In the history of Chinese glass development, there is no lack of capital operation cases. 2006, China Glass Holdings Limited (hereinafter referred to as China Glass Holdings) acquired a series of enterprises of Blue Star Glass is one of the examples. (hereinafter referred to as China Glass Holdings) is the largest production base of China Glass Holdings, with three float glass production lines with a daily melting capacity of 1500 tons, one offline Low-E production line and one BIPV thin film photovoltaic module production line.

14 years have passed, Weihai Zhongglass keeps forging ahead, innovating for development and strengthening the enterprise. Keeping online sunlight control coated glass always has more than 50% share of similar products in domestic market and exported to more than 100 countries overseas. In the float in-line coated and propriety tinted glass (color glass for short), the advantageous technology of China Glass Holdings has been continuously developed, and the in-line low-e coated glass (in-line Low-E), in-line TCO glass for BIPV thin film photovoltaic, in-line sun-controlled coated glass, in-line sun-controlled easy-clean glass, in-line Sun-E energy-saving coated glass, in-line Sun-C new sunlight film glass and other special features of China Glass have come to the market one after another. The functional glass has come to the market one after another and is applied in the field of building energy saving and photovoltaic, adding color to people's life.

In the commendation meeting of the national building materials industry advanced collective, advanced workers and model workers held in August this year, Weihai Zhongglass was awarded the honorary title of "national building materials industry advanced collective". The reporter of China Building Materials News found through field interviews that the title of advanced collective is the recognition of the enterprise's unremitting pursuit and continuous innovation in product development.

Online coated glass is its "business card"

The predecessor of Weihai China Glass is Weihai Glass Factory established in 1965." On March 27, 1989, the first piece of float glass in Shandong Province was born here." Zhang Liming, deputy general manager of Weihai China Glass, recalled.

In the 1990s, Weihai China Glass took the lead in developing the mainstream color glass of blue and green such as Natural Green, F Green, Blue Star Gray, Ford Blue, etc. with the market demand as the guide, and prepared online sunlight control coated glass on these favorite color glass, which was popular in the market and the brand of "Blue Star Glass" was born.

"Some products are still named after Blue Star, such as Blue Star Gray; Natural Green is the name we gave." Ye Zhihui, general manager of Weihai Zhongglass, introduced to China Building Materials News. Before the introduction of "Blue Star Glass" brand online sunlight control coated glass in 1996, this product could only rely on import, the price was more than 100 yuan/square meter, the people could not afford to use it, and the profit was seized by foreign enterprises. Chinese market.

Nowadays, the share of the online sunlight control coated glass of Weihai Zhongglass in the domestic market has reached more than 50%, and its upgraded product online Sun-C new sunlight film glass has also been successfully mass produced, which is better and stronger in terms of function.

The first online Low-E glass with independent intellectual property rights technology in China was launched from the 3# float production line of Weihai Zhongglass, and the current energy-saving index of emissivity 0.13 is already the international leading level.

In addition, in order to meet the diversified needs of customers for products, Weihai Zhongglass has also built an offline magnetron vacuum sputtering glass production line, becoming the first enterprise in China to have both online Low-E coating and offline Low-E coating production lines and products, which complement each other and promote each other in technology.

Online Low-E is the world's most advanced chemical vapor deposition coating (CVD) technology, which continuously and uniformly deposits coating materials in gaseous form on the upper surface of high-temperature, clean, high-quality float glass to form a thin film layer of metal oxide structure through chemical reaction, and the film layer becomes part of the glass as the glass cools. The stable oxide structure and high-temperature coating properties make online Low-E glass chemically stable and free from oxidation problems; and it is strong and durable, can be heat bent, tempered and stored in a single piece. The excellent physical and chemical properties make the energy-saving effect of buildings remain stable for a long time, and when processed into hollow or vacuum glass, the film layer will not deteriorate even if the adhesive ages and cracks and loses its sealing properties, and the low-emission function will not fail, so it is called "hard coated" glass.

