Xinchang Copper: Cai Yunlei, the "Invisible Champion" of Guangming

In fact, November 27, 2021 is not the "birthday" of the 20th anniversary of Henan Xinchang Copper Group Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as "Xinchang Group"). Affected by the epidemic, putting into production and other factors, Xinchang Copper's 20-year-old weak crown ceremony had to be pushed again and again from March 8 until November 27th. It can be called a "belated birthday"!

In his speech at the celebration, Chai Xingchen, chairman and general manager of Xinchang Group, said that through "face-to-face" communication, "heart-to-heart" communication, and "down-to-earth" service, Xinchang Copper Group should be built into a social public enterprise platform of "innovation, green, coordination, openness and sharing". In the Chinese context, "social public enterprise platform" is synonymous with capital listing, so how to understand "innovation and green"? With such doubts, the author went into Xinchang Group and interviewed a series of core figures in Xinchang, including Chai Xingchen.

Turn scrap copper into light

Like most Chinese private enterprises, Xinchang did not start with copper at first, but a sponge equipment factory was launched by the first generation of entrepreneurs in 1984, which is the predecessor of Xinchang. Although they are nobody, everyone has lofty ambitions and insists on setting up enterprises on the basis of quality from the very beginning, and their products are even exported to the former Soviet Union. By chance, the head of the company saw the backward predicament of China's copper processing industry and realized that if the track was changed, it would not only fill the gap of middle and high-end products for the industry, but also get an opportunity for rapid development. On March 8, 2001, Gongyi Xinchang Copper Industry Co., Ltd. was officially registered and founded, mainly engaged in the processing and manufacture of renewable copper.

Recycled copper is mainly transformed from copper-containing scrap recovered by society and scraps in the processing of copper-containing products. The reason why recycled copper products are used in industrial production is that China has already become a big consumer of copper metal, and the degree of external dependence is increasing year by year. According to relevant data, as early as 2007, China's external dependence on copper has reached 61%. Thus it can be seen that Xinchang Copper, which was founded in 2001, aimed at the secondary utilization market of recycled copper from the very beginning, which is indeed prescient.

For 15 years from 2001 to 2015, Xinchang Copper has been focusing on the resource utilization of recycled copper, converting recycled copper into low-oxygen copper through degassing, slag removal and other technologies, and then further preparing copper cables of different specifications for electric power, which not only brings light and warmth to thousands of households, but also alleviates the tight domestic copper market demand to a certain extent. "China will gradually enter the peak period of scrap copper recovery around 2030, so improving the utilization level of recycled copper can not only reduce the external dependence of China's copper concentrate, but also be conducive to the healthy development of China's copper industry. moreover, the utilization of scrap copper has the advantages of relatively simple process and equipment, high recovery, low energy consumption, low cost, low pollution and so on. In the future, Xinchang will continue to take the (national) standards as the guide, continue to improve the technical level of recycling, speed up the green transformation, and promote high-quality development. This is not only the need for enterprises to develop circular economy, but also the need to improve environmental quality and maintain the security of the national ecological environment. " Chai Xingchen said so.

据了解，新昌通过除气除渣制备的低氧铜，利用率可达95%以上；在节能环保方面，新昌的表现依然可圈可点，如新型连铸连轧生产线每产一吨铜，耗电平均仅为65~70度；通过改进创新，其用气量已由原来的44立方米/吨降至40立方米/吨。按照1立方天然气等于0.714千克标煤标准计算，该项目年可节约标煤约628.32吨，约可减碳1709吨……铸造加工设备离不开冷却系统，新昌连铸连轧生产线结晶轮的冷却水，也是循环利用。精品铜线材项目负责人张弘介绍，他们还准备加装热量回收装置，利用竖炉、除尘除硫等散热装置的余热，加热自来水，并入公司的锅炉供热网络，不仅可供大家取暖、淋浴用，而且会进一步降低公司的用气成本。

Tsiolkovsky, the father of the world's spaceflight and a space expert of the former Soviet Union, said, "the earth is the cradle of mankind, but human beings will never lie in the cradle forever. First, they will carefully penetrate the atmosphere, and then they will conquer the entire solar system." Although the market for recycled copper is good, Xinchang people have found that some scrap copper with high copper content and less sundries can be directly used as a downgrade gradient, while scrap copper with high impurities can be smelted into refined copper. then use refined copper to make high-purity, high-end precision equipment copper wire cable, after a change, its carrying capacity, electrical conductivity, ductility, thermal conductivity and other characteristics are much better than low-oxygen copper. Therefore, in order to promote the transformation of manufacturing enterprises from processing and assembly to "manufacturing + service", from simply selling products to selling "products + services", and improving total factor productivity, product added value and market share, thus seizing the commanding heights of the industrial chain and value chain, Xinchang people began to "carefully break out of the atmosphere", opening the pace of product upgrading and entering the middle and high-end market.

