"Qilu Evening News" focuses on leading new materials companies in Shandong

At the beginning of the new year, “Qilu Evening News” focused on Dawn with the theme of “This private enterprise developed washable masks within 4 months” based on “the innovative ability of our province’s new material industry continues to increase and cultivate a large number of leading enterprises” which aroused a strong response.

As one of the "Top Ten" industries in Shandong Province, the development of new materials has always been concerned by the society. In recent years, Shandong's new material industry innovation capability has continued to increase. The scale of the industry has continued to grow and a large number of leading new materials companies has been cultivated in many fields.

Shandong Dawn Polymer Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as Dawn Polymer) became popular due to the supply of polypropylene melt-blown special materials for mask fabric during the epidemic pandemic. As a new material company which already replaced imports in the TPV (thermoplastic vulcanized) field, Dawn Polymer focused on national important strategies and worked hard for several years until it became an industrial benchmark. At present, Dawn Polymer can be seen in many important fields such as life and industry.

Dawn entered the melt blown industry in 2003

Now the market share is nearly 50% in China

At the beginning of the epidemic outbreak, in the face of the surge in demand for masks, Dawn Polymer used the company's accumulated technological advantages over the years to rapidly increase the production capacity of polypropylene melt-blown special materials to provide support for the production of masks. For this reason, Dawn Polymer successively received thank-you letters from the State Council and the Ministry of Science and Technology.

On January 16, a reporter from “Qilu Evening News·Qilu One Point” visited Dawn Polymer in Longkou City, Shandong Province. Unlike the bleak environment and the freezing point temperature rise, the company's third workshop is full of working enthusiasm: the equipment is running ramblingly, and the entire work process is tense and orderly. After the different types of materials are supplemented, they are mixed, weightlessly measured, melted and extruded, cooled, pelletized, deodorized and homogenized, packaged, and finally formed a bag of melt-blown materials ready to be sent.

According to the relevant person in charge of Dawn Polymer, a maximum of about 1,000 tons of melt blown materials per day comes from this workshop.

In fact, Dawn has been manufacturing melt-blown materials for nearly 20 years. Thanks to years of hard work in the subdivision field, Dawn Polymer has become the compiler of the national standard "Plastic Polypropylene (PP) Melt-blown Special Materials" and ranks first in the field of melt-blown materials. Tian Hongchi, general manager of Dawn Polymer, recalled that Dawn Polymer had entered this industry as early as 2003, but the scale was small, about 20 tons per day. Even so, there were very few companies that could produce this quantity at that time. The person in charge introduced that when SARS came in 2003, the melt blown material of Dawn Polymer had been accepted by the market.

It is worth mentioning that masks themselves are a low-profit industry. In addition, for a long time, people's demand for masks is difficult to form a scale, so that the upstream and downstream industries of masks are difficult to obtain substantial profits. According to Tian Hongchi, China's demand for masks in 2019 is 6 billion, with only a few thousand tons of materials, and the remaining output is applied to other areas related to life.

The general view is that when the scale is not big, the profitability will not be very good. But Dawn Polymer still persisted in the field of melt blown materials for nearly 20 years during which there was no lack of corporation intervention while later they basically gave up production. Tian Hongchi said that at present, Dawn's market share of melt blown materials in China has 40%-50%, and it has an absolute right to speak in the industry."As long as there are certain user needs, Dawn will stick to it. This is Dawn's philosophy."

Do industrial chain closed hoop

Aiming at high-end products and leading the development of the industry

During the two-day interview, a reporter from “Qilu Evening News·Qilu One Point” found that Dawn Polymer not only achieved the ultimate in every link in the industrial chain, but also continued to extend upstream and downstream with the help of Dawn Group which is a high-quality platform.

Tian Hongchi said that Dawn has its own positioning in terms of the layout of the industrial chain, that is mainly doing material and less producing products. For example, Dawn Polymer produces melt-blown materials and extends the production of melt-blown fabric, masks, and molds. The purpose of this is to promote the company's melt-blown material research and development capabilities.

He said that the level of melt blown material will ultimately be reflected in the mask, and the quality of the company's melt blown material can be verified according to the quality of the mask.” I can also continuously verify and promote the research and development level of melt-blown materials based on the quality level of masks."

Tian Hongchi mentioned the reusable civilian masks developed by Dawn. He said that if the industry is not good the entire industrial chain will be damaged and no one can be alone. Since Dawn has technical advantages in the basic raw material of melt-blown materials it should set a technical benchmark for the entire industry.

It is reported that Dawn Polymer first worked hard on melt-blown fabric. After four months of technical research and development Dawn successfully solved the problem that melt-blown cloth is easy to attenuate static electricity and is not resistant to aging. At the same time, with the improvement of the mask production process, Dawn finally successfully developed a washable mask.

In Tian Hongchi's view this achievement mainly benefits from Dawn's closed-loop mask production industrial chain. If there is a complete industrial chain the customer will be more dependent on the company. In this way, the company will have the absolute right to speak in the industry."Such a company is the leader of a certain product so it can provide a complete set of technology to customers and can support customers to do it."

