Photo courtesy of Hu Zhenqiu

From an ordinary migrant worker to a national model worker and a Shanghai craftsman, from being forced to give up the college entrance examination to holding more than 20 patents, Hu Zhenqiu wrote his own miracle in Magic Capital.

In the sixteen years since he entered Shanghai Shenzhou Jingyi Automobile Manufacturing Co., Ltd., Hu Zhenqiu struggled in the front line of special vehicle manufacturing. Relying on the word "dare", he persisted in invention and innovation while constantly improving himself, and put forward many improvements to the production technology and operation mode of multi-variety, small batch and customized special vehicles.

Dare to fight and fight: second-hand bicycles break into Shanghai

In 2004, Hu Zhenqiu was forced to give up the college entrance examination due to family conditions, and left his hometown in Suzhou, Anhui Province to join the army of migrant workers. After more than two years, he moved to Jiangsu and other places to do work related to sheet metal welding. In 2007, Hu Zhenqiu decided to "try again" and came to Shanghai, hoping to have a stable job.

Without education and skills, Hu Zhenqiu, who is new here, is not going well. He bought a second-hand bicycle with 60 yuan money, and ran around looking for a job, but he was met with a wall again and again. After 21 days, Hu Zhenqiu finally got an opportunity to enter Shanghai Shenzhou Jingyi Automobile Manufacturing Co., Ltd. in Fengxian District and become a trial worker.

Photo courtesy of Hu Zhenqiu

thisOne stopIt has also become an important turning point in Hu Zhenqiu’s life.

In the company, many R&D personnel are undergraduates and postgraduates who graduated from famous universities, and often come up with many golden ideas, create new products and optimize technological processes. In Hu Zhenqiu’s view at that time, they really deserved the word "good". So he made up his mind to "be a good worker as well as a worker", even though he couldn’t understand the drawings at that time.

In order to achieve this goal, Hu Zhenqiu keeps on studying hard and improving himself. Usually take the initiative to consult engineers and masters, soak in the staff library during lunch break, and study by yourself in the dormitory at night. In the following more than ten years, Hu Zhenqiu has successively obtained intermediate workers, senior workers, technicians and Shanghai chief technicians. In addition to technical posts, he also took an examination of the business administration major of the National Open University in 2011, seeking systematic learning and improvement, and successively obtained junior college and undergraduate degrees.

Pure electric intelligent sweeper. Reporter Jiang Lelai

Dare to think and do: innovation from "laziness"

What should I do if it is difficult for the highway vacuum cleaner to absorb the dust along the road? Hu Zhenqiu suggested that a dust control brush can be added to disturb the garbage dust first and then absorb it. What should I do if the road sweeper is in danger of scratching when driving fast? Hu Zhenqiu designed and installed an automatic avoidance device, which can make the cleaning device automatically avoid obstacles such as telephone poles.

Hu Zhenqiu is not a high-tech research and development personnel, but in the face of the customization needs of work vehicles in various scenarios, his innovative and creative ability shows great value. Today, Hu Zhenqiu has completed more than 60 technological innovations, tackled more than 20 technical problems, obtained 24 patents for inventions and utility models, and won various awards related to inventions and innovations. He was once known as the "worker inventor".

Hu Zhenqiu won the prize for his innovation in the "Five Small Activities". Reporter Jiang Lelai

Hu Zhenqiu talked about "inventing" for the first time in the company and joked that it was for "being lazy". In 2009, the company launched the "Five Small Activities" of "small inventions, small creations, small innovations, small suggestions and small improvements" to encourage technicians and front-line workers to participate in innovation. At that time, a self-developed vacuum cleaner product entered the production stage, and workers worked overtime every day, but the production efficiency was always difficult to improve. So with the help of the activity, Hu Zhenqiu boldly put forward his own idea of "pre-installing tooling for the whole vehicle".