Make manufacturing smarter

On March 15, 2010, the new copper plant in Xinchang was officially put into production, with an annual output of about 80,000 tons. After that, Xinchang Copper grew at a rate of 10% to 20% a year. In 2015, Chai Xingchen began to take the helm of Xinchang Copper; in 2017, the first phase of the Jiangxi Branch of Xinchang Copper achieved continuous production, with an annual design capacity of 50,000 tons; and Xinchang Copper Group was established in 2019. In 2020, Xinchang's first high-tech project, a boutique copper wire production base with an investment of 350 million yuan, an annual design capacity of 220000 tons, an area of more than 10,000 square meters and economic benefits of 15 billion yuan, was officially completed; in September 2021, a high-end copper conductor project with an investment of 186 million yuan, an annual design capacity of 50, 000 tons and an economic benefit of 3.5 billion yuan was officially completed. From the establishment of the project to the full completion and commissioning of the project, the project took only eight months, which is second to none not only in Henan, but also in the entire central and western regions.

It is no exaggeration to say that the birth of "Xinchang Speed" is closely related to the strong demand of the times and industry. Data show that in a short period of 12 years from 2007 to 2019, China's external dependence on copper has increased from 61% to more than 76%. In 2019, China's demand for copper is about 12.3 million tons (metal), of which the self-produced copper ore contains 1.62 million tons of copper, the domestic recovery of scrap copper is about 2.2 million tons, and the rest are imported to supply the market in various forms.

"the urgency of the industry is what the market thinks." Through the on-the-spot visit, what the author understands most is this sentence. But what is especially worth praising is that Xinchang Group has not "finished radish quickly without washing mud". On the contrary, they not only actively introduced advanced production equipment and quality inspection instruments in the industry, such as Nihovras annealing machines and metallographic analyzers in Germany, but also gave full play to the spirit of "craftsmen in big countries" and took the initiative to attack. With the "1-1 > 2" effect, they boldly improved the equipment of foreigners, so that there has been a substantial increase in output, quality, efficiency and efficiency. Today, Xinchang products have fully covered the ten major areas of "made in China 2025", such as aerospace, marine engineering, high-speed railway, new energy, biomedicine, etc.; the products are sold in more than 100 prefectures and cities in 22 provinces across the country. With the national Electroweb, aerospace electrician, Zhongtian science and technology, China CRRC, special electrician, Yuguang gold and lead and many other well-known enterprises in the industry to maintain long-term and stable cooperative relations. At the opening ceremony of the 20th anniversary celebration of Xinchang Copper, Ren Wenyi, general manager of Henan Yuguang Gold and lead Group Co., Ltd., revealed that Yuguang Gold and lead has an annual output of more than 100,000 tons of high purity copper, about 1 million of which has been digested by Xinchang Copper.

On November 27, 2021, Ren Wenyi, general manager of Henan Yuguang Gold and lead Group Co., Ltd., and his party inspected Xinchang Copper Industry.

At the site of the boutique copper wire project, the author saw a "giant" equipment with a height of three stories and shaped like an aircraft carrier. Zhang Hong, head of the project, said that this set of equipment is the heart of the whole project-the (shaft furnace) continuous casting and rolling production line with an annual output of 220000 tons. "this set of equipment combines the advanced manufacturing industry with the modern service industry almost perfectly, which is embodied in the 'new four modernizations'-- high-end, intelligent, green, and service-oriented. The quality of the product is not tested, it is designed. In the top-level design of this project, the company decided to hold it high and customize the configuration to the highest standards of the domestic industry, all electrical control systems adopted Siemens automatic control system; the main configuration of the mill adopted the American Morgan mill, and the accuracy of its roll gear equipment reached the international standard level 6, and all seals and bearings used imported James Walker and SKF brands respectively. In terms of configuration, it is better than the continuous casting and rolling production line of the Southern Line of the United States. The benefit of one (shaft furnace) smelting alone is five times that of a traditional furnace! " Pride is brimming with pride on the face of Zhang Hong, a Shaanxi man.

In addition, at the site where the fine copper wire and high-end copper conductor project is located, the author sees that the overall framework design is designed in accordance with the standards of intelligent demonstration workshop (equipment automation, logistics automation, production informatization, on-line monitoring, system integration, centralized control, etc.), such as the on-line monitoring system of continuous casting and rolling production line, as long as there is a fault in any place, the monitoring system will be based on the size of the fault. Through the alarm lights and buzzer for different levels of warning, "if it is a small problem, it will hum, or report again at intervals;" If it's a big problem, it roars loudly and sends alarms frequently. " Zhang Hong said with a smile that because everyone has a strong sense of safety and standardization, most of the time, you only need to pay attention manually when you turn on the machine, and after the entire production line enters the "automatic cruise" mode, operators can free up their hands to do other more important things.

