How the "heart" of intelligent hardware is made

"What's the point of cherishing it only after losing it!" This lyric sings out the helplessness of contemporary people in a hurry. As with many things people are accustomed to, when a smartphone's clock is out of tune, it can really trouble the owner of the phone. And it is a component called "crystal oscillator" that silently does its own thing to ensure the accuracy of the clock.

Crystal oscillator is the core component in smart phone, no matter it is call function or GPS positioning function, it must be realized by crystal oscillator sending out accurate frequency. As an important component in the circuit, it is the core component of the wireless transmission module in intelligent hardware. As intelligent hardware drives a new round of growth of electronic components, the crystal oscillator industry has ushered in new market opportunities.

As a veteran of the crystal oscillator industry, Sun Gang, general manager of Shenzhen Jingkexin Industrial Co., Ltd. (SJK for short), told "CEConline", "Although crystal oscillators are small, they represent the future of information technology. The pulse sent out is like the pulse of the heart. If you compare intelligent hardware to a robot, then the IC is its brain, and the crystal oscillator is its heart."

How did SJK create such a "heart"?

Are spare parts still a brand?

With the increasingly fierce market competition, all walks of life have begun to attach importance to brand publicity and promotion, but there are only a handful of good spare parts brands.

"Our SJK brand took three years to promote to get the benefits! At that time, many friends didn't understand it and said that I didn't need to spend money." Sun Gang told reporters, "I joined the industry. At that time, the companies that had done well in the front were like giants, and when I walked, I found that those 'giants' disappeared, but I became a 'giant'." For 20 years in the industry, today's SJK has become a global Premium supplier of well-known smartphone brands.

Sun Gang liked to play with household appliances such as radios and TV sets since he was a child. After graduating in 1989, he went through layers of screening before entering Yantai Shengli Electronics Co., Ltd. as a primary apprentice on the production line and becoming a member of the crystal oscillator industry. .

At that time, the technical backbone of the factory were all transferred from the military factory. In the aircraft, radar, base station, telephone, TV, etc., the application will be more and more extensive in the future. Therefore, from manufacturing to technology research and development, to sales management, to setting up his own company, Sun Gang has always adhered to the crystal oscillator industry.

Seeing with his own eyes the process of Taiwan's crystal oscillator companies from prosperity to decline in the distribution, coupled with the inspiration of Intel, Dolby and other successful cases, Sun Gang realized that manufacturing is in the profit chain of the entire product The most meager link in the world, only the power of the brand can make the product transcend geographical boundaries and take root all over the world.

He knows that production management is not his forte. To win, he must master the initiative to create his own brand. He carefully considered the future layout, registered his own brand, laser-marked his LOGO on all products, and used various online platforms for global business promotion.

At the Outbreak Future Export Forum held by "CEConline" in late June this year, as a guest speaker, Sun Gang told hundreds of foreign trade enterprise representatives in the audience: "I have cooperated with Global Sources for ten years. For many years, the promotion price in those years was really expensive, but the buyers were very high-quality. In order to build a brand, I had to do expensive things. Big buyers saw that we have been promoting for four or five years, and the products are constantly being sold. If you grow and grow, you are willing to cooperate with us.”

Can you successfully build a brand and build awareness just by relying on external promotion? In fact, successful brand building needs to be based on good brand promotion, and more importantly, it needs to be guaranteed by excellent product quality, otherwise it will only be short-lived and will not have long-term development.

Brands are built on business insights. Catching up with the "window" of the rapid development of mobile phones, Sun Gang's efforts soon paid off. He said: "The key to building a brand lies in the internal concept and attitude, which has nothing to do with the strength of the enterprise. The meaning of the SJK brand is to provide customers with satisfactory quality and service. Our products are assembled as parts inside the final product, although the end user I can't see it, but what B2B business faces are procurement and R&D people who generally understand technology, as long as they remember and trust my brand, that's enough!"

The trading company doesn't have its own factory How to strictly control the quality? Sun Gang's trick is to select those manufacturers who are good at product R&D and manufacturing, and have shortcomings in sales and branding. At present, there are five to six partners who have cooperated with SJK for more than ten years and focus on product manufacturing and quality.

Nowadays, SJK has become a very competitive brand in the crystal oscillator electronics industry, with a stable market share in the domestic mobile communication crystal oscillator market. With the development and growth of the company, Sun Gang created his own business model, so that his products have brand added value, the partners are profitable, and every link benefits, becoming a complete virtuous business cycle.

Is it worth paying to accompany customers to innovate?

In order to seize more innovation opportunities, SJK cooperates with many overseas design institutions to jointly develop new products. For some innovatively designed smart hardware products, even if it is a small customized order in the pilot stage, as long as the cost accounting can be slightly profitable, no one will refuse. In this regard, Sun Gang explained: "Although small batches are not profitable, in case one of the new products becomes a hit, only I can provide the core accessories to match it in the early stage, and the profit will naturally increase." It is based on this strategy. , After the mass production of some innovative products, because only Jinkexin can provide the small but crucial crystal oscillator accessories, even powerful manufacturing companies such as Foxconn Technology Group have to bring cash to SJK to pick up the goods.

