Survive or thrive in a changing market

Baotou Hydraulic Machinery Co. Ltd. was founded in 1993 by Wang Manyuan, president of the company. Through development expertise gained over the years, the company is not only able to provide a wide variety of products, including hydraulic oil cylinders, gas cylinders, high efficiency fine oil filtering devices, lubricant filtering devices, piston accumulators, coolers, hydraulic hose assembly, hydraulic accessories and complete hydraulic, lubricating and pneumatic systems, but it is also able to design, manufacture, install and commission the hydraulic system components and complete system equipment according to the special requirements of the customers.

“The development of each and every enterprise is a process of encountering and solving problems,” says Manyuan. Moreover, Baotou Hydraulic Machinery has been faced with increasingly complex business challenges from customers as the general machinery market continues to rapidly evolve. Manyuan explains, “Customers now have access to an expanded variety of products and their requirements for these products are continuously mounting. In particular, as hydraulic equipment is used in the key processes of iron and steel work development, customers’ product specifications and the demand for better quality continue to grow. If customers’ requirements cannot be met, then no matter how favorable the pricing, they are not likely to buy.”

Baotou Hydraulic Machinery had been using a 2D CAD system and as is known in the industry, a great deal of non-standard equipment/parts are needed during the design of hydraulic machinery. Cui Zhongqin, chief engineer at Baotou Hydraulic Machinery, notes, “2D CAD design methods not only lack the capabilities for serious design, but are also unable to verify complex product designs. To ensure the accuracy of the products we develop, the designers generally needed to spend significant time in reviewing the drawings, which not only prolongs the design cycle but also results in a high rate of error in the drawings. This also meant an inability to ensure the quality, thus a high defect rate. Such manually-driven operations made it difficult to thoroughly check the drawings.”

Meanwhile, 3D technology was increasingly being used in the upstream and downstream processes across the industry. Customers wanted to view product models in 3D – an obvious issue in a 2D design environment. Therefore, Baotou Hydraulic Machinery management felt that its 2D CAD approach was becomingly increasingly less effective, even hindering the company’s future development.