The first electrophoretic vehicle has been completed in the Tianjin Huatai Coating Production Line General Contracting Project.

[Zou Yangfang reports] At the beginning of the new year, good news came from Tianjin. The total contracting project of the Tianjin Huatai Automobile Coating Workshop production line, contracted by the Ninth Institute, successfully completed the pre-treatment and electrophoretic washing tank work according to the planned schedule. On January 5th, around 7 PM, the first electrophoretic vehicle was produced, marking an important milestone for the industry project that extensively utilized self-developed technology, self-manufactured equipment, and a wide range of self-sourced external equipment.

This project employed self-developed equipment from the Ninth Institute, including car swing arm conveying equipment, PVC vertical pallet conveying systems, direct drying furnaces, air conditioning devices, and four-body circulation devices. Notably, the PVC vertical pallet conveying system was applied for the first time in this project. To tap into the potential of the pilot plant and enhance the Ninth Institute's self-manufacturing capabilities, air conditioning equipment, four-body heating devices, fresh air devices, swing arms, sleds, and roller beds were all processed and manufactured by the pilot plant. The project also utilized new standards for manufacturing, installation, and debugging written by the Ninth Institute for process control, achieving good results while also validating and improving these standards, further enhancing the Ninth Institute's engineering management capabilities. Another feature of this project is that most of the purchased components were sourced by the Ninth Institute itself, ensuring project quality while reducing engineering costs. These characteristics fully reflect our institute's strategic intent of 'productizing core technologies' and also pave the way for a new model of cost-reducing general contracting projects.

During the implementation of the project, leaders from the institute and branch leaders frequently visited the site to supervise operations and organized expert teams to ensure quality control on-site while resolving issues that arose during equipment installation. The project team members pursued excellence; especially on-site teams faced numerous difficulties but worked together diligently to ensure every aspect was handled well. Due to a very high proportion of self-manufactured equipment and self-sourced components in this project, the on-site project team had to manage both procurement of components by the Ninth Institute and oversee safety, progress, and quality on-site, making management more challenging than any previous general contracting projects. The number of team members reached up to 15 during debugging phases; however, each member still had to undertake a significant amount of management work. To address the issue of overwhelming workload with insufficient manpower, team members voluntarily gave up rest days; some worked overtime for 35 consecutive working days without a single day off.

In mid-October 2015, power was supplied to the equipment; compressed air, water, and natural gas were provided successively in mid-November. The debugging period lasted only one month—short time with heavy tasks. To ensure smooth completion of debugging plans, the project team used temporary power for individual equipment debugging one month in advance before formal power supply was available. As a result, equipment was able to operate manually just 10 days after formal power supply began. Due to strict quality control during installation phases by team members, no interference or misalignment quality issues occurred during trial operation and performance testing stages. Project team members collaborated closely; when technical issues arose, they supported each other and brainstormed solutions to shorten problem resolution times. To ensure smooth operation during electrophoretic washing tank processes, on-site personnel broke through professional limitations by actively checking and diagnosing faults themselves.

Completing the production of electrophoretic vehicles on schedule is just a good start for this project's debugging phase. To deliver a satisfactory project to the owner, project team members will continue to complete subsequent trial production, problem rectification, equipment acceptance work diligently to make greater contributions to the development of the Ninth Institute.