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"Wanli Mechanical and Electrical Factory" is a well-established military state-owned enterprise that was once famous both at home and abroad. In the 1980s, with the economic and social changes, the glorious "Wanli" faced the dilemma of declining task indicators and talent loss year by year. Faced with the dilemma, Wanli people have never forgotten the mission of aviation people to "serve the country through aviation and strengthen the country through aviation", and have relied on their own efforts and hard work, thus embarking on the road of reform. More than 30 years later, Wanli Factory not only ushered in the highlight moment of annual output value and revenue exceeding 1 billion yuan in 2022, but also has a strong development momentum and has entered the fast lane of healthy development.

"As a research and development unit of the most complex and sophisticated aviation motors and electric actuators in aircraft manufacturing, Aviation Industry Wanli Company has always taken the creation of 'talent highland', 'cultural highland', 'technical highland', 'intelligent highland' and 'value highland' - 'five highlands' as its starting point, and continuously strengthened the company's leading position in scientific and technological innovation, created Wanli's 'unique skills', broke through 'technical forbidden zones', created more than 200 products, and achieved one breakthrough after another, adding intelligence and empowerment to the province's strong science and technology action." Chao Shiyuan, Secretary of the Party Committee and Chairman of Lanzhou Wanli Aviation Electromechanical Co., Ltd., who won the Gansu Province Outstanding Science and Technology Innovation Entrepreneur Award in February this year, said.

The "secret" to resurgence - "Three Runs Spirit"

How can Wanli rise again? It is inseparable from the "three running spirits" of Wanli people - "running with tears, running with gritted teeth, and running desperately."

Lanzhou Wanli Aviation Electromechanical Co., Ltd. was founded in 1956. It is a large state-owned military enterprise integrating scientific research, production and testing, specializing in the research and development and manufacturing of aviation airborne equipment. Since then, the first generation of "Wanli people" have gathered in Lanzhou from all over the country. Under extremely difficult conditions at the time, together with aviation people from all over the country, they completed the start of China's aviation industry. Wanli Factory has grown from nothing to something, from small to large, and has formed four core majors: aviation motors, aviation electric actuation, avionics and control, and aviation lighting, which are applied to aviation, aerospace, weapons, ships and other fields and systems. "Keep running with tears, gritting teeth, and fighting for your life" is a vivid portrayal of generations of "Wanli people".

"Unique skills" are born in the constant pursuit of innovation

"Our company has developed the world's first helicopter laser search light, which can provide sufficient ground lighting during helicopter surveys and rescue searches." Chao Shiyuan said that currently most helicopter search lights use xenon headlights imported from abroad, and the world's most advanced lighting technology developed by Wanli Company in cooperation with universities - laser white light lighting technology can perfectly replace foreign technology, reducing the power of helicopter search lights by 80%, reducing weight by half, increasing the illumination distance from 1 km to 5 km, and increasing the lifespan by more than 1,000 times.

Chao Shiyuan joined Wanli Company in 2015. The company's output value has soared from more than 300 million yuan nine years ago to 1.35 billion yuan at present. Chao Shiyuan introduced that the proportion of the company's R&D investment in sales revenue has increased from 8% at the end of the "13th Five-Year Plan" to 14.5% in 2023. In the past three years, more than 300 million yuan has been invested to accelerate the construction of "machines replacing people, digital brains" and "intelligent manufacturing highland", helping the company to continuously improve quality and efficiency in new product research and development, professional expansion and other fields. A number of digital production lines, intelligent unmanned units, and automated distribution have been put into operation, improving production efficiency and product quality. In three years, more than 100 authorized patents and software copyrights and 8 provincial and ministerial science and technology progress awards have been obtained.

Cultivate technological transcendence capabilities through collective intelligence innovation

"In more than half of Wanli's production workshops, there are graduate students doing research on manufacturing technology improvement." Chao Shiyuan said, "Wanli" adheres to the principle of "first-class enterprises must have first-class talents, build a first-class environment, and give first-class treatment." In the past three years, more than 100 high-end talents have been introduced from key universities such as Tsinghua University, Zhejiang University, Xi'an Jiaotong University, Northwestern Polytechnical University, and University of Electronic Science and Technology of China. At the same time, it has also opened 7 engineering doctoral and master's classes with universities such as Northwestern Polytechnical University and Lanzhou University of Technology, and strived to improve the capabilities and academic qualifications of various types of employees. In addition, "Wanli" has also established the "Aiming at Wanli" scholarship in well-known universities, established a joint training base for full-time graduate students, etc., and continued to promote the training of outstanding engineers, further enhancing the core competitiveness of "Wanli" in scientific and technological innovation.

In order to cultivate the ability to surpass technology, "Wanli" insists on demand orientation and aims at the forefront of science and technology. It has signed horizontal R&D projects with Xi'an Jiaotong University, Northwestern Polytechnical University, Beijing Institute of Technology and others with a total investment of more than 40 million yuan, and jointly carried out key core technology research. Many scientific and technological achievements have been successfully applied to new equipment and are more widely used in the fields of drones and missiles.

In recent years, "Wanli" has continued to be committed to promoting platform construction, investing more than 70 million yuan to build five professional laboratories such as aviation motors, and has been approved for innovation platforms such as the National Recognized Enterprise Technology Center, Gansu Province Aviation Electric Actuation Key Laboratory and the National Postdoctoral Research Station. It has also jointly established an electromechanical research and development center with Northwestern Polytechnical University to continuously improve the industry's scientific and technological innovation system and enhance independent innovation capabilities.

Moving towards "new" and accelerating the development of new quality productivity

Chao Shiyuan said that "Wanli" will continue to achieve a number of breakthrough results in the key core technology fields that are urgently needed for the strategic development of aviation, and make "Wanli" contributions to making the "first move" in independent innovation. At the same time, it will promote the transformation and application of scientific and technological achievements in the traditional manufacturing field, accelerate the high-end, intelligent and green development of the manufacturing industry, and help the traditional productivity to leap to new quality productivity. Focus on the low-altitude economy and the UAV industry, insist on taking strategic emerging industries and future industries as the main battlefield for the development of new quality productivity, increase R&D investment, and use a more in-depth and effective school-enterprise cooperation model to improve the supply of scientific and technological innovation results and application scenario innovation, promote industry, format and model innovation, and constantly open up new tracks and new fields for development.

Photo provided by He Yan, an all-media reporter of Lanzhou Daily and Aviation Industry Wanli Company