The Growth of Researchers and the Route of Technological Innovation
In August 1989, I came to Sanhua, attracted by the lofty vision and generous treatment offered by Mr. Zhang Daocai, then factory director of Sanhua. After 33 years later, I have become the CTO of Sanhua Holding Group and the Dean of Sanhua R&D Institute. Next, based on my personal experience, I will give a lecture on the theme of Researchers\' Growth and the route of technological innovation.
1. Researcher talents training should be considered in the long-term.
When I joined Sanhua in 1989, the company did not ask me to do technical work immediately, but first arranged a 6-month workshop internship for me. In the following 6 months, I personally operated all types of equipment from turning, milling, planning, and grinding to the assembly, which has laid a good foundation for my later rapid growth in Sanhua. At that time, the company technical strength lagged greatly behind, and being able to make such a decision fully reflected the company\'s responsibility for technical personnel and a long-term talent strategy.
2. Value talents and appoint them regardless of seniority
In 1991, after I joined in the company only two years, I was appointed as the Technical Deputy Director of the company\'s newly established liquid reservoir branch, with a three-level salary promotion. At that time, there were many people who opposed this decision, but Mr. Zhang Daocai, the then factory director, withstood the pressure and resolutely pushed me to the forefront. It turns out that I did not fail to meet the company\'s expectations, and finally turn the liquid reservoir product to be a domestic leader, and at the same year, Sanhua also really entered the auto parts industry. In October 1998, in view of my outstanding performance in auto parts and Panasonic Wanbao compressor accumulators, although I had just joined in the company less than ten years, the company assigned me to take over one of Sanhua\'s most important products development: four-way reversing valve. Facts have also proved that the decision was correct. In 2004, through the hard work of the whole company, Sanhua made the four-way reversing valve a global leader, and in 2007 acquired the global similar business of the American Ranco Company, the inventor of the four-way valve. When our first four-way valve production line was put into production in 1996, American Ranco Company once wanted to buy us at 10 times premium, but we refused. After 10 years of dedicated efforts, we have achieved reverse merger.
3. Sanhua turned to technology-based competitive strategy since the establishment of Sanhua R&D Institute
After the acquisition of Ranco\'s four-way reversing valve business, everyone was very excited, but Chairman Zhang Daocai became calmer than ever. He has been asking himself the question: what is the core competitiveness of Sanhua? In 2007, soon after acquisition, Chairman Zhang Daocai proposed a new development strategy for Sanhua: Upgrading from \"cost leadership\" to \"technology leadership\". After three years of exploration, on January 1, 2010, Sanhua R&D Institute was officially established, focusing on industry strategic and cutting-edge technology and product development.
It turns out that this decision has made Sanhua\'s success in the thermal management industry of new energy vehicles, and has effectively promoted Sanhua\'s overall technological progress and upgrade.
4. Encourage innovation and tolerate failure
After the establishment of Sanhua R&D Institute, the first major project was the solar thermal project. The company invested nearly 300 million yuan ($44 million), but this project ended in failure. In the face of so much investment, I feel very guilty as the person in ge of this project. However, the company did not complain or put too much pressure on me, continue to let me concentrate on developing the thermal management industry of new energy vehicles. Moreover, through the solar energy project, a large number of young and loyal researchers such as Dr. Zou Jiang and Dr. Bao Junfeng have been trained, and now they have become the backbone of technological innovation of Sanhua\'s automotive thermal management industry.
5. Direction of effort is more important than effort.
More than 10 years ago, the technical route of new energy vehicles has not been accepted by the industry. When most car manufacturers were skeptical about the technical route of automotive heat pumps, Sanhua firmly chose to use heat pumps to solve the thermal management of pure electric vehicles, and firmly succeeded in cooperating with an American electric car company that was even on the verge of bankruptcy several times, but today has become one of the world leaders in new energy vehicles. In 2013, Sanhua launched the first electronic expansion valve for vehicles in the world. Because of this product, in 2017 Sanhua won the PACE Award, which is the innovation award to the most innovative auto parts companies in the world. This is the first time this award was awarded to a Chinese company in the 23 years since its establishment. Winning this award also opens a new door for Sanhua to develop in the global automotive thermal management industry. Thanks to Sanhua\'s correct decision more than 10 years ago, Sanhua has now become one of the leaders in the global new energy vehicle thermal management parts and components industry, and has become Tier 1 supplier to the world\'s top 10 most famous automakers.
Today Sanhua is on the road to keep simultaneous development with customers.
6. Don\'t set limits on your unlimited potential, always challenge the impossible
Since the second half of 2015, I began to serve as GM of Sanhua Automotive. By integrating the researchers from Sanhua R&D institute and Sanhua Automotive, we began to concentrate on the development of thermal management parts of new energy vehicles. Facing competitors who are dozens of times stronger than us, we put forward the slogan of \"challenge the impossible and turn it to possible to encourage the team morale. By concerted efforts from top managers to bottom employees, which can be seen as a frantic struggle, the company has rapidly developed one new energy vehicle thermal management product after another. With this belief and working rhythm, step by step, Sanhua has caught up and surpassed its competitors as international industry giants. The sales of Sanhua Automotive also increased from less than 700 million yuan ($102 million) in 2016 to 7 billion yuan ($1.02 billion) this year, achieving the goal of \"tenfold in ten years\" proposed by Chairman Zhang three years earlier. The value provided to one single new energy vehicle has increased from the original 100 yuan ($14.7) to an average of more than 2,000 yuan ($29.4), and the highest has reached 5,500 yuan ($808.8), truly turning \"impossible\" \"possible\".
7. The key to enterprise innovation lies in talents, and it is necessary to provide tangible rewards to outstanding researchers.
Sanhua held Science and Technology Achievement Award Ceremony every four years, and has already held this ceremony in 2011, 2016 and 2021. With the increasing number of award-winning researchers and reward amounts, Sanhua have formed the culture that respects technological innovation, and has formed evaluation criteria of \"result-oriented & focusing on innovation influence\" for scientific research achievements. In the same year, equity incentives were implemented to those researchers who has made important contributions to the company. Those rewards make the researchers truly feel valued. The popular saying among Sanhua’s researchers \"It is promising to engage in technology development in Sanhua\" greatly encourages the researchers to consistently stick to developing innovative products for now and for the future.
