Building materials industry is one of the oldest industries, since ancient times in human life occupies a pivotal position. Since the founding of New China, especially since the reform and opening up, China's building materials industry has developed rapidly, from small to large, from weak to strong. Not only has its production capacity ranked first in the world, but its equipment and technology have now reached the world's advanced level. The continuous advancement of a new round of technological revolution and industrial transformation, including the revolutionary wave of artificial intelligence technology characterized by deep learning, promotes the continuous upgrading and optimization of the building materials industry. China Building Materials Group as the world's largest building materials integrated enterprises, as the vanguard of China's building materials industry, and how to achieve a comprehensive breakthrough in the future? With these questions, China Building Materials Magazine reporter and China Building Materials Group Party Secretary, Chairman Zhou Yu first conducted an interview and in-depth exchange.

Small material take everyone to have a look ~

-- Interview with Zhou Yuxian, Party Secretary and Chairman of China Building Materials Group

"Digitalization" and "Intelligent Manufacturing" Optimization and Upgrading

At the beginning of 2020, a sudden new crown epidemic, disrupted the normal rhythm of society, China Building Materials Group's Ningxia Building Materials to create a "I find a car" logistics platform to the plight of truck drivers to provide great convenience. Before the epidemic, a large number of drivers used face-to-face orders, the outbreak of sudden communication is blocked, many places of goods can not get in and out, the critical moment, "I find a car" logistics platform played an important role in communication, after the driver registration, you can easily find the business nearby. A proper platform not only solves the livelihood problem of drivers, but also brings great promotion to the logistics transportation of group enterprises.

Different from logistics platforms such as "freight lala", behind "I'm looking for a car" is the enterprise of the whole China building materials group. the internal transportation demand is more than more than 1 billion tons and 1 million vehicles per year. registered drivers can easily find a stable business suitable for themselves on the platform, instead of "having a hungry meal, having a full meal, eating the last meal without the next meal". Also because of this, the platform has been welcomed by the majority of drivers, only by word of mouth, the number of registrations has exceeded 360000.

At the same time, the logistics within the group is more smooth and the cost is greatly reduced. According to Lunan Zhonglian statistics, the cost of transporting tons of cement can be reduced by 3 to 6 yuan. Some cement factories do not have parking lots, and there is a national highway next to the factory area. In the past, trucks pulling cement often had to queue up for more than 24 hours, which not only consumed time but also affected traffic. Through network platform scheduling, the queuing time was quickly reduced to 36 minutes, further to 20 minutes, and may be reduced to less than 15 minutes in the future. The cement loading has also been automated and unmanned. The truck drives directly to the loading point, and the robot completes the relevant operations, and the safety is also guaranteed.

With the help of certain technical means, the platform can also obtain real-time information of the vehicle through the satellite positioning on the vehicle. If the vehicle is parked for more than 15 minutes, an alarm will be triggered. In the past, there was an occasional phenomenon of "cross-shipment". After loading the group's high-quality products, they were replaced by inferior products and then sold to end customers, which seriously damaged the group's reputation. With the "I Find a Car" platform, "cross-shipment" was completely eliminated.

In Zhou Yuxian's view, there are many collaborative businesses within the group that have huge collaborative space, such as collaborative procurement, research and development, internationalization, etc., which will bring about a very considerable cost reduction, but it is not easy to achieve at the moment, and logistics and transportation are relatively simple. The group produces 0.4 billion tons of cement every year. If each ton of cement can reduce the transportation cost of 3 yuan, it will bring a net profit of 1.2 billion yuan. In addition to bulk products such as glass fiber, glass, gypsum board, etc., it can reduce the cost for the group. 2 billion yuan, this piece alone can bring a net profit growth of nearly 10%, which is very considerable. Moreover, such cases will also play a good leading role in the group's digital transformation and upgrading and the establishment of collaborative concepts. Everyone will gradually establish Internet thinking, better understand and recognize synergies, and bring more model innovation and synergy to enterprises. benefit.

In 2020, the platform achieved a transportation volume of more than 0.5 billion tons, with a total transaction volume of more than 1 billion yuan, and a full-year logistics revenue of 0.482 billion yuan in 2020. "I look for a car" is a silhouette of the group's vigorous promotion of business collaboration and cement Internet. It is also in line with the group's development concept of "high-end, intelligent, and green", and has a good room for growth.

Intelligent is beautiful, but from digital to intelligent, the production of traditional building materials is far away from it. The premise of digitization and artificial intelligence is that there are massive amounts of data. From the domestic general situation, a standard cement production line, the system displays the operating status in real time, and the relevant data six months ago are usually automatically covered after six months, leaving only vague memories. Remaining in the mind of a certain party. At present, the new "intelligent" cement production line in the industry has greatly improved its ability to collect and store data, but the control strategy is basically the traditional linear response mode, far from the time of nonlinear intelligent response and intelligent benefits.

The reason why artificial intelligence can defeat the top human Go players with a crushing advantage is precisely because it has undergone a large number of "learning" of the game, and then sublimated the chess power higher than human beings. In Zhou Yuxian's view, there are now about 10000 data retrieval points on an intelligent production line. If accumulated and coordinated with the improvement of algorithms and computing power, the traditional cement production control level will definitely be revolutionized.

In the new round of scientific and technological revolution and industrial transformation, intelligent manufacturing has become the commanding height and main direction for countries all over the world to seize development opportunities. Insight into the general trend of the development of information technology, in July 2020, China National Building Materials Group and Baidu signed a strategic cooperation agreement. The two parties are in smart logistics, digital mines, smart factories, industrial driverless driving, new data center infrastructure, corporate AI brains, etc. Carry out in-depth cooperation in various fields to jointly accelerate the transformation of Chinese enterprises to digitalization and intelligence, and promote "Made in China" to "Made in China".

China National Building Materials Group and Baidu signed a strategic cooperation agreement

Zhou Yuxian is very optimistic about the cooperation with Baidu. First, with the help of artificial intelligence technology, the software investment of the system can be greatly saved. Second, the massive data accumulated through sampling and analysis can be revitalized through artificial intelligence technology, which can give full play to its maximum value. When a cement factory is made, the "experience" gained by artificial intelligence can be copied horizontally to other similar production lines, and the application scenarios of other products are the same. This is also of great significance to Baidu and China's industry: China Building Materials Group has the largest production capacity and a wide range of production scenarios in the global building materials industry, and the cooperation between the two will provide a model for the intelligent upgrading of manufacturing in China. promote the integration of more enterprises with artificial intelligence, promote the high-quality development of China's economy with new manufacturing, and have a positive and far-reaching impact on the "made in China 2025.

Positive Interaction between "Innovation Chain" and "Industrial Chain"

China National Building Materials Group's new materials business is booming

China National Building Materials Group has many national-level scientific research institutes, covering all aspects of inorganic non-metallic materials research, representing China's highest research level in these fields and the most authoritative scientific and technological innovation system. Through the implementation of innovation-driven strategy, the group has achieved a number of influential landmark scientific and technological achievements, forming a world-class complete set of technology and equipment clusters in new dry cement, high-end cementitious materials, silicon-based new materials, gypsum board, high-performance glass fiber and carbon fiber, megawatt wind turbine blades, thin-film solar cells, etc, ten new materials such as high-performance fibers, advanced composite materials, polymer membrane materials, photoelectric glass, special functional glass, high-end industrial ceramics, graphite-based carbon materials, and artificial crystal materials have been formed, which have made important contributions to social and economic development and national security.

A series of "stuck neck" technologies, materials and equipment have successively become the focus of national attention, and China Building Materials Group has also gathered a lot of attention. As the only central enterprise in the building materials industry, China Building Materials Group is based on the implementation of General Secretary Xi Jinping's "deployment of innovation chains around the industrial chain and the layout of the industrial chain around the innovation chain.

Zhou Yuxian knows that the success of a product research and development requires huge investment and a long time, and to cultivate a profitable industry, it requires greater all-round efforts. Not only that, scientific and technological research and development is also full of various unknown risks. The traditional scientific research and development model invested by the government or enterprises has been difficult to meet the needs. Zhou Yuxian proposed the new concept of introducing venture capital for research and development.

He said that the cultivation of a project needs to go through several stages, such as germination, growth and maturity. In the early stage of the project, it can be "sold" through VC (venture capital) and PE (private equity investment). In this way, it not only raises the funds needed for development, but also disperses the risk of project failure. When the project is mature, it will be "bought" back, although it is more expensive at this time, but "don't care about expensive, but care about the long-term development of the industry." China National Building Materials Group is a state-owned capital investment company and must shoulder the national responsibility of promoting the long-term development of the material industry. He believes that this is the logic of industrial investors. However, if we use the logic of PE and VC investors to make industrial investment, the logic is reversed. In fact, it also curbs the path of scientific and technological innovation. Nine times out of ten, we can't do it well or not.

