[Zhu Zhenyou accepts an exclusive interview with People's Network]

On July 17th, the People's Network Jiangsu Channel published an article titled "Zhu Zhenyou, a Northern Man of Jiangsu: Be a Craftsman and Add Brick to China's Intelligent Manufacturing".

Mr. Zhu Zhenyou, Chairman of Jiangsu Beiren, introduced the company's original intention, how to exert its own advantages in fierce competition, the concept of talent reserve, and how to be a craftsman and contribute to China's intelligent manufacturing.

The following is the original text:

 

The picture shows Zhu Zhenyou, chairman and general manager of Jiangsu Beiren Robot System Co., Ltd.

When Jiangsu Beiren Robot System Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as Jiangsu Beiren) successfully landed on the New Third Board in just 7 years and the annual order value increased from 0 to nearly 600 million yuan, the company's chairman and general manager Zhu Zhenyou hoped The development of the enterprise can be slower and more stable.

“The company's management often meets after work, sometimes until early in the morning, to discuss how to complete the order on time, and live up to the trust of customers.”Zhu Zhenyou sat in the office,“Complained”about his“troubles”，“The new plant that the company put into production last year is now a bit nervous; the order delivery time in the industry is getting shorter and shorter, and the customers are demanding more and more; the long-term high-intensity work can not be overwhelmed by engineering and technical personnel……This must be planned early.”

Zhu Zhenyou's “worries”stem from the huge demand made by domestic companies that have turned to smart manufacturing.Nowadays, it has become the consensus of China to use flexible, customized and intelligent production modes to meet the needs of a wider market.

Market Red Sea, Jiangsu Beiren holds“unique cheats”

The production workshop of Beiren in Jiangsu is full of various imported robotic equipment, but the roar of the machine is not visible here, only some engineering and technical personnel are manually installing and debugging equipment. Is this a high-tech enterprise? This is also a question that Zhu Zhenyou often needs to explain,“Beiren does not produce robots, but only does system integration of robots and integration of intelligent and automated welding systems.”

In the field of automation, many entrepreneurial companies choose to do robotic system integration, which makes the industry “a Red Sea”.But the northern people of Jiangsu have their own“unique cheats”，Since its establishment more than 7 years ago, it has been growing rapidly.

“Take the welding of a car's aluminum alloy instrument panel bracket, there are 108 welds on it. After welding, the dimensional error of dozens of measuring points should be±0.25 mm，Exceeding this may affect the entire vehicle assembly. Therefore, the welding process of each weld is particular.”Zhu Zhenyou said，“Our core competitiveness is program design and process analysis capabilities. 100 companies can have 100 design solutions, but only the correct solution, combined with professional process analysis capabilities, can solve customer problems.”

A good design plan is inseparable from a good R & D team. Over the years, Zhu Zhenyou has always attached great importance to the construction of R & D teams, and has built a research and development team of more than 40 people, mainly masters and doctors“This is rare in the industry”.In 2013, in order to improve research and development capabilities, the company took out nearly half of the net profit that year and built a laser welding laboratory. In Zhu Zhenyou ’s eyes,“The R & D department should be the one that spends money, don't always think about making money. Spend the money well, with a good technical reserve, and more orders, the money will naturally be earned.”

Unexpected road show, the company gets a new life

In fact, when Zhu Zhenyou resigned from a foreign company, he did not expect that the robot system integration industry would develop so fast. When starting a business, Zhu Zhenyou was 37 years old. After graduating from Harbin Institute of Technology, he has been dealing with welding.“After a lap, he decided to start his own business.”Zhu Zhenyou hopes that private companies can make a difference in the field of robot system integration.

Relying on an entrepreneurial team of less than 10 people, he rented a 78-square-meter office and borrowed an area of the (Shanghai) Jinshan processing plant. Zhu Zhenyou started his own company.

As a system integrator, Jiangsu Beiren needs to advance funds to purchase standard equipment such as robots, which can only be delivered to customers after processing and debugging, so the company's capital chain is often tight. In the most difficult time, the company's shareholders can only mortgage their real estate and borrow from the bank to the company for working capital.Zhu Zhenyou said，“It was all based on a passion for entrepreneurship, and all the net worth was betrayed.”

In June 2011, Zhu Zhenyou participated in the entrepreneurship forum in Yangpu District, Shanghai, met people in the Suzhou Industrial Park, and successfully obtained an angel investment of 14 million yuan from Zhongxin Venture Capital Co., Ltd. and Shanghai Gold Cube Investment Company. In December 2011, Zhu Zhenyou moved the company from Shanghai to Suzhou and established Beiren Robot System (Suzhou) Co., Ltd. (now Jiangsu Beiren).

“At that time, it was difficult for us to gain attention in Shanghai, and the policies of the Suzhou Industrial Park were very tempting.”Zhu Zhenyou calculated an account and came to Suzhou. The factory was rent-free for the first year and reduced by half in the second year. In terms of taxation, after applying to become a high-tech enterprise, the reduction was 15% to 25%;for financial support, the talent subsidy is 2 million yuan……，There is real support.

This relocation also allowed the company to develop rapidly. With the upgrading of industrial manufacturing to smart manufacturing, since 2012, the company's orders have grown rapidly every year. Today, Jiangsu Beiren's business involves many industries such as automotive, aerospace, and marine engineering; Shanghai GM, Shanghai Space Administration, Zhenhua Port Machinery, etc. all have products from Jiangsu Beiren.

Be a good craftsman and contribute to China's intelligent manufacturing

“Enterprise development cannot always be smooth. In our industry, elimination will always exist.”Zhu Zhenyou said frankly that since starting a business, he has faced challenges every day.

Competition in the robot integration industry is fierce. Many companies have gross margins of less than 20% and net profits of about 5%. Zhu Zhenyou did not want to fight the price war with his opponent, but used technology to seize the market. Zhu Zhenyou said that to give robots a certain amount of intelligent technology, the robot needs to be developed a second time. This requires a lot of processing technology accumulation and the integration of artificial intelligence technologies such as visual recognition and automatic correction to make the robot more valuable.

Using robots to do things that people cannot do, not only improves production efficiency, but also improves the working environment. In the traditional shipbuilding industry, the temperature in the cabin in summer is as high as 50 or 60 degrees, and it is difficult for people to work in it. With intelligent equipment, automatic welding can be achieved.

“With the advancement of intelligent manufacturing, the demand for robots will be greater, and the requirements for intelligence and flexibility will be higher. The whole plant planning will become the mainstream of system integration, which will be the future development direction of Jiangsu Beiren.”Zhu Zhenyou said that the future smart manufacturing market is very large, and Jiangsu Beiren will not expand rapidly on a large scale until it has prepared talent and technical reserves.“I hope to be a good craftsman and provide customers with perfect products and services; I hope that Jiangsu Beiren will become a technology company that does things practically and diligently; power.”（Tan Dachao）

(Editor-in-chief: Tang Lulu, Zhang Xin)