Though it is late autumn, Guangzhou is still beautiful with flourish flowers and green lushes. Newