NMS Character | Welder Li Pingnan: Details Make the Difference Between Success and Failure

“Profession—excellence in technology, efficient and normative; Innovation—diligent in thinking，novelty-seeking and change-seeking…”Every morning employees of NMS read aloud corporate vision, mission, business philosophy and core values in morning reading and simultaneously strive to practice these concepts in their work.

Li Pingnan is the monitor of welding class 1 in the sheet metal workshop of NMS. In May 2010, he became the member working in the sheet metal workshop by virtue of abundant welding experience. Over past fourteen years, he has consistently dedicated and disciplined himself as a welder, continuously honed and improved personal skills, innovatively proposed the work performance improvement plan as a good thinker, helped company realize cost lowering and efficiency increasing, facilitated “Quality NMS” construction and cultivated a batch of welding talents for the company by “mentoring”.

Li Pingnan is a learner, mentor and witness of NMS’ development.

1.Experience & Witness

Li Pingnan when he was young

In 2010, Li Pingnan sent his resume in the talent market and knew NMS from the on-site recruitment fair. He recalled that he decided to enter NMS because he deemed NMS as a promising company when saw four workshops in the factory area and the workshop leader expressed satisfaction on his skills in testing welding. Logically, every new recruit has a three-month probationery period but he could receive his salary equal to regular employees because of technical proficiency. With continuous development of NMS, his salary has increased from more than 1900 Chinese yuan in the first year, to more than 3,000 Chinese yuan in the second year, to about 8,000 or 9,000 Chinese yuan, and even to more than 10,000 Chinese yuan at some time.

He recalled that corporate monthly output value amounted about several million Chinese yuan when he initially entered NMS but it sometimes reaches over 100 million now. The cutting workshop has changed from the brick house with a tiled roof to a bright plant. Besides, Workshop 5 and a factory have been newly constructed and great changes have taken place in the appearance of the factory area. Once he lived in the red brick dormitory building where each room was shared by three employees and had three military folding cots side by side. Although the dormitory building had electric water heaters and ceiling fans, the overall environment was still shabby. The building was demolished after he had lived there for two years. The newly constructed dormitory prominently has better living environment where each room was equipped with an air conditioning, all furniture included. As for processing tools, they previously used thyristor-type CO₂ gas shielded welding machines which were cumbersome in use and only could weld Q235 and stainless steel sheet. Subsequently, they were replaced by inverter-type CO₂ gas shielded welding machines which could be used to weld a wider variety of products including copper-aluminum alloys. In addition, each welding station is equipped with a large air compressor station replacing an air compressor in the past and the station can realize “three gases ready for welding” by pipe connections. It is more and more convenient to work in the workshops with continuous improvement on the MES system and equipment introduction including laser cutting machines and robotic arms.

In 2012, Li Pingnan became the monitor of a welding class. In order to continue to pass on NMS’ excellent tradition of “apprenticeship” and “mentoring”, Lin Pingnan takes initiative to enhance communication with new recruits in daily work, set examples step by step personally, selflessly imparts experience, creates a strong atmosphere of comparison, learning, chasing, help and surpassing, gradually fosters the working style of “learning by doing”, “practice during learning” and “comparing during practice”, and effectively contributes the overall improvement on new employee’s the comprehensive quality and professional abilities. So far Li Pingnan has taught 5 or 6 apprentices.

2.Carefulness & Patience

Li Pingnan states that all processes utilized in manufacturing a product are crucial and meet the requirements of drawings, “details make the difference between success and failure”, and welding quality directly influences product quality. He deems that the production task is the optimal assessment method.

Welding Class 1 is mainly responsible for welding crushing equipment including jaw crushers, gyratory crushers, cone crushers, horizontal shaft impact crushers and vertical shaft impact crushers. Among the equipment, Li Pingnan deems that it is the most difficult to weld medium thickness plates and cast steel components for a jaw crusher rack with the highest weld seam requirements which include avoiding defects including gas porosity, slag inclusion, cold cracking and lack of fusion. This is because excessive internal defects in the weld seam easily lead to cracks in the jaw crusher rack and even affect the equipment service life. Therefore, it indirectly imposes strict requirements on the welding worker’s technical proficiency and level of attentiveness.