"We originally proposed the technical route of preparing oxide functional film in the annealing zone, adopted the micro-nano structure oxide film material with better physical and chemical stability than silver, and invented the annealing zone coating process for the technical characteristics of 'Luoyang float' to realize the efficient preparation of float online Low-E." Dr. Shi Guohua from the R&D center of China Glass Holdings told reporters that the energy-saving index of the company's online Low-E glass is also the highest. The emissivity of foreign technology online Low-E is between 0.16 and 0.2, and the online Low-E emissivity produced by Weihai Zhongglass reaches 0.13, which meets the high-end demand of building energy-saving.

"When mentioning Weihai Zhongglass, the first thing that comes to mind is color glass and coated glass, which has been made into a business card." According to He Linbing, sales director of Weihai China Glass, the company's products are not only sold at home, but also exported to South America, the Middle East, Southeast Asia, North Africa and other parts of the world, and the export volume accounts for a high percentage.

Close combination of industry, academia and research, independent innovation across the gap

In order to maintain the domestic leading level of online coating technology, catch up with the world advanced level and cross the technology gap, in 2001, 14 professors and senior engineers who have been engaged in the research of float online coating technology, Weihai Bluestar Glass Co. (ZUBS), registered in Zhejiang University National University Science and Technology Park, is mainly engaged in the research of float in-line coating technology and new product development; ZUBS was merged and restructured by China Glass Holdings in February 2007 and became its R&D center.

The R&D center of China Glass Holdings, Zhejiang University and Yanshan University formed an industry-academia-research consortium, insisting on the road of close combination of production, academia and research, with sincere unity and complementary advantages. The R&D center of China Glass Holdings is the core carrier of technology research and development, and the R&D team has been engaged in the development and research of online coating technology; Weihai China Glass provides the main research funds, provides the technology R&D platform, organizes and participates in semi-industrial and industrial testing and industrial production; establishes the organization system of testing and industrialization; Zhejiang University and Yanshan University are responsible for the research of basic theory to ensure the high starting point of R&D level.

In 2001, CGS Holdings Industry-University-Research Consortium jointly undertook the national "863" program project "floating in-line preparation technology of composite functional film and development of new energy-saving coated glass", which was accepted by the state on April 16, 2004. The main acceptance conclusions are: the development of online preparation of silicon and silicon carbide nano-composite color sunlight control coated glass, and the completion of industrialization demonstration tests, is an example of high-tech transformation of traditional industries, innovative, and reached the international advanced level; solve the problems of vaporization of raw materials and the design of key equipment in the coating system, complete the development of industrialized production technology of low-emissivity coated glass, and cultivate a highly qualified and stable R&D team. A high quality and stable R&D and production team was cultivated. As a participant of the project, Weihai Zhongglass has completed the construction of the demonstration line.

In 2010, the industry-academia-research consortium jointly undertook the project of the National 12th Five-Year Plan "Low-cost manufacturing and multi-functional composite key technology research of online low-e glass", which is to design the film system and multi-layer composite mechanism of energy-efficient coated glass, microstructure and performance control of energy-efficient coated glass, large-area preparation technology of float online multi-layer composite functional film, online coating pioneer body The project has conducted systematic research on key technologies and equipment such as raw material and waste gas recovery technology and equipment. The project has completed all the contents specified in the mission statement, met the requirements of the assessment index, and passed the acceptance with high quality. Weihai Zhongglass, as a participating unit of the project, completed the construction of the demonstration line.

In 2016, the industry-academia-research consortium jointly undertook the research task of "Research on full-spectrum multi-functional float online coated glass and demonstration of float online industrialization" of the National 13th Five-Year Plan, which is dedicated to the research of online coating technology and products, aiming at achieving the target requirement of online Low-E emissivity of 0.1, developing online sunlight-controlled low-emissivity coated glass with good shading effect, and meeting the requirements of China's vast geography and wide differences in thermal environments have different needs for building energy efficiency. The project is preparing for national acceptance, and Weihai Zhongglass, as the project participant, has completed the construction of the demonstration line.

In Weihai Zhongglass, the reporter of China Building Materials News saw that on the side of the laboratory door of Zhongglass Holding R&D Center, there are three signs hanging, which are printed with the words of Zhejiang University School of Materials Science and Engineering, Yanshan University School of Materials Science and Engineering, Shandong University School of Space Science and Physics and Zhongglass Holding Technology Center School-Enterprise Cooperation Laboratory.

