On August 12, the 4th study and inspection group of Yuchai Technician Association (YTA) in 2011 set out to Guangdong Zhaoqing Power Co., Ltd. (ZPA) for study and investigation. The group of over 70 members is Yuchai's largest outward technician investigation group this year.
 
After a five-hour ride, the technicians arrived in Zhaoqing, After lunch, without a break, the technicians headed to ZPA and were warmly received by the company's technical staff.  

The technicians in Yuchai's blue uniforms visit ZPA's workshop 

ZPA is an enterprise specialized in manufacturing cylinder jackets, cylinder covers, chain box covers and other major parts of vehicle engines, with an annual production capacity of 10 million pieces of cylinder jackets. The company has maintained cooperation relations with Honda for a dozen years, and has absorbed Honda's advanced technology and management experience. It is well known in the country for manufacturing precise aluminum alloy parts with unique gravity casting and low-pressure casting technology, and ranked among China's top 100 foundry enterprises in 2010. Its major products matching Yuchai engines include cylinder covers, cylinder jackets, 4W engine blocks, 4W cylinder covers, etc. 

In the company of ZPA's technical staff, the technicians visited the cylinder cover processing line, cylinder jacket processing line, cylinder jacket foundry and machining workshop, observing the manufacturing process of blocks for YC4W engines in close range. The technicians were deeply impressed by a lot of advanced foreign equipment and foundry technologies on the site, such as the five high-grade foundry lines consisting of medium-frequency furnaces from the U.S., six-station static foundry machines from Belarus and 50 centrifugal casting machines. More admirably, no workers on production lines looked up, but stayed focus on their work. 

Following the visit, the technicians exchanged ideas with ZPA's technical staff on common problems such as foundry difficulty, core making and daily equipment maintenance, and consulted about the management experience introduced from Honda to promote the common technical and management progress of the two sides and achieve win-win. 

All the technicians considered the study and investigation at ZPA to be fruitful. Technician Zhong Rixiang said, he was emotional to see the company's workers use those handy burr-removing tools, and will think about how to improve and innovate our similar tools to humanize them after returning. 

(Huang Ling)