How to avoid similar competition with customers? Take Dawn Polymer as an example. Although the company has a complete industrial chain in many areas it only targets extremely high-end products in the industry to lead the development of the industry. Take masks, for example, Dawn Polymer will focus on the development and production of reusable masks."What others have seen is our past." Tian Hongchi said.

Tian Hongchi added that doing closed-loop industrial chain can bring many benefits to enterprises but not all fields are suitable for closed-loop. He said that if a company's products are monopolized in a certain link a closed loop can be considered."If he monopolizes you, you have no ability to change,  your business will not go far unless you don't want to be bigger."

Start TPV project under pressure

Finally break the foreign country technology monopoly

Don't be a radical profit-seeker and aim at the high end products from the beginning. The genes of Dawn Polymer seem to be the case.

Tian Hongchi introduced that as early as 1978 to 1983the world five largest tire factories located in Ohio, USA initiated such an idea: a material like plastic can be formed into tires through injection and molding. If this idea can be realized other tire factories will not be able to compete with it because the tire molding process is very complicated and the industrial chain is also very long.

He said that it may take several days to produce tires with traditional rubber but the above-mentioned rubber materials can be produced in a few seconds or ten seconds. In this situation, a new technological change was initiated and research and development started. And then TPV (thermoplastic vulcanized) was born. The dramatic thing is that the durability of TPV is not yet sufficient for tire production. This technology was later handed over to a petrochemical company in the United States. It is industrialized and its products are positioned in rubber products other than tires.

Tian Hongchi said that TPV has solved two major global problems in the rubber field: unrecyclable and black pollution. Therefore the emergence of TPV is favored by many fields of the national economy. However, a number of countries including China were constrained by the United States and Japan in this technology.

In this case in 1983Beijing University of Chemical Technology followed this very cutting-edge technology. Dawn began to intervene in research and development in 2001.In 2003, a key technological breakthrough was made in the laboratory jointly organized by Dawn and Beijing University of Chemical Technology, which can produce similar and homogeneous products.

After 20 years, TPV production technology has been overcome. However, in Tian Hongchi's view, it is the later industrialization that is more questioned and pressured because it directly affects the operation of the enterprise.

Tian Hongchi introduced that Dawn Polymer began to build the factory in 2004 to prepare for the industrialization of TPV. “We have experienced a lot of setbacks because Dawn Polymer was the first company in the industry to implement this project. I still remember it. There is a lot of doubts about the factory investment and building. Everyone thinks that we cannot make it, or that they think it is impossible to make it in China."

It can be expected that this difficulty will map to company performance. Tian Hongchi said that in 2005, Dawn purchased equipment and carried out commissioning. From the beginning, it was not smooth and had been losing money. This situation continued until 2008, with an overall loss of tens of millions of Yuan.

But thanks to Dawn’s long-term emphasis on technology the company believes that every breakthrough requires trial and error costs. Tian Hongchi said that if the project is successful Dawn will play a benchmarking role in technology-driven leadership.

As a turning point in 2008, the project succeeded and the product gradually matured and was accepted by the market, especially by several large American companies. "At that time, a company from United States wanted to pay 100 million to purchase this project but we firmly rejected it." Tian Hongchi said.

Empower upstream and downstream

Open the door to localization of washing machine materials

Although Dawn Polymer has built a closed loop in many areas its market is open and committed to empowering the upstream and downstream of the supply chain.

According to Tian Hongchi's introduction in the 1990s drum washing machines were only produced abroad. Dawn put forward a proposal for localization of washing machine materials through market research and provided a bridge between a domestic petrochemical company in the upstream and washing machine manufacturers in the downstream, and cooperated with both parties to jointly develop high-end washing machines special material which opened the door to the localization of washing machine materials and the cost of washing machine manufacturers was greatly reduced.

He said that empowering upstream and downstream enterprises is an important starting point for Dawn to be a century-old enterprise. "We empower customers so customers will feel that we are valuable. For Dawn, the cooperation between the company and customers will be longer and closer." In Tian Hongchi's view, in the process of win-win we firstly consider beneficial to others and secondly beneficial to ourselves. Dawn Polymer will firstly consider providing customers with technology and high-end materials rather than earning much money.

Tian Hongchi also introduced that Dawn had signed a long-term supply contract with a downstream customer. At the beginning of 2014, the upstream supplier stopped producing a certain type of product (certified special product) without notice and caused the customer's production to be difficult to continue. Dawn coordinated with multiple parties to purchase this model product at a price higher than the market price of 2,000 Yuan and still sent it to the customer at the contract price. Although Dawn’s procurement cost has increased significantly Dawn won the trust of the customer. As a result, the two parties established a "strategic partnership." At present, 70% of the plastic raw materials of this customer are purchased from Dawn.

Source | Qilu Evening News

Reporter | Wu Hao Wang Kaizhi

Correspondent | Wang Xinying Wu Yuemin