"This road of combining production, learning and research, we are at the forefront in the industry." Tian Lanjun, deputy general manager of Weihai Zhongglass, said to China Building Materials News.

To "Three Precise" Management for Efficiency

From Weihai Glass Factory to Bluestar Glass, and then to the current subsidiary of China Glass Holdings, the leadership of Weihai China Glass has changed several times. Tian Lanjun admits that the long history, culture and heritage do not mean advanced management and good efficiency. Although the first eight months of this year, Weihai Zhongguo has been more profitable, but the management of the company is well aware that there is still a gap between it and the outstanding enterprises in the industry.

"The management was really sloppy in the past, recognizing our gap and knowing the shame, we have to make up for the shortcomings and catch up." Tian Lanjun introduced that on July 28, Weihai Zhongguo officially released the "Implementation Plan on Implementing "Three Refinements" Management" and set up a leading group to focus on improving the company's performance, focus on the core of the main business of floatation, give full play to the role of performance incentive, truly implement the "Three Refinements" management, and work towards the goal of the leading enterprise in the industry in accordance with the requirements of "full marketization and full internationalization".

"In 2018, CNBM Group outlined the "Three Precisions" management model.

General Manager Ye Zhihui believes that the implementation of "Three Precision" management can be considered in conjunction with the "6S" management and the integration of the two companies that the company has been implementing, as well as the benchmarking with advanced enterprises in all aspects to make up for the shortcomings. The implementation of the "three fine" management, must focus on the effectiveness, can never be formalized, going through the motions.

In the view of Zhang Liming, deputy general manager in charge of production work, the "three fine" management is consistent with the business idea of improving output, reducing cost and ensuring quality, which has been advocated by the company before. He summarized it as "Project 1331": production stability is a main line, around the three prerequisites of environmental protection, energy, safety, production, quality, cost three indicators, unity.

Zhang Liming told the reporter that although the mechanical equipment of Weihai Zhongguo does not have an advantage compared with the leading enterprises in the industry, the quality of products has been continuously improved in recent years. For example, the time to change the glass thickness and clean up the water bag of tin tank in the production line is much shorter than before, which is due to the importance of innovation work in the headquarters of China Glass Holdings and the activities of "rationalization proposal" in recent years, which make the enterprise have obvious progress in technology, cost and efficiency.

In addition, the key index of glass production, the total finished product rate, has been improving in the last three years." So far this year, the actual total finished product rate is 92.46%, and there are not many in the industry that exceed this number." Zhang Liming said, compared with other ordinary float glass production lines, Weihai Zhongglass often encounters not only the requirement of changing thickness, but also involves the change of color and film system during the production process, and it is already quite difficult for the total yield rate to exceed 90%.

In 2019, Weihai Zhongglass float line 3 will be upgraded and renovated, without adding new production capacity, the technical transformation of kiln, tin bath, annealing kiln and cold end and online coating equipment will be carried out to realize technical equipment and product upgrade; 16 sets of industrial robots, visual identification detection system, robot automatic small material addition system, small material micro-weighing automatic batching system and other equipment will be purchased; in the cold end of the original production line, industrial robots will be used instead of glass stacking. In the cold end of the original production line, industrial robots are used to replace the manual glass grabbing and stacking work, and the raw materials are also automatically added and weighed automatically.

"The whole production line is now more than 100 people, three shifts, one shift is more than 30 people. Most of the people are on guard posts. The degree of automation is already very high, unless there are more people during the time of repair." Weihai Zhongguo Glass Division Director Gu Zufang told reporters that the number of employees in the entire base is about 800 people.

Zhang Liming recalled that during the period of Weihai glass factory, the capacity of a flat glass six machine kiln was 200 tons/day, and the maximum number of employees was 2400. Of course, the whole industry and society are constantly progressing, and Weihai China Glass should not only benchmark with itself in the past, but also with other production bases in the group and other outstanding enterprises in the industry.

After nearly half a century of hard work, from a small local glass factory with no reputation to the largest online coated glass production base in China, Weihai China Glass may usher in a broader development space in the new period through technical and management innovation and improvement.