“Complete welding in the internal cavity and subsequent root cleaning, conduct a dye-penetrant inspection for around 5 to 10 minutes, clean off the penetrant with a solvent, thoroughly wipe the surface, and then apply a developer. Use air gouging to clear air holes and lines, ensuring that the weld bead meets the qualified welding standard. Proceed to weld the external side panels, then grind the heat-affected zones with a bench grinder, apply a coupling agent, and finally have a quality inspector to test the work with an ultrasonic non-destructive testing instrument. If the continuous length of defects exceeds the rejection line, the item is deemed as an unqualified product and will require rework.” In a series of complex processes, no step can be overlooked or neglected and only manufacturing products as “qualified goods” can be considered as successful completion. Otherwise, the product requires reworking which it not only consumes time and effort, leading to wasted manpower costs, but also directly affects personal income. However, Li Pingnan proudly states that the products he works on have a pass rate of over 90%.

3.Innovation·Progress

In daily work, Li Pingnan leads by example, leads the way in research, motivates team members to improve together, and contributes ideas for cost lowering and efficiency increasing in the company.

During the welding trial manufacturing process for NMS’JC series jaw crushers, Li Pingnan actively performs worker’s initiative, combines many years of work experience with theories, successfully overcomes difficulties including numerous casting defects, significant metal dust from gas gouging, high noise levels, high welding labor intensity, and the considerable welding difficulty after multi-round trial manufacturing, and finally finds the most suitable wielding material for ZG series castings—ER50-6 solid-cored welding wire as the replacement of EW-71 flux-cored welding wire. After replacement, the usage cost of every kilogram of welding wires reduces by about 1.5 Chinese yuan. It saves welding material cost, improves the pass rate of UT level I non-destructive testing, greatly increases work efficiency and lowers rework cost. The suggestion offered by Li Pingnan has been applied and promoted, widely receiving favorable reviews.

The tool used for welding can affect product quality. The main beams for the screen welded by manual gas shielded arc welding are prone to vibration-induced cracking. Under Li Pingnan’s leadership, they find that using automated submerged arc welding produces more ideal results after multiple trials by team members. Submerged arc welding has a gas track and higher precision, resulting in smooth weld seams with increased strength and less likelihood of cracking. Thus, they utilizes their existing equipment to effectively solve the product quality issues without increasing costs.

Partial honors acquired by Li Pingnan

Benefit from his continuous endeavor, his performance has been recognized by NMS and the team monitored by him has acquired many honors: He once sequentially acquired honors including 2012 Annual “NMS Quality Model Worker”, 2015-2016 Annual “NMS Quality Model Worker”, 2018 Annual “NMS Craftsman”, 2019 Annual “Quality Model Worker”; one of “100 Pioneers” selected during the “100 Pioneers and Top 10 Talents” selection activity organized by Wanli Administration Bureau in 2021, “First-Class Welding Craftsman” honored during the 2021 “Quality Month” Welding skill Competition &“NMS Craftsman” selection activity, and “NMS Craftsman” honored after he won the first prize in the 2022 Welding Skill Grand Tournament; the welding team led by him has been honored as one of  “Plan-achieving Excellent Team” in 2020,Nanchang “Worker’s Vanguard” in 2022, and the third prize of NMS TCC Result-Sharing Team in 2023…

4.Solidarity & Learning

For many years, Li Pingnan has always kept the corporate mission of “create leading technology, make excellent products and enhance efficient services” in mind, has prioritized improvements on his own business capabilities and has selflessly taught valuable experience to new employees.

Li Pingnan deems that the most fundamental quality for a welder is to become hardworking and enduring with patience because slow work produces fine results. When you encounter issues, calm down to handle them rather than becoming panicked and disorganized. Strictly follow process requirements & steps and ensure uniform consistent weld seams with consistent angles in compliance with requirements and visually appealing during working.

Only a solidary group has fighting capability so Li Pingnan expects the members of welding class 1 to become more solidary and work well together. And he also expresses hopes for corporate development and expects NMS to continuously grow and to become stronger, improving employee’s living standards.

“The welder’s income is quite decent but this job is tough and dirty so fewer youngsters are willing to do it now. Some youngsters come but finally leave here because they cannot handle it.” As he mentions the above point, his words are filled with regret and disappointment but later he hopefully says that NMS is in preparation for introduction of intelligent welding and may attract more youngsters to come here. In addition, he also indicates that he plans to learn intelligent welding technology because only through continuous learning can one adapt corporate development needs, keep pace with the time and avoid being left behind.(Liu Xiaohan)