǒng)一個(gè)泵重量差不多，我們用少量鋁線，別人用大量銅線，我們用少量的矽鋼片，別人用大量的矽鋼片。我們不怕漏水，因?yàn)槲覀兪峭耆綦x的一種設(shè)計(jì)。一般新產(chǎn)品出來，我們會(huì)拿到小客戶或者維修市場(chǎng)先歷練一段時(shí)間，結(jié)果很快被美國惠而浦公司看中，馬上就要采購。第一個(gè)買單的就是最大的客戶。

對(duì)這個(gè)008項(xiàng)目小組，我給了現(xiàn)金一百萬元的獎(jiǎng)勵(lì)。我現(xiàn)在比較喜歡用錢來獎(jiǎng)勵(lì)員工。最近我又拿出兩千萬元，要弄一個(gè)新項(xiàng)目出來。與其使用別的專利，發(fā)生糾紛后拿一千萬元交給律師打官司，還不如把這一千萬元拿來獎(jiǎng)勵(lì)公司的員工做研發(fā)，這樣，這個(gè)核心知識(shí)產(chǎn)權(quán)就是公司自己的。一千萬元，可以做好幾百個(gè)專利、好幾百個(gè)技術(shù)。獎(jiǎng)勵(lì)的方式，我也做了革新。比如這個(gè)項(xiàng)目是一百萬元獎(jiǎng)勵(lì)，我會(huì)分幾個(gè)階段，到什么階段就獎(jiǎng)多少，速創(chuàng)速獎(jiǎng)。