When will I have a long tassel?

"Our consideration is to unite the 20 largest domestic machine tool companies to establish a joint meeting system, called G20 for short. The joint meeting holds a summit meeting every six months, er, it is a factory director meeting, to discuss the most important issues in the industry. Determine the major policies. As for normal times, the office of the joint meeting is responsible for coordinating the actions of various companies to ensure that everyone is in step and advancing and retreating together." Tang Zifeng spoke eloquently.

The name G20 is of course born out of Tang Zifeng’s bad taste. However, the idea of ​​uniting the largest machine tool companies to form a joint meeting made Zhou Heng and Xie Tiancheng feel happy. Nowadays, there is a machine tool industry association in China, which is actually consistent with the concept of joint meetings mentioned by Tang Zifeng. However, the Machine Tool Industry Association faces all machine tool companies across the country, including both large companies and small and medium-sized companies.

When there are more units, the discussion mechanism becomes more complicated. Moreover, large enterprises and small and medium-sized enterprises face different problems and have different interest demands. What the association pursues is to maximize the interests of all members, and the interests of large enterprises will inevitably be harmed. Every time the members of the Machine Tool Association meet together, they can only talk about trivial things and cannot achieve any substantive cooperation. The role of the association is more like a club, just giving everyone an opportunity to chat and meet.

Tang Zifeng's suggestion is to separate the 20 largest companies in the machine tool industry and establish a new association. Since everyone is of similar size, they have more common languages, making it easier to reach consensus and achieve cooperation.

In fact, in large enterprises such as Linyiji and Qingji, there are some daily interactions between leaders. For example, Zhou Heng and Zhao Zhaoxin have a very good relationship. When they are meeting in the capital, they occasionally get together to chat and drink. But this kind of communication is informal after all, and it happens in twos and threes and is not systematic.

To put it in later generations, the factory directors of 20 companies can set up 100 groups, and each group talks about different things. In the end, it is difficult to form a unified opinion.

The function of the joint meeting is to bring 20 companies into the same group to facilitate everyone's discussion. In the past, there was not much need to build such a group, because each enterprise carried out production and operation under the arrangement of the national mandatory plan, and there was more competition between them than cooperation. It was a matter of discussion to get together. Nothing happened.

But now the situation is different. The country is opening step by step. More and more foreign machine tool companies will enter the Chinese market. Each company has turned from a competitor into a friend. This requires everyone to maintain communication at all times.

"The joint meeting is a bit interesting." Zhao Zhaoxin nodded, "You are right, it is time for us companies to sit down together and discuss it. Some time ago, our market was robbed by Koreans, and I was just thinking We need to discuss with everyone to see how other companies are doing and what we should do. It is indeed much more convenient to have such a joint meeting for everyone to discuss things."

Tang Zifeng smiled and said: "Director Zhao, the role of this joint meeting is not only to discuss something, but more importantly, to join forces to do something. For example, didn't we just talk about developing new products? We The idea is that a joint technology research and development center can be established under the mechanism of a joint meeting, with each company providing personnel and money, and the results of research and development can be used by all companies.

"Some technical problems would be very difficult for one company to solve alone. If the technical strength of 20 companies is pooled, these problems can be easily solved. In fact, many of the technical research and development work of our 20 companies are Repeated tasks, if done together, can save a lot of manpower and material resources.”

After hearing Tang Zifeng talk about technical issues, Xia Min, the chief engineer of Qingji Machinery, interjected: "Director Tang, I'm afraid you are taking this idea for granted. Each of our companies makes different things. For example, your Linyi Machinery mainly makes grinders. As for boring and milling machines, we make lathes, and our respective research and development contents are different. If we work on them together, we will actually hold each other back, right?"

Tang Zifeng said: "Mr. It also needs to be used on grinders, so can the research on ball screws be done together?"

"This is okay..."

"There is also five-axis linkage technology. The core part is also common to all our companies, right?"

"Five-axis linkage? Are you doing this technology?" Xia Min asked in shock.

Tang Zifeng smiled slightly: "Yes, we have started research in this area since last year. High-end CNC machine tools cannot always be in the hands of foreigners. We must win this technology ourselves. We and After the cooperation with Factory 432, with the help of Factory 432, a CNC technology research team was established, with the focus being on breakthroughs in five-axis linkage technology."

Xia Min asked impatiently: "So, what step have you achieved now?"

