By Jiang Qian/COSCO-Valve-HD

She once lingered on the line of life and death; she once got lost in the current of market economy. An enterprise which was almost announced dead found itself in constant innovation and exerting itself constantly and ultimately developed into an outstanding model of the Chinese marine diesel engine exhaust valve manufacturing industry. She is COSCOValve-HD.

Sm all En terp rise Bu rsts in to a Great Streng th

Marine low-speed diesel engine(600mm bore and above) exhaust valve manufacturing has been monopolized by Europe, Japan and Korea for a long time. To break the international monopoly and realize domestic manufacturing and achieve the strategic goal of becoming international first-class professional exhaust valve manufacturer, the Nanjingbased COSCO-Valve-HD successfully obtained a scientific research project of the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT) -- “Study on Key Technology of Exhaust Valve Stem for Marine Low-Speed Diesel Engine”-- in 2015 through its own effort and by relying on its own strength and advantages.

In the im p lem en tation of the research project, COSCO-Valve-HD established a special research team to deal with technical difficulties, the process group conducted comp lete research and analysis for process, material, heat treatment and inspection technologies of exhaust valve surfacing welding and valve surface hardening for low-speed diesel engine; the equipment group followed the production concepts of “Welding quality, hardening process, labor intensity and efficiency, intelligent processing”,developed the design concept of “Using robot to realize automatic welding,equipped with computer+PLC automatic rolling equipment”, finally it turned to reality, effectively assisting in smooth operation of the research project. The application of robot automatic welding technology not only guaranteed stable quality of exhaust valve welding, but also substantially improved welding efficiency by halving the test cycle of the original surfacing welding technology.

A key step to the project success is obtaining world class marine diesel engine manufacturing authorizer MAN Diesel& Turbo SE’s quality certification.Although the Company obtained CSSC marine diesel engine exhaust valve product certificate in 2016, it was a real challenge to break the situation of low-speed diesel engine exhaust valve long controlled by imported parts from abroad. In order to obtain the highest recognition-degree MAN certification in the global industry, continuously improve the Company’s Haida brand com petitiveness and main tain its international leading position in marine diesel engine exhaust valve, COSCOValve-HD persevered and moved forward courageously and went steadily along the road of technological innovation.

Through one-year effort, COSCOValve-HD finally solved a series of difficulties from raw material and product performance to sealing surface welding,independently developed processing detection equipment of key procedures such as exhaust valve stem end ion surfacing welding equipment, friction welding seam strength inspection device,high frequency quenching equipment,exhaust valve surface rolling equipment,etc., the development of the equipment provided powerful hardware guarantee for product quality. In November 2016,the Company MAN two stroke exhaust valve FTA (first product certification)working group made a special trip to MAN Copenhagen headquarters to have sample block inspected and carry out technical exchange. Comparison with the Company’s detection analysis results shows the Company’s detection methods and detection results are very reliable, welding documents and process reports p rovided by the Com pany obtained MAN’s approval. As a result of unremitting effort, COSCO-Valve-HD 2-stroke Duraspindle exhaust valve successfully obtained MAN’s FTA approval for production and renovation in June 2017. In the subsequent three months, the Company’s four stroke valve base and exhaust valve passed MAN’s authoritative certification in succession.

The project research results will be applied in COSCO-Valve-HD marine low-speed diesel engine exhaust valve production line renovation project with a view to rapidly realizing industrialization,building domestic independent marine equipment capacity, getting rid off the passive long-term situation of exhaust valve stem of domestic marine low-speed diesel engine subject to import, finally forming an R&D system and an industrial chain of independent IPRs, realizing overall independent equipment supply,improving the domestic equipment rate of marine low-speed diesel engine, which is expected to practically improve domestic marine equipment manufacturing, with great significance to the development of the Chinese shipbuilding industry and building-up of national defense.

Techno logical Innovation Builds up Streng th

COSCO-V a lve-HD is now subm erged in innovation and the breadth of intelligence and information is exuded everywhere. To expand Haida brand market effect and improve market share, COSCO-Valve-HD has adopted advanced process and manufacturing technology over recent years to complete a number of exhaust valve localization commissioned development items for verification methods of special process for critical activities during product development. The “Localization Deve lopm en t o f Ove rseas H igh Performance Diesel Engine Exhaust Valve” p roject imp lemented for a State-owned large oil transport company finally obtained the experts’ panel’s high appraisal of “equivalent quality to imported original parts product”through same cylinder operation with the imported original exhaust valve product and 6000h test which sufficiently proves product manufacturing technology and level.

Especially in the localization development project implemented for a State-own large oil production company,through normal operation of about 9200h or an overhaul period, cylinder removal inspection of the exhaust valve developed by the Company found no abnormal wear,water pressure test showed no water leakage, product quality was reliable and stable, and won the customer’s high appraisal.

A t the end of 2014, against chronic illnesses restricting corporate deve lopm en t such as backward processing equipment and technology,low material utilization rate and large safety risk in the free forging process,the Company courageously developed a new train of thought for reform and innovation, phased out traditional free forging process with advanced die forging process and applied the technological innovation project for the former COSCO Scientific and Technological Project in 2015. During the project implementation,COSCO-Valve-HD experienced massive technological and process researches,equipment survey and selection, die design and development, finally achieved the goal of marine diesel engine valve base forging technology renovation,resolutely eliminated traditional, updated,inefficient and high-risk processing technique, successfully completed the group research project and obtained two national patent authorizations.

The project adopted advanced“Medium Frequency Sensing and Rapid Heating” and “Closed Die Forging”high-end manufacturing technologies to conduct single heating and molding of material, which not only improved parts dimensional accuracy, reduced processing allowance and improved utilization rate of raw material, but also improved productivity, reduced labor intensity and safety risk, and achieved the goals of improving billet working efficiency by three times, reducing finishing time by 10min of average single product, improving utilization rate of raw material by 30%, and reducing energy consumption by 40%. meanwhile, by making use of residual temperature after closed die forging and special heat treatment quenching solution, work piece was directly quenched, shortening the processing cycle, reducing safety risk of high temperature heat treatment and lowering heat treatment cost by about 50%. The application of these innovation technologies may substantially reduce direct production costs and safety risks of the valve base products and contribute to the Company’s cost reduction and efficiency improvement. At the same time, it also embodies the Company’s production model of “high efficiency,low consump tion, high-technology content and environmental protection”and improves corporate soft strength.

Im p roving Sw ift Manu factu ring and Sm art Manu factu ring Hard Streng th

In order to realize the strategic goal of domestic leading and international first class, COSCO-Valve-HD started the new journey of smart manufacturing,centered on standardization, digitization,automation, bar coding, networking and visualization, set out for digitized modeling of manpower, financial and material resource elements and production, supp ly and marketing business flow, via bar code identification of process route simulation, equipment configuration monitoring, and material bar code identification, conducted real-time collection and processing of control data including progress, quality and resource utilization rate and reflected into digital business model to simulate production business scenario, preliminarily realized the “three-directly” goal of “Smart manufacturing and swift manufacturing”-- “Work directly to the work station,process d irectly to equipmen t, and control data directly to management”,thus paying the way for future data tapping and analysis and establishment of operation indicator model and scientific decision-making aid.

To steadily propel transformation of traditional discrete manufacturing mode to smart manufacturing mode, COSCOValve-HD set out for optimization and integration of process route, centered on product digitization modeling and process standardization database building,with help of DEFORM/CAPP/PDM and other special software, conducted standardized integration of technological innovation and process improvement,set up process knowledge database and connected the manufacturing execution system MES. After one-year carding,2000-plus traditional processes were simplified to less than 200 standard production processes, drawings and processes and other technical files of about 300 traditional main products were all unified to the PDM database,laid a solid foundation for “design and manufacturing integration” while realizing internal resource sharing and improving work efficiency.

To improve flexibility of multivariety and small batch colinear and m ixed routing production, COSCOValve-HD cen tered on “group interconnection automation of process equipment”, followed the three fixed principles of “fixed product, process and equipment”, gradually promoted section equipment automation integration from simplicity to complexity, from dot to face, completed section smart units of“welding robot workstation” , “valve base smart processing unit”,“bimetallic fric tion weld ing sm art detec tion unit”, “robot billet smart unit”,“penetrating flaw detection flow line”,etc., accumulated experience and laid foundation for series control of all laterstage sections and procedures, building production centralized control platform and connecting business information system and building digital workshop and smart factory.

So far, group interconnection au tomation of p rocess equipmen t of all smart units has yielded initial results, welding robot workstation has substantially shortened R&D test cycle,paving the way for smooth completion of the MIIT project. One process of the valve base smart processing unit has substituted four processes of traditional multiple general-purpose equipment,reduced transsh ipm en t between processes, improved processing efficiency by more than 33%, substan tially improved quality, safety and labor intensity; penetration flow detection flow line has realized washing/coloring/penetration/drying/developing integration and “U-shaped” layout automation,reduced human factor restriction and considerably improved productivity;bimetallic friction welding smart detection unit has realized inspection parameter autocall and automatic inspection,avoided human misoperation and reduced worker’s labor intensity. Smart units of all sections have abandoned the traditional “one machine per person”discrete production mode, the successful app lication has greatly inspired the innovation confidence of employees and is changing traditional thinking habits of business backbones.

Activating Innovation Drive

Cultivation of technical talents and development of technical backbone team is the key factor for promoting COSCOValve-HD innovation and transformation and upgrading. The Company has been taking the path of “talents invigorating enterprise”, by introducing technical talents and strengthening the technical team. Seven of the eight college students recruited in 2015 were dispatched to enrich the technical R&D team. Their specialties cover mechanical design,material molding, welding engineering,heat treatment, electronic engineering,etc., providing guarantee for exhaust valve technology R&D and reserving talents for low speed diesel engine exhaust valve production line construction. The Company irregularly organized the talents to attend to professional technology training, enabled them to better and faster integrated into the corporate technical practice, and also organized them for short-term observation training and attending industrial workshops to open up their vision.

To intensify cultivation of technical backbones and improve their business level, the Company further standardized the techn ical title appoin tmen t management, p racticed technical title appointmen t management over engineering and technical personnel engaged in process design and product R&D, combined such management with compensation incentive, better inspired work en thusiasm and initiative of technical personnel.

Persisting in the universityenterprise cooperation road, realizing advan tage com p lemen tation, and intensifying cultivation and exchange of p roduction p rocess innovation and talent cultivation. In September 2016, COSCO-Va lve-HD and Jiangsu University of Science and Technology jointly established Jiangsu Graduates Workstation to actively u tilize the university-en terp rise cooperation p latform for b reak ing through technical problems and smart manufacturing in a bid to imp rove technical content and value-added of product, provide powerful technical support and intelligent guarantee and realize university-enterprise win-win cooperation.

Technical innovation is the drive for corporate development and support for enterprise to win and maintain competitive advantages. COSCO-Valve-HD is seeking production innovation,management innovation, marketing innovation and talen t cu ltivation innovation, p lanning long-range development with innovative thinking method, forging ahead, overcom ing difficulties, accelerating technical innovation and process improvement and assisting in corporate transformation and upgrading development with firmer confidence, more saturated enthusiasm,more active attitude and more strident spirit.★