Turning manufacturing into intelligent manufacturing: mobilizing intelligence in R&D

Editor's note: 15 years ago, EVOC started as an agent for foreign industrial control products. Fifteen years later, EVOC has become the champion of China's special computer industry, and has taken the third place in the world in the special computer industry; while more than 20 companies of the same scale 15 years ago, most of them have fallen today.

Since 2006, EVOC's overall revenue and net profit have achieved double-digit growth. Especially in the first half of 2008, the company was flying against the wind under the macroeconomic downturn, achieving an overall revenue of 419 million yuan, a 170% increase over the same period last year, and a net profit of 42 million yuan, an increase of 31%.

"Continuously invest in research and development. From the beginning of the research and development product cycle, marketers are introduced to accurately grasp customer needs and products are half a step ahead of the market." Sun Wei, general manager of EVOC Intelligence, attributed the company's success to the Mobilize intelligence in research and development, inject flexibility in manufacturing, and exert resourcefulness in sales.

The high-performance, high-reliability, and high-stability special computer products that EVOC mainly focus on are different from civilian computers. It requires advanced computer technology, semiconductor technology, electronic technology and specific applications in various industries. Combined, the product features a technology-intensive, capital-intensive, highly decentralized and innovative knowledge integration system. To gain market leadership, companies must master cutting-edge technologies and invest heavily in research and development.

Like Shenzhen's well-known high-tech companies ZTE and Huawei, EVOC has invested 10% of its total annual sales in research and development in the past five years. There are three main purposes of R&D investment: first, to recruit a large number of R&D personnel, whose total number reaches 1,400, accounting for 30% of the company's total number; second, to invest heavily in purchasing R&D equipment from abroad; experimental work.

EVOC has also tasted the benefits of continuous investment. 30% of the company's products are updated every year, and more than half of the new special computer products in China are launched by the company.

The company's products account for 20% of the world's newly launched specialty computer products. "Our goal is that in the next few years, half of the world's special computer new products will be launched by EVOC," Sun Wei said.

Establish a pre-research-under-research-improved R&D system. In the research and development system of EVOC Intelligence, the pre-research department is mainly responsible for collecting the latest developments in the global industry, including product and technology research and development. Through research and collection of information, they put forward the company's product development direction and market forecast, so that the company's next product development has accurate goals. The research personnel develop and launch new products according to the pre-research projects reviewed by the company. According to the feedback from customers of the products already sold and the new demands of the market, the improvement personnel will update the old products and prolong the life of the products.

The pre-research department includes technical personnel, marketing personnel, and marketing personnel. The size of this team has increased from a dozen people last year to more than 30 people. They submit quarterly reports and monthly industry updates to management and R&D staff.

"Learn to look at the enterprise from the customer's point of view. At the beginning of the product cycle, introduce marketers to tell engineers and designers what customers want and what price they are willing to buy through market research and analysis." This is management The success of General Electric Company (GE) summarized by master Drucker (Peter Drucker) is also applicable to EVOC Intelligence. In EVOC Intelligence, both technology orientation and market orientation are emphasized. Although the company requires R&D personnel to master the latest technology in the special computer industry, but at the same time requires them to devote their main energy to developing products that are more suitable for the market, just half a step ahead of other competitors in the industry.

Failure is tolerated, and the performance of R&D personnel is linked to results. All technological innovations are risky and have the potential to fail. Some companies just see failure and are unwilling to invest. "EVOC's experience is that failures are rare. We advocate that reasonable failures are allowed in innovation activities, and R&D personnel are allowed to be bolder. You have done all the work, worked hard, and ultimately failed, and the company will bear the consequences. ," Sun Wei said.

If product innovation cannot be completed on schedule due to changes in R&D personnel and shortage of purchased materials, and such reasonable failures, EVOC Intelligent adheres to a tolerant attitude and a relaxed environment, and will not hold R&D personnel responsible . For the assessment of R&D personnel, EVOC Intelligent believes that completing 70% of the R&D work is qualified.

EVOC implements a sales commission system for new products developed by R&D personnel, mainly in stages. New products are always on sale, and the commission period given is two years. After two years, new products must be developed, and in two years, the more sales, the higher the income of the R&D personnel. This also promotes engineers to make products closer to the market when developing products, with higher design quality, better performance, and higher user popularity.

Participate in the formulation of national standards and aim at the forefront of industry development. The development of China's special computer industry has maintained a relatively rapid trend, but it has always lacked corresponding national standards. Most enterprises can only refer to similar foreign standards in the process of production and sales, and follow in the footsteps of others. In order to reverse this passive situation, since 2005, EVOC Intelligent has invested a lot of manpower and material resources to promote the drafting of the national standard of "General Specification for Microcomputer Part 3: Industrial Application Computer".

In December 2006, the National Information Technology Standardization Technical Committee officially held a seminar on this national standard in Shenzhen. As the leading force in the drafting of this national standard, EVOC Intelligence has standardized the basic technical requirements, test methods, product inspection rules of special computers in the production and sales process, as well as the standardization of industrial control products in various aspects such as identification, packaging, transportation, and storage. A detailed proposal was made. The meeting finally unanimously reviewed and approved the standardization implementation draft proposed by EVOC.

"The national standard is only a threshold for entry. For a high-tech enterprise that wants to be an international leader, it is possible to achieve great achievements only by insisting on continuous innovation on this platform." Sun Wei said, "EVOC's intellectual property work provides a guarantee for innovative achievements. At present, we have more than ten national-level scientific research achievement appraisals, nearly 200 patents and software copyrights, and dozens of them are under application. We are also applying these The patented technology is transformed into more special computer products."