In this undated photo, workers make face masks at a workshop of BYD's factory in Shenzhen. (PHOTO PROVIDED TO CHINA DAILY)
The speed of China's manufacturing industry has again amazed the world, as automobile-makers, smartphone assemblers and electronic-item producers quickly changed tack to churn out medical masks.
They've successfully assembled high-end engineers and technicians to develop mask-making machines in a couple of days, reflecting the adaptability of Chinese manufacturers.
In Shenzhen's Longgang district, where more than half a million mobile phones used to roll out each day, the scenario has changed, with a workshop set up a month ago to produce specifically what virtually every country is clamoring for nowadays - face masks.
The facility has now emerged as one of the world's biggest mask producers, with a daily production capacity of 5 million masks as well as 30 bottles of hydroalcoholic gel.
It took BYD just seven days to complete the research and development on the mask-production equipment and manufacturing processes
Vehicles to face masks
The company behind it is BYD - a Chinese automaker and one of the nation's largest manufacturers of electronics products. It switched to producing medical protection gear in late January as the novel coronavirus outbreak began sweeping across China.
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But its plans clashed with the start of the annual Spring Festival holiday, making it difficult to obtain mask-making equipment, and forcing BYD to manufacture its own machines. Chairman and President Wang Chuanfu led a dedicated team of directors from different business divisions and more than 3,000 engineers to get the ball rolling in research and development, design and processing.
It took the company just seven days to complete the research and development on the mask-production equipment and manufacturing processes.
The workshop used for assembling mobile phones was converted into a purifying room for mask production. And more than 90 percent of the 1,300-odd components along the assemble line were produced by BYD itself.
"The high-end mobile phones we produce have strict quality and waterproofing requirements. It also comes with our high standards for molds, automated equipment and manufacturing processes," said Zhao Jianping, general manager of BYD's Quality Division.
"In other words, the equipment we already have offers precision and quality that's much higher than what is commonly required to produce masks," he said.
According to quality inspection authorities, the quality of BYD's masks is significantly higher than that of other similar products in the industry.
This undated photo shows a box of N95 face masks produced by BYD, a Chinese automaker and one of the nation's largest manufacturers of electronics products. (PHOTO PROVIDED TO CHINA DAILY)
Another manufacturer, bellwether Gree Electric Appliances - one of China's largest makers of air conditioners - said it took the company about 10 days to develop mask-making machines and put out its first batch of products in the market.
Gree Electric Chairperson Dong Mingzhu said the company had set up a subsidiary in February to produce anti-epidemic supplies with high-standard purifying rooms and related checking facilities.
A building that was used to make electronics components was converted into a face mask factory with an extremely high level of cleanliness.
During the trial production, we realized the acute shortage of masks in the market, so we immediately turned to producing masks as well.
Dong Mingzhu, Chairperson of Gree Electric Appliances, China
According to Dong, the company had initially planned to make face mask machines instead of masks. "During the trial production, we realized the acute shortage of masks in the market, so we immediately turned to producing masks as well."
She said the factory could produce about 150,000 masks daily, with capacity set to reach 1 million by the end of March.
Extended adaptivity
In addition to masks, Gree produces anti-virus purifiers specially designed to cope with the coronavirus outbreak, and other medical gear such as protective goggles and infrared radiation thermometers.
"We've been developing the technology on anti-virus purifiers for a decade, and this time, it took us about two months to finally put the technology to use."
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The purifier can eliminate the virus in isolation rooms, testing laboratories and offices of medical staff in one hour. Since the Spring Festival holiday, Gree has made about 100 purifiers that have been used in hospitals in Hubei province's capital, Wuhan - one of the hardest-hit cities in the pandemic - and more are expected to be delivered to schools and nursing homes.
In the Guangxi Zhuang autonomous region, it took SGMW - a joint venture between General Motors and Liuzhou Wuling Motors - just one day to complete the structural design of a mask-making machine and 76 hours to produce the first one through the joint efforts of 120 experts and elite technicians.
Since late February, 12 production lines have gone into operation, with a daily output of more than 1.7 million pieces.
The swift transformation ability of Chinese manufacturers has demonstrated the advanced state of the nation's overall manufacturing prowess over the years, said Danny Mu, a principal analyst at Forrester.
Although medical-mask production isn't complicated, Mu said he's glad to see the transformation, which showed the importance of adaptability.
He believes the industry's integrity and a strong supply chain have played instrumental roles in the process as most of the components in the supply chain can be obtained domestically.