In 2020, China National Building Materials Group's new materials segment achieved good results. Wind blades have increased by more than 50%, and the supply of products exceeds demand. Even the leader of a downstream enterprise called Zhou Yuxian directly to ask for help to increase the supply of glass fiber and photovoltaic glass. Even the specific specifications and quantities are listed in detail, "anyway, give me a little, or I will stop production". The carbon fiber that the group has insisted on investing with high intensity for many years has finally changed from loss to profit, with an expected profit of 0.1 billion yuan.

In terms of basic scientific research, a number of "stuck neck" materials have made good progress. Products such as low dielectric glass fiber and ultra-thin electronic glass for 5G communication have passed the manufacturer's tests. Fiber composite materials have a good development momentum. Image light guide identification materials have been industrialized. A number of artificial crystals, special ceramics and other materials have also entered the growth stage. Different from the previous passive waiting for major engineering supporting needs, in response to the urgent needs of the semiconductor industry, the group invested 1 billion yuan in the form of a fund to assist the research and development, pilot test and preliminary industrialization of the third generation semiconductor materials, striving to provide ready-made "shelf products" as soon as possible ".

Zhou Yuxian said that in the face of complex situations and complex environments, it is even more necessary to maintain strategic determination and insist that Qingshan will not relax. The group's long-term persistence in the field of new materials is being transformed into considerable benefits. Compared with basic building materials, new material products should have higher profit margins. With the continuous expansion of the market scale, it is expected to reach the basic building materials in the next 3 to 5 years. The level of profit is equivalent.

He believes that scientific research "must be able to endure loneliness" and cannot blindly pursue speed. Today's profitable new material projects were launched more than 10 years ago. A new project will not have running water within 3 to 5 years, and you must keep investing in it. money. "Enterprises like ours, on the one hand, maintain a relatively stable value-added rate, and at the same time solve strategic goals for the country. This is also a must for the long-term stable development of the group." In his view, the persistence of carbon fiber is a case of the group's "endurance of loneliness". If the group did not vigorously protect the seed, it would certainly not be able to sprout and grow normally, let alone grow into a towering tree. "Strategic seeds must be held by the group for a long time".

The wind sneaks into the night, moistens things silently. The full accumulation of quantitative change is bound to bring about qualitative change.

"Overall" and "actuarial" complement each other

For small and medium-sized enterprises, "one trick, eat all over the sky", have a unique skill, with one or two products can be independent of the world, rest easy. This is not the case for a behemoth like China Building Materials Group. If the company wants to develop steadily and orderly and healthily, it must make meticulous and thoughtful arrangements in many aspects such as manpower, material resources, production management, and cost control. Any small link defect may lead to Various serious consequences. In other words, it is not easy to be the head of any large enterprise, especially for the central enterprises that are related to the national economy, people's livelihood and even national security.

As the person in charge of a super-large enterprise, he must not only take charge of the overall situation, but also plan carefully. Only by calculating and making careful arrangements can he lead the enterprise to develop healthily and remain invincible.

Zhou Yuxian to reporters, "during the epidemic also did one thing", is to better fight the epidemic, resume production and stable employment, China Building Materials issued several issues of epidemic prevention and control debt, objectively reduce the financial costs of enterprises. As for the financial structure of the enterprise, Zhou Yuxian believes that "it is necessary to think year after year, month after month, and day after day, in order to make the financial structure more and more improved". According to reports, after a series of professional operations, although the company's total debt has not changed much, financial expenses have decreased by 1.2 billion to 1.5 billion yuan over the same period last year, equivalent to a net profit increase of nearly 10%.

Since the group issued bonds for the first time in the bond market in 2007, it has issued a total of more than 600 billion billion yuan so far. It has maintained friendly cooperative relations with many banks and securities companies. The company's performance and development status have also been unanimously recognized by market investors and external institutions.

In 2020, the China Interbank Market Dealers Association released a new and efficient financing tool TDFI. China Building Materials Group and China Building Materials Co., Ltd. both have this qualification. 21 companies including China Building Materials Co., Ltd. and National Railway Group became the first batch of first-class mature companies (TDFI companies). TDFI has very strict selection conditions. After being selected, it applies a more convenient registration and issuance and information disclosure mechanism. This also means that China National Building Materials has been widely recognized by the bond market, and its popularity has been further improved. In the future, the efficiency of debt financing instruments will be further improved., Financing costs will be further reduced, and the debt structure will be further optimized, providing a strong guarantee for the high-quality development of the group.

In 2018, China National Building Materials Group became the second batch of pilot enterprises of state-owned capital investment companies. According to the deployment of the State-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission of the State Council, pilot enterprises must, in accordance with national strategic requirements and development positioning, increase capital investment, implement mergers and acquisitions, etc., to concentrate resources to core main businesses, key areas and advantageous enterprises, and continuously enhance industry control and influence. And the right to speak.

In Zhou Yuxian's view, there are many tools to optimize the financial structure, just like the formulation and equipment of materials. For example, tax planning, in short, is to build building blocks, it is particularly simple to understand, enterprise integration is not.

China National Building Materials Group has been at the forefront of reforms and has formed a typical mixed ownership structure. After the reorganization of the "two materials", it has brought obvious problems of horizontal competition. It is a great challenge to integrate these different "mixtures" into "compounds" that obey the unified strategy. With the accumulation of time, "the difficulty coefficient of finding the balance point is getting bigger and bigger", and "solving the equation" is becoming more and more difficult. For example, eight cement companies are integrated under one enterprise, and the new material sector solves the problem of horizontal competition between boulder and Sinoma Technology. These seem to be not difficult, but in the end, a huge problem of the one-dollar n-power is formed.

In 2020, the Group decided to significantly compress or orderly exit the trading sector, focusing on the main business. All of a sudden, the trade volume of 10 billion yuan was suppressed, which means the negative growth of overall income, which is not a small pressure. Zhou Yuxian believes that focusing on the main business is the requirement of SASAC and the inevitable requirement of high-quality development of enterprises. In the future, anything that is not related to the main business of CNBM will be withdrawn.

Ten years ago, the author once conducted an in-depth interview with Zhou Yuxian, and the "Problem Solver" written by the author caused a warm response among readers. Ten years later, the details of the article have been blurred, but his image of "Xueba" who took the college entrance examination in 1979 is still impressive. It was the most difficult year since the resumption of the college entrance examination, and the math papers were even more difficult, with few passing, while Zhou Yuxian handed in almost full marks.

It is both a challenge and an achievement. Perhaps it is because of his own advantages in mathematics, or because he likes to read reasoning books at ordinary times, he always starts with logical reasoning. Logic is right, sooner or later to make money; Logic is wrong, naturally not sustainable. Not afraid of complexity, but afraid of being at a loss. As long as it is logically clear, there must be a way to do it.

"Knowledge Wide" and "Wisdom Collection" Achieve New Journey

When human beings put on their wings, they become angels. Tiger grows wings and is invincible from now on. The Boxer's broadsword and spear were defeated in front of the foreign guns and cannons of the Eight-Power Allied Forces; since the birth of the aircraft, the war has developed from a two-dimensional plane to a three-dimensional three-dimensional, and the traditional iron wall has instantly lost its defensive value. Regardless of the confrontation between the two armies, the operation of enterprises, and even all aspects of life, as long as they can reach a higher latitude, it means that they have taken the lead in development and have the guarantee of success.

After graduating from university in 1983, Zhou Yuxian was assigned to the Institute of Artificial Crystals and engaged in the research of superhard materials. At the same time, the friends who came to the hospital soon found that he was not only diligent in his work, but also ambitious. He was soon valued by the leaders and entrusted with important tasks. He successively served as director of the office, assistant to the dean, vice president, and dean. At the beginning of his work, it was difficult to sell the products in the hospital. He, who was a material major, changed to do sales. At one time, the supply of products was in short supply. After serving as an assistant to the dean, he was in charge of financial work. After reading a lot of books, he taught himself relevant financial knowledge, which made sufficient accumulation for the later entry into the financial field.

In 2000, he was appointed as the deputy general manager of Sinoma Group (then called China Africa Group), in charge of the restructuring of the group, and worked with his colleagues to resolve many historical problems faced by the group one by one, and contributed to the establishment of Sinoma International and Sinoma. The successful listing of Technology has made positive contributions.

