Media Interview | Shanghai Ziming Du Longfei: From Perseverance to Counterattack, Looking at the "Hardcore" Manufacturing Capability of China's Printing Machines
In the blink of an eye, it has been nearly 3 years since the last interview with Mr. Du Longfei, Chairman of Shanghai Ziming Precision Machinery Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as Shanghai Ziming). In the past few years, in Mr. Du’s own words, Ziming has lived relatively low-key. , Has been concentrating on internal strength, plant expansion, international technical cooperation, new products falling out, from traditional offset printing machines to 3D direct printing machines......
Even though time goes by, Shanghai Ziming is still the company with more than 90 years of capabilities and a clear self-awareness. Chairman Du Longfei is still a perseverance, inheritor and innovator in the field of Chinese national printing machinery, but Shanghai Ziming Under his leadership, Ming is now more "hard-core", paying more attention to business innovation in cross-border technology, and more concerned about delivering capabilities in an operational mode. Just as his company's vision, this is a company that is becoming a "world-class printing machinery "Professional Manufacturing Service Provider" enterprise.
At the recent exhibition, the author also asked the reason why Mr. Du Longfei insisted. He said this: "Why do we at Ziming stick to it? In Shanghai, there are many artisans who do printing machinery. These artisans have been doing this all their lives. Manufacture of sheetfed offset printing presses. They are about to retire since they were young. They have loved this industry for decades and have a deep affection for the printing industry. I also love this industry. Zi Ming As a manufacturer of a national brand in the industry, I am a responsible entrepreneur. If I don’t do it, who will do it? Therefore, I have a historical mission and a sense of responsibility to do all of this. Historical mission and responsibility Prompted me to work harder to do all of this."
Excellent companies are good at being able to clearly recognize their existing abilities in a market with convergent cognition, and accurately form a differentiated positioning in the future, which is roughly the case for Ziming. In the past three years, the company's vision has changed from a "supplier" to a "service provider", and "continuously satisfying the real needs of customers" is their original intention.
Nowadays, Shanghai Ziming has become more productive, with complete, high-precision processing and testing equipment and strong technical resources. The company has also acquired many patented technologies over the years, and currently has double-sided offset printing, single-sided offset printing, and gravure printing. , Quality inspection machine, UV partial glazing and three-sided book cutting machine six series products.
Du Longfei introduced: "Shanghai Ziming's main business is still the manufacture of offset presses, but Ziming's team is composed of a group of people with ideals, dreams, and passion. It also makes Ziming a challenge. Self, a company that pursues excellence."
The history of Shanghai Ziming Printing Machinery Co., Ltd. can be traced back to the "Shanghai Mingchang Machinery Factory", which was born in the 1920s. Among the backward industries in old China at that time, Mingchang Company was a bright spot in the national industry. After decades of arduous operation, Mingchang Company ushered in New China, and also experienced the transformation of a public-private partnership in 1956, and became a state-owned enterprise "Shanghai No. 1 Printing Machinery Factory" under the Shanghai Press and Publication Bureau.
In 2009, the American Morningside Group transferred its investment strategy. Relying on a keen sense of the market, Mr. Du Longfei resolutely took the wholly-owned acquisition of Ziming Company, pushing "Shanghai Ziming Printing Machinery Co., Ltd." to a brand-new business development platform. It opened the way for private enterprises and appeared in the Chinese printing machinery market with a brand new look.
Shanghai Ziming's three "hard core" capabilities
The "hard core" that has become popular as an online language, we can understand it as a very powerful, cool, sturdy, and tough meaning.
When it comes to Shanghai Ziming’s “hard core” capability, it is not deliberately catered to the trend, nor deliberately packaging corporate personality. Compared with the corporate vision, Du Longfei also proposed to build a “hard core” capability from three sources, namely Innovative research and development capabilities, resource integration capabilities, and intelligent manufacturing capabilities.
Let's talk about innovative R&D capabilities first. This can be discussed from the R&D team and innovative products of Shanghai Ziming. People who have been in this industry for more than 10 years should know about Shanghai Electric Printing & Packaging Group. The group once led its subsidiaries such as Shanghai Guanghua, Ziguang, Yahua, and Shenweida to fight in the north and south, creating a myth of printing equipment sales. Due to certain factors, the Printing and Packaging Group was disbanded, most of these companies were also acquired or integrated, and most of the sales and technical talents were also dissolved.
Du Longfei was deeply impressed: "These companies have many senior technical engineers. After the companies are disbanded, they even sell insurance. This is a great loss to our entire Shanghai printing machinery manufacturing industry. So Ziming I hope to retain some excellent technical talents and integrate them well so that they can continue to create value in this industry. It is precisely because of the existence of these older generations of technical engineers that Ziming has a steady stream of innovative products. And the emergence of craftsmanship."
Interpret them one by one. The ability to integrate resources represents the future business model of Shanghai Ziming, and the intelligent manufacturing capability is the future factory architecture model of Shanghai Ziming. The combination of these three capabilities also represents the company's technical level, application capabilities and service efficiency. Du Longfei carried out a unified plan for all the previously dispersed links. Not only did the business organization become clearer, the product line was also more prominent, and the interaction with users increased.
In the second half of this year, with the completion of the new Zhejiang factory in Shanghai Ziming, it also indicates that Ziming's manufacturing capacity will be further expanded. Perhaps at this stage, China’s printer manufacturing capacity is still at a disadvantage compared to several major foreign printer manufacturers, but Shanghai Ziming has gradually formed a unique ability to precipitate through cooperation with core partners, and then through the Constantly exploring, its value is constantly emerging.
Multi-point layout, symbiosis and India lead the future
At the 2018 All Print Exhibition, Shanghai Ziming not only demonstrated excellent quality double-sided offset printing solutions, but also highlighted the new technology it has been working on silently-"HZ92GM 3D printing machine", and carried out paper on the exhibition site. The demonstration of 3D direct printing technology, powerful visual impact, and a new visual enjoyment ready to come out, broke the traditional printing plane, static, single effect, and broke through the various shortcomings of traditional lenticular film printing, and is widely loved by industry professionals.
At the PRINT CHINA 2019 exhibition almost a year later, Shanghai Ziming once again demonstrated the product solution, which is more perfect and mature. At the exhibition site, Chairman Du Longfei also accepted an interview with Xiao C. He said frankly: "The 3D printing machine is currently jointly developed and manufactured by Ziming and a 3D company under Hucai. It has been developed for more than 5 years. From the idea to the continuous improvement of technology, we believe that we will have a broad market in the future."
In fact, since the birth of the original idea, 3D direct printing has not been favored by the industry, no matter from the analysis of printing materials or craftsmanship. After years of repeated revisions and tests, Shanghai Ziming and Hucai fully exploited their strengths and circumvented their weaknesses, and gradually developed a clearer and clearer product approach. As far as the concept of 3D direct printing is concerned, the products will only become more and more perfect, and the popularization of applications will only be a matter of time, and Shanghai Ziming will undoubtedly occupy a certain advantage in this market.
From Shanghai Ziming's body, we can see the important changes of Chinese printer manufacturers over the years: new technologies and processes such as intelligent Internet and crossover are rapidly moving towards modularization and product landing. In China's Internet entrepreneurial circle, there is often a state called "Blindfolded Running". But for China's printing machinery industry, which is now undergoing transformation, why not this? Hope that Shanghai Ziming can hold up a banner of China's national printing machinery manufacturing industry!