Why can "Xinchang Smart Building"?

As the saying goes, "there is no square without rules." The high quality of Xinchang products benefits not so much from the advanced production equipment of Xinchang, but from the strict professional training and extensive industry exchanges of Xinchang people. According to Yue Guang, head of the high-end copper conductor project of Xinchang Group, with the insistence of the quality Management Committee with Chairman Chai as the core, the Group has promoted informatization (six major systems) from top to bottom: ERP/MES system (manufacturing), CRM (sales management system), SRM (supplier management system), TMS (transportation management system), WMS (warehouse management system), OA (office automation system). In terms of intelligent equipment, the group has successively launched robotic arm handling, AGV automatic transport, three-dimensional warehouse and so on. In addition, the Group strictly implements IEC, UL, WDE, GB and other international and domestic standards, continuously optimizes ISO9001, ISO14001, ISO45001, ISO/TS16949 and other management systems, and introduces advanced management systems such as "Excellence performance Evaluation Criterion" and six Sigma. Product research and development, according to IPD life cycle management, production is the implementation of PMC production, supply and marketing integrated management and control mode, all-round implementation of pull, flexible, just-in-time (JIT) production, "in addition, the company also introduced the concept of amoeba management, and further improved the enterprise's scientific and professional management level."

新昌铜业先后与中国电力科学研究院、上海电缆研究所、华北电力大学等多家研究机构进行广泛的交流和合作。2012年，新昌公司参与制定了中华人民共和国有色金属《导电用再生铜条》的行业执行标准，并由国家工业和信息化部颁发行业标准文案证书。2015年，新昌铜业的高强度高导电率铝合金导线通过北京电科院的权威检验，达到国际先进水平……当谈及多元化发展时，柴兴臣表示，铜加工主营业务不会丢，上述与科研部门的合作就是明证，“新昌铜业正在尝试新的材料和新的技术，后期将陆续推出高科技含量的产品，像镀锡镀银导体、音频线等。”此言不谬。早在2016年，新昌集团的子公司河南新昌电工科技有限公司成立，就定位于高精尖领域产品的研发和生产。“打造高新技术企业，并以此为抓手推动新昌从传统的铜加工企业向科技型企业转换。我们一直在做这方面的积累，包括人才、技术等。”

"if you want to do good work, you must first sharpen its tools." From this point of view, the reason why "Xinchang quality" can be transformed into "Xinchang brand", "Xinchang price" (Xinchang price has become the guiding price of low-oxygen copper wire rod in the north of the Yangtze River), "Xinchang height" and "Xinchang culture" can be said to be a sharp weapon. The rule is perhaps Genghis Khan's iron horse, which stands proudly in the forest of industry brands and competes in the global market.

Interview notes:

In the context of "double carbon", the development of electric energy and the safe and stable operation of Electroweb are inseparable from the product and technical support of the power equipment manufacturing industry. In order to continuously promote the development of industrial intensive agglomeration clusters, the most important thing is to speed up the development of domestic key technologies to replace independent controllability, and make every effort to promote scientific and technological self-reliance and self-reliance. Xinchang Copper, as the "chain owner", has, to some extent, promoted the upstream and downstream enterprises to strengthen collaborative research and development, reinvent the core advantages from technology, aim at the development direction of the new power system under the goal of "double carbon", and strive to fill the domestic and international gaps. Improve the stability and security of the industrial chain and supply chain.

"We are speeding up the cultivation of a number of strategic emerging industrial cable markets, such as comprehensive energy, energy storage, new energy vehicles, and so on. For example, the second phase has planned the continued extension of the industrial chain, mainly to produce 'double zero lines' (0.005mm\ 0.008mm) or even thinner cables; the third phase has planned the copper foil industry chain (basic investment of more than 1 billion yuan, normal operation of nearly 5 billion yuan). Strive to create a 'new Xinchang' in the near future! In this regard, we are fully confident that we will be able to ensure that enterprises become bigger and stronger and ensure national energy security! " To this end, Chai Xingchen is full of ambition.

In September this year, Xinchang Group achieved its annual target of more than 10 billion yuan in revenue ahead of schedule, and is expected to achieve 12 billion yuan in revenue and nearly 700 billion in profits and taxes by the end of the year. This is also a good birthday gift for this young company, which has just celebrated its 20th birthday.