Tang Zifeng said: "I don't know much about technical matters. According to our Chief Engineer Qin, we have initially mastered the algorithm design principle of five-axis linkage, and the next step is to overcome various technical difficulties. During this period, I heard that I don’t know what kind of spatial tool compensation technology Chief Engineer Qin and the others are working on, and what it means specifically.”

"Spatial tool compensation technology is to calculate the tool vector based on the position of the rotation axis, and then calculate the compensation vector in the compensation plane. The two vectors are orthogonal..." Xia Min seriously wanted to do some popular science for Tang Zifeng, but he was born For Tang Zifeng, who is not good at popularizing science, what he said is equivalent to the language of Mars.

Zhao Zhaoxin interrupted Xia Min and returned to the topic, saying: "Lao Zhou still has the courage. General Manager Xia has mentioned to me many times that we want to develop five-axis linkage technology, but I have not dared to make up my mind. I heard that this The stuff is a bottomless pit, and if you don’t throw three to five million into it, it’s probably hard to hear a sound.”

Tang Zifeng smiled and said: "Director Zhao is still too optimistic. According to our Chief Engineer Qin, you can't hear any sound even if you throw three to five million into it. If you really want to develop practical five-axis linkage technology, three to five thousand An investment of 10,000 yuan is the minimum, and there may not be results in three to five years.”

"Look! How can we afford such a large investment?" Zhao Zhaoxin turned to Xia Min and said, probably they have discussed this issue in the past. Xia Min should be the one who advocated carrying out research in this area, while Zhao Zhaoxin was the one who Opposition.

Five-axis linkage is the development direction of CNC machine tools. Previously, the CNC machine tools developed by various domestic companies were basically CNC transformations on the original three-coordinate machine tools to improve the automation of the machine tools, but the processing capabilities of the machine tools have not been significantly improved.

Five-axis linkage is based on the three-coordinate machine tool and adds the rotation of the tool, so that it can process polyhedron and curved surface parts. Curved surface parts are widely used in electric power, shipbuilding, aerospace, mold and other fields. The processing of such parts has always been a difficulty in mechanical manufacturing. Machine tools that can process such parts are undoubtedly very important.

In addition, the application of five-axis linkage technology can also add milling processing to the original CNC lathe, turning it into a turning-milling compound machining center, turning one machine tool into two, which can not only save space, but also save workpieces Improved processing efficiency by improving turnaround shipping time between different manufacturing units.

At present, many foreign machine tool companies are eliminating traditional CNC lathes and vigorously developing turning and milling composite machining centers. Qingji, as a company that specializes in lathes, also feels the pressure, but due to limited conditions, it is unable to carry out research in this area. Regarding this, Zhao Zhaoxin, Xia Min and others are also quite anxious.

Tang Zifeng said: "It is precisely because the investment required is so large that we hope to join forces with our brother companies. If the investment of 30 to 50 million is divided among 20 companies, each of them will only be one or two million. This is not a big deal." There’s so much money to be made. If each family does it separately, I’m afraid no one will be able to do it.”

"The truth is right." Zhao Zhaoxin frowned and said, "But if it's like you said, 20 companies are doing it together, how can they coordinate? To put it bluntly, there are really those who work hard but don't work hard. When the time comes, what to do?"

Tang Zifeng said: "We have also considered this problem. The solution is what I just said, the model we cooperate with 432 Factory, which is to establish an independent legal entity to undertake this work. We can set up a new The technology research institute is jointly funded by various companies, and the research institute's business is not subject to interference by any company, so there is no problem of which company does the work but does not contribute."

"But, in this case, what is the difference between this research institute we jointly established and the Ministry's Mechanical Design Institute?" Zhao Zhaoxin asked.

Tang Zifeng said: "The biggest difference is that our research institute is market-oriented, and there is no problem of guaranteed income due to drought or flood. All engineers in the research institute adopt the employment system, and there is no upper limit or minimum wage guarantee. Well done, one It’s okay to earn three thousand or five thousand a month, but if you don’t do well, you’ll be eliminated directly.”

"Isn't this what a private enterprise looks like?" Xia Min said.

Tang Zifeng said: "It should be said that we have learned from the management model of private enterprises to break up the big pot and encourage innovation. The current situation is already very serious. We must take some extraordinary measures and we can no longer be as lax as in the past."

"So that's it..." Zhao Zhaoxin nodded slowly. What Tang Zifeng said was a bit too much information. Zhao Zhaoxin still needed some time to digest it and did not dare to agree hastily.

"This matter is of great importance. We may have to think about it again." Zhao Zhaoxin said.