However, not every innovation has such good luck. One time, in order to help an Israeli design company match a new smart hardware that can be connected to smartphones such as the iPhone and can realize payment functions, the investment in the equipment alone cost more than 200,000 yuan. Although the market prospects are expected to be good, who knows the payment function of smartphones. Realized through the NFC built-in chip, this short-lived product was quickly eliminated from the market, and the initial investment of SJK was in vain.

In order to match the internal management process of the enterprise with the innovation mechanism, SJK draws on many internal management systems of Taiwanese enterprises and adopts the ERP system to manage information flow, logistics and capital flow. Each process is entered into the system through barcodes, so that each product flow goes to which process can be seen at a glance. Although the short-term investment has increased, the inventory is reduced after the delivery time is accurately controlled, and the customer satisfaction is also improved after the management efficiency is improved. Over the years, SJK has not only accumulated many innovative customers, but has also become its important customers with world-renowned brands such as Siemens in Europe and Panasonic in Japan.

Talking about the future innovation direction of crystal oscillator products, Sun Gang pointed out that in order to meet the portable requirements of smart phones and smart hardware products such as light, thin, and compact, crystal oscillators have shifted from traditional plug-in types to more and more Small chip package, high precision, high stability and low current consumption have become a trend, and SJK is also following this trend.

Is smart manufacturing a big investment?

In the outline of "Made in China 2025", the new generation of information technology industry is listed in the first place. As the core components, there is a lack of high-end domestic crystal oscillator products and a lot of dependence on imports. In the global crystal oscillator market, European and American companies have strong capabilities in frequency design and development, but their output is small, especially military products. Japanese companies have technological advantages and strong research and development capabilities in terms of accuracy and size. They are mass-produced through advanced automation equipment, occupying 60%-70% of the global output value, and they are located in the upstream of the industry. Taiwanese companies are located in the midstream, with Taiwan Crystal Technology (TXC) having the highest output. However, Chinese mainland enterprises lack core technology and have low product profits. The annual output of crystal oscillator products accounts for 19%-24% of the world's total, 80% of these low-end products are exported overseas, and the domestic huge market self-sufficiency rate is only 20%.

In the face of such a huge gap in mid-to-high-end crystal oscillator products, Sun Gang knew that he could not change the status quo by relying on his own strength. Get a piece of the pie. In the process of foreign trade business, Sun Gang has cooperated with Taiwan Crystal Technology and Youlian Electronics for many years, and learned in advance that they are planning to jointly invest in a brand-new intelligent production plant and plan to be listed in China. It is a national high-tech located in Dongguan City. The enterprise - Guangdong Huilun Crystal Technology Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as Huilun Crystal) was born in this way. SJK has become a strategic partner of Huilun Crystal, and Sun Gang has participated in the whole process from buying land to building factories and introducing equipment. In addition to traditional production lines, Hailun Crystal has also introduced 15 fully automated production lines, which have improved the factory's intelligence level and overall production capacity.

During the interview with Whalun Crystal, the reporter saw that in addition to wafer cutting and grinding, manual operation is mainly required, and other production links have been intelligently controlled. A full set of fully automatic assembly lines imported from Japan are lined up in the tidy workshop, which organically combines all the production links, and the tiny crystal oscillator products go from raw materials to finished products in one go.

For comparison, to produce products of the same specifications, a workshop with 2 intelligent production lines only needs two employees to easily read data from the display screen, and emergency treatment is required when a red light appears in a certain link In the non-intelligent workshop, each production line requires at least 16 employees to work busy, and the product will cause certain losses due to human factors during the production process. Sun Gang pinched his fingers and said that although such an automated production line has a high initial investment, by mass-producing products with very competitive advantages, the cost can be recovered in three years.

Wailun Crystal has grabbed some mid-to-high-end market shares from Japanese companies. By leading the market to develop in the direction of high precision and small size, it has more than 20 patents for inventions and utility models, and has become a leading company in the country. It is a crystal manufacturer and successfully landed on the Shenzhen Stock Exchange GEM in May 2015. Relying on the high-quality products produced by Wailun Crystal, SJK has also successfully won long-term orders from international brands for many years, establishing its leading position in the industry.

"Made in China 2025" clearly pointed out that through the government's guidance and integration of resources, the implementation of five major projects such as the construction of a national manufacturing innovation center, intelligent manufacturing, industrial strong foundation, green manufacturing, and high-end equipment innovation, to achieve The key common technological breakthroughs that restrict the development of the manufacturing industry for a long time will enhance the overall competitiveness of my country's manufacturing industry. In the future, the industry competition of China's electronic components will become more intense. How to break through technical barriers, improve the level of intelligent production, and seize the high-end market has become a compulsory course for every enterprise.