Quality is the way to rejuvenate a country and the strategy to strengthen it. The “15th Five-Year Plan” outline proposes accelerating the construction of a quality country. This is an inherent requirement for building a modern industrial system and achieving high-quality development. It is also a major deployment focusing on national rejuvenation and enhancing national competitiveness.
Recently, Xinhua News Agency reporters went deep into the front lines of agricultural breeding, high-end manufacturing, and automobile safety testing to explore the innovation codes and quality pursuits behind good products.
A seed, a bunch of carbon filaments, and a car are three seemingly unrelated things, but they all point to the same question – what kind of product can be called a “good product”?
■A good seed is “selected” step by step.
Two seeds with almost the same appearance and appearance may perform very differently when planted in the field. One can withstand pests, diseases, and extreme weather and achieve stable and high yields; the other may suffer losses in adverse circumstances.
“If you define a good seed in one sentence, it is green and safe, high-quality and efficient, widely applicable and high-yielding.” said Yang Yuanzhu, chief scientist of CITIC Group and chief scientist of Longping Hi-Tech Rice.
At the Longping High-tech Breeding Base, a large number of germplasm materials undergo multiple screenings under natural environments and artificial conditions every year. From heat and drought resistance to waterlogging and wind resistance, from artificial inoculation of diseases to field trials under different water and soil conditions, breeders have screened excellent materials suitable for different promotion areas through repeated trials.
After natural screening, there is precise control in the laboratory. Indicators such as variety purity, germination rate, moisture content, stress resistance, and stability must be tested one by one.
Qin Peng, deputy director of the Longping High-tech Academy of Seed Industry, introduced that the company divides the breeding innovation chain into germplasm creation, sterile line and restorer line creation, testing and trial production, pilot testing, approval, and industrial development. Through a segmented process, professionals are responsible for different modules and realize information and resource sharing.
From a germplasm material to a new variety that can be promoted on a large scale, it must go through layers of screening and repeated verification. Yang Yuanzhu said that to increase grain yields, we must rely on scientific and technological progress and continuously cultivate new varieties with high yield, high quality, and resistance to stress.
■A bunch of “black gold” is “refined” through more than 300 processes.
At Zhongfu Shenying’s high-performance carbon fiber production base in Lianyungang, Jiangsu, a bundle of carbon fibers goes through more than 300 processes and more than 3,000 process control points from raw silk to finished product.
The density of carbon fiber is much lower than that of steel, but it has high tensile strength. It is called the “black gold” in the material industry and is widely used in new energy, aerospace, transportation and other fields.
Before the product leaves the factory, scientific researchers must conduct a number of performance tests. Liu Gaojun, deputy director of the quality management department of Zhongfu Shenying Carbon Fiber Co., Ltd., said that the tensile strength of a bunch of STY80 (T1200 grade) ultra-high-strength carbon fiber samples exceeds 8,000 MPa, while under the same conditions, the tensile strength of ordinary carbon steel is about 500 MPa.
But for high-performance materials, “high strength” is only one of the indicators.
“The real value of ‘black gold’ is not just ‘black’, but more importantly, stability.” Lian Feng, deputy general manager of Zhongfu Shenying Carbon Fiber Co., Ltd., said that with the continuous expansion of application scenarios, carbon fiber quality evaluation has extended from explicit indicators such as tensile strength and tensile modulus to consistency, stability, aging resistance and multiple indicators closely related to the application of composite materials.
Liu Gaojun said that design quality represents the upper limit of carbon fiber performance, while manufacturing quality determines the lower limit of practical application of the product. Minimizing the gap between manufacturing quality and design quality is the core task of manufacturing and quality management.
From a raw silk to a roll of qualified carbon fiber, from a performance test to a complete quality management system, behind the bundles of “black gold” is the continuous control of each process and each parameter.
■A safe car must withstand the test of “crash” again and again.
At the Automotive Safety Technology Center of China Automotive Engineering Research Institute Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as China Automotive Research Institute) located in Liangjiang New District, Chongqing, a row of crash dummies are waiting for the next “extreme test.”
The vehicle crashes into the barrier at high speed, and the collision occurs only in an instant. However, before this instant, it must go through a series of processes such as vehicle preparation, dummy installation, and sensor calibration; after the collision, a large amount of data must be analyzed.
“At the moment of collision, how the body absorbs energy, whether the passenger compartment is complete, and whether airbags and seat belts can be protected in time can all be directly displayed.” said Wang Guojie, head of the Automotive Safety Technology Center of China Automotive Research Institute.
As the automobile industry develops towards electrification and intelligence, the content of automobile safety testing is also constantly expanding.
“The evaluation upgrade is not about simply crashing the car faster.” Wang Guojie said that testers set up complex scenarios such as small offsets and side collisions based on real traffic accidents. They also paid attention to different occupant protection and new energy vehicle battery safety, and combined with dummy sensing data, virtual simulation and other means to convert vehicle deformation visible to the naked eye into evaluation results that can be quantified.
From test scenario setting to data analysis, to standard research and vehicle improvement, the purpose of each crash test is to transform the risks in real accidents into technical indicators that can be measured, evaluated and improved.
From a seed, to a bunch of carbon fiber, to a car, the products are different and the industries are different, but the requirements for “quality” are the same.
Quality is not a “check” in the last process of the production line, but starts from R&D and design and runs through the entire process of manufacturing, testing and evaluation, and market application.
A screening, a parameter, and a test may seem to be just details, but they may ultimately affect a season’s grain harvest, the performance of a high-end material, or even the safety of a trip.
From “qualified” to “reliable”, from meeting standards to pursuing higher quality, the “refining” process of each product has also become a window to observe the continuous improvement and upgrading of China’s manufacturing industry and industrial development.
Reporters: Li Aibin, Mao Jun, Dai Bin
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