I. Introduction

　　The Xianfeng Machine Tool Technology Center is a product research and development institution established by the company. It serves as the core of the company’s technological innovation and the foundation for technological progress, playing an important role in the company’s development. The Center has always adhered to the guiding principle that science and technology are the primary productive forces, striving to implement the Scientific Outlook on Development and using technological innovation to ensure sustainable development; it upholds the quality policy of “Pursuing development through specialization, refinement, uniqueness, and innovation; maintaining credibility through strict management; forging high‑quality products to create renowned brands; and making customer satisfaction our ultimate goal”; it prioritizes the application of scientific and technological productivity to meet market demands for products, tracks industry technological developments, formulates long‑term technological innovation strategic plans, clarifies the important position of the Technology Center within the company’s organizational structure and its core tasks, and refines the Technology Center’s main responsibilities. By formulating medium‑ and long‑term strategic development directions for the Technology Center as well as short‑term key R&D targets, the Center continuously enhances the company’s independent innovation capabilities through scientific and technological progress, actively develops new products that are well‑suited to market needs with a market‑oriented approach, aligns the Technology Center’s R&D efforts with the company’s rapid development, not only elevating product quality but also strengthening the company’s leading position in industry competition.

II. Organizational Structure of the Technology Center

The Xianfeng Machine Tool Enterprise Technology Center was established in the late 1980s. It passed the national-level technology center certification in 1993 and was reclassified as a Guizhou provincial technology center in 2003. After years of development and continuous improvement, it now boasts a complete organizational structure (see the figure below), providing organizational guarantees for the advancement of technological innovation. The center currently employs nearly one hundred staff members, including more than seventy technical personnel, with over fifty designers holding intermediate or senior professional technical titles. Among them are a group of highly skilled experts and technical backbones specializing in CNC roll grinders and centerless grinders, forming an R&D team with a well‑balanced age and knowledge structure.

III. Status of Institutional Development at the Technology Center

The basic management system of the Technology Center is implemented in accordance with the Q/XFG13-97 Xianfeng Machine Tool Enterprise Standard, fully standardizing and clarifying the center’s basic functions and management system. Over the years, through a series of supplements and improvements to the Technology Center’s management system, the center’s scientific and technological management work has embarked on a path of scientific rigor, standardization, and institutionalization. Successive additions and refinements have been made to the systems for recruiting, hiring, evaluating, and probationing scientific and technological personnel, as well as to the systems for bottom-ranking elimination, performance bonus allocation within the Technology Center, and project initiation management for technological innovation. These efforts have established a fair, impartial, and comprehensive incentive mechanism and allocation system, effectively motivating scientific and technological personnel to actively engage in innovative work and encouraging the enhancement of their innovation awareness.

In terms of talent recruitment and development, the center regularly invites industry experts to the facility for technical exchanges, while also sending design personnel to universities and renowned domestic and international enterprises for specialized training.

The corporate technical committee, built on the foundation of the technology center, has been in place for many years. The committee brings together relevant enterprise leaders and leading experts in specialized technical fields to conduct irregular technical consultations, feasibility studies, and evaluation activities on key technical topics such as the company’s technological innovation strategy, product development planning, product testing, and problem‑solving initiatives. It also prepares feasibility study reports, detailed market analysis reports, and corresponding product proposal documents and project task books for the enterprise’s technology reserve projects and major development projects—including provincial- and city‑level technological innovation projects.

Intellectual property related to key technologies in product development has always been a critically important aspect for enterprises. The company has successively obtained more than 40 patents, including national invention patents, utility model patents, and trademark registrations, issued by the National Intellectual Property Administration and its branch offices (among which are 4 national invention patents). Independent technologies account for over 60% of the company’s flagship products, such as roll grinders and centerless grinders.

IV. Status of Collaborative Innovation

For many years, our Technology Center has consistently adhered to a technology R&D and innovation model that integrates industry, academia, and research. We have collaborated with research institutions such as the Beijing Machine Tool Research Institute, Xi’an Jiaotong University, the Guangzhou Machine Tool Research Institute, Beijing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics, Chongqing University, Harbin Institute of Technology, and Guizhou University to carry out research projects on key technologies for a series of CNC grinding machines, laying a solid foundation for the independent development of Xianfeng CNC machine tools.

At the same time, the Technology Center maintains close relationships with major enterprises such as Baosteel, Shougang, Chongqing Iron & Steel, Southwest Aluminum Processing Plant, Dingsheng Aluminum Co., Ltd., Nanjing Marine Machinery Factory, Nanshan Aluminum, Shandong Chenming Paper Industry, Siemens, and Rexroth through consulting services. This allows the Center to stay abreast of the actual needs of these key customers—representatives of their respective industries—while jointly exploring the latest developments in advanced foreign technologies. Through thorough communication and exchange regarding any issues identified in the company’s products, the Center effectively promotes the continuous development and advancement of the enterprise’s technological innovation capabilities.

V. Status of Infrastructure and Informatization Development

After years of development, the enterprise’s technology center laboratory has now established a solid foundation for experimental research and development. The electrical testing lab is equipped with complete, standardized, and specialized machinery control box installation and commissioning equipment, capable of completing the assembly and commissioning of nearly one hundred roll grinding machines and centerless grinding machines’ electrical control boxes each year. A Siemens CNC system operation training platform has been in place for many years and is responsible for providing technical training to user operators. The machine tool laboratory is equipped with a simple roll grinding machine spindle head adjustment platform, which handles spindle head no‑load operation and experimental testing.

In recent years, with the continuous advancement of computer and network technologies, the Enterprise Technology Center has, in order to align with the national strategy for manufacturing informatization and shorten product design and development cycles, organized and implemented the construction of an information management network system centered on CAD/CAPP/BOM/CAM/PDM/OA/ERP. The center has successively acquired a batch of advanced and sophisticated testing equipment, including dual-frequency laser interferometers and three-coordinate measuring machines, with total investments exceeding 10 million yuan. Thanks to the implementation of modernized management practices such as CAD/CAPP for product development, and the establishment of a networked platform for product development, information resource sharing has been realized. As a result, the Technology Center’s infrastructure and working environment have been greatly improved, and it now boasts a complete system of process equipment and services required for CNC grinding machine product design, development, inspection, and measurement. This has further enhanced the Technology Center’s work efficiency, its capacity for technological innovation, its market competitiveness, and its overall level of enterprise management, creating favorable conditions for better fulfilling increasingly demanding product development tasks.

VI. Project Outcomes

For a long time, in order to enhance the technological content of its products, strengthen its innovation capabilities, elevate product quality, and bolster its competitiveness in the market while continuing to maintain the leading position of the Xianfeng brand in China, the company has successively completed development tasks under national, provincial, and municipal technology innovation programs—through both in-house R&D and industry–university–research collaborations—for such projects as the XF-125×60 large-scale CNC external cylindrical grinder, the XF-80×25 specialized grinder for the outer cylindrical and end faces of automotive rear axles, the MK8463A/MK84250/MK8440A/MK8420 CNC roller grinders, and the 3MK6025/MK1020 CNC centerless grinders. The company has obtained more than 40 national patent certificates for core technologies underlying its flagship products and has successfully developed over 50 new products in total. The output value of new products now accounts for more than 10%. These high‑tech products have given the company a significant edge within the industry; they not only generate strong economic returns but also provide the nation with advanced, high‑quality technical equipment. This has comprehensively enhanced the image of Xianfeng employees as pioneers who are constantly forging ahead and driving innovation, while effectively strengthening the company’s market competitiveness and its capacity for sustainable development.