The reform experience of the former Sinoma Group was highly appraised by the leaders of the State-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission. Zhou Yuxian, as a witness, was invited to exchange the restructuring and listing of state-owned enterprises at the training course organized by the State-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission. In November 2010, when the "SDIC No. 2" China Guoxin Holdings Co., Ltd. was preparing, Zhou Yuxian, who "had been a dean, a group executive, and participated in the restructuring and listing", naturally became the best candidate., Was entrusted with the important task and transferred to the deputy general manager of Guoxin Holdings.

Guoxin Holdings is one of the central enterprises supervised by the State-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission of the State Council. It is a professional state-owned capital market-oriented operation platform. It has fund investment, financial services, asset management, overseas investment and other sectors to provide a full range of capital for the reform and development of central enterprises. service. On this top-level brand-new platform, Zhou Yuxian started a new round of growth like a duck to water. He participated in the establishment of Guoxin International Investment Co., Ltd. and successfully completed many domestic and foreign mergers and acquisitions and restructuring projects. Try to wade out an effective way of marketization, specialization and international operation of state-owned capital. He even personally acted as a trader in some projects, such as investing in Cambridge University Science Park, introducing a large number of innovative enterprises to settle in, and the project was a great success.

Speaking of the main gains in Guoxin, Zhou Yuxian said modestly: I know how to do finance, how to invest, and I have really become good friends with foreigners. Because I deal with it every day, I know what the financial world is concerned about. The deepest feeling is that the real economy is very different from finance, which serves the entity and the entity supports it. The issuance of epidemic bonds is also one of the manifestations.

Zhou Yuxian won the Tsinghua University EMBA Outstanding Teaching Award

With the development of science and technology, the division of labor in society has become more and more complex, and the division of disciplines has become more and more subtle. While effectively integrating human intellectual resources, it has also formed higher and higher barriers between disciplines, leaving their own professional In the field, there is not much difference between experts and illiterates. In the face of tall barriers, as an engineer, you may not have a clear feeling, as long as you do your job well, but as a person in charge of a super-large enterprise that needs to take charge of the overall situation, this has become an obvious shortcoming.

In the early days of reform and opening up, learning from developed countries was jokingly called "crossing the river by touching the United States". After 40 years of hard work, the country's reform and development has entered a new historical period. China has become the leading industrial country, and there are fewer and fewer examples to learn from. We must seek unprecedented development with brand-new ideas. In the past, diligence was possible, but now we must rely more on wisdom; in the past, we hoped to learn and imitate, but now we must innovate and subvert.

There is no ready-made experience to follow, out of the industry's vision, "cross-border" experience has become a unique advantage. A year ago, the leadership of China Building Materials Group was adjusted, and Zhou Yuxian became the party secretary and chairman of the group. Some readers tried to find him from the article "Problem Solver" to return to the internal logic of the building materials industry, but found that it was only deja vu, but it was not what it used to be. After filling the gaps in the 10-year record, the answer becomes clear. Ability and resume are both important components, and Zhou Yuxian, who has these elements at the same time, was entrusted with an important task, which is naturally a logical result.

To truly understand the building materials industry, one must have years of immersion and a broader vision. Cross-border experience, the harvest is not only an extra "craft", but also the sublimation of the old line. Zhou Yuxian "Ji Zhi" Building Materials Group held a big ideological discussion from top to bottom, established the two "4335" guiding principles of the group and the headquarters, pushed forward the sorting out of the main businesses and strategies of the secondary companies, and let the three major sectors accelerate their progress on their respective runways.

2020 is extremely extraordinary and is destined to be a year recorded in global history. The sudden outbreak of the once-in-a-century outbreak of neo-coronary pneumonia has plunged the world economy into the worst recession since the end of the Second World War, and the overall escalation of containment and repression in some countries ...... Although China's economy is facing an unprecedented "triple shock", China National Building Materials Group has accomplished its national mission brilliantly and delivered a beautiful answer sheet. Under the leadership of Zhou Yuxin and the group's leadership team, China National Building Materials Group has opened a new page in the history of development, and will continue to write a new chapter on the journey of building a world-class investment company with global competitiveness in the field of materials.

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China building materials worth looking forward