This idea overcame all kinds of technical problems, reduced the working hours of each vehicle from 3 days to 1 day at once, and the qualified rate of vehicle assembly reached over 98%. Hu Zhenqiu recalled that one of the purposes at that time was not to want to work overtime and get paid as usual, but also to improve the craft and kill two birds with one stone. The company immediately set up a technical transformation team, headed by Hu Zhenqiu, to help other teams improve the production process.

Taking this as a starting point, Hu Zhenqiu’s invention and innovation have brought about new changes. Sun Zhiqiang, an engineer in the company’s research institute, said: "Many product development will invite Hu Zhenqiu to participate in the scheme discussion and preliminary investigation. He has many ideas and a broader and more active thinking." In the view of Chen Tianni, the general manager of the company, Hu Zhenqiu is also a person with great innovation ability, who dares to express his ideas and take responsibility.

In 2014, the vehicles sold by the company to Panjin, Liaoning Province were reported by customers as "acclimatized" in the local area, and the use effect was not good. It was required to solve the problem within three days, otherwise the vehicles would be returned. Time is tight and the task is heavy, and the technicians are hesitant, but Hu Zhenqiu took the initiative to undertake this task. He rushed to the scene and studied behind the car for three days, looking for tools to try out and improve. Finally, he thought of a solution on the fourth day of staying up all night, and created an invention of "inclined suction" cleaning device on the line of fire.

Dare to preach and dare to bring: from a person to a studio

At the end of 2019, the "Hu Zhenqiu Model Worker Innovation Studio" of Shanghai Shenzhou Jingyi Automobile Manufacturing Co., Ltd. was awarded the license by the Shanghai Federation of Trade Unions and won the title of "Yangtze River Delta Innovation Studio". In 2020, "Hu Zhenqiu Model Worker Innovation Studio" began to operate with a brand-new look.

As the most basic and active force of innovation, the studio is named "Hu Zhenqiu" and is also led by Hu Zhenqiu. From a person to a studio, innovation is constantly gathering and exerting greater synergy. At the beginning of its establishment, the team consisted of 13 people, and assembled the company’s best professional and technical personnel. There were 9 people with the titles of engineers and senior technicians, focusing on the research and development and improvement of production technology of vacuum cleaners and other environmental protection equipment. Today, there are more than 30 studios, and all kinds of patents and awards have already been hung on the wall.

All kinds of awards displayed in the studio. Reporter Jiang Lelai

Guided by the spirit of model workers and craftsmen, the studio cultivates more innovative talents. Chen Tianni believes that the role of "mentoring" is very important. Wang Jindong, a member of the studio, commented that Hu Zhenqiu has a "pattern" in this respect. There was once a new employee in the company who could do nothing and asked Wang Jindong to teach him. He was worried at that time: What if I taught him to quit? Didn’t the company suffer? But what Hu Zhenqiu told him impressed him deeply: "Even if he quit, we have trained a technical talent for the country and society."

"mentoring" is not limited to the company, but also out of the enterprise and based on the industry. Through co-construction with various industries, the studio is also helping relevant industries such as city appearance and sanitation to solve practical problems, overcome the first-line difficulties and promote the development of the whole industry. Greening and maintenance vehicles, garbage trucks, fire monitor, etc. are all the improvement targets of the studio’s foreign technical cooperation.

At present, the studio focuses on the problem of falling off the fruit hair of Platanus acerifolia. This problem bothers citizens in many cities in spring, and many roads in Shanghai are also uncomfortable. The cleaning of fruit hair is also a big problem. According to Hu Zhenqiu, a complete cleaning process needs four steps: "blowing, spraying, flushing and sucking", which are carried out by four types of working vehicles, which takes a long time and will affect traffic.

Therefore, the studio tried to develop a fruit hair cleaning device, hoping to collect the three-step operation of three cars into one car to complete it at one time, and fully improve the efficiency. At present, this vehicle is in the trial production stage.

Source: The Paper reporter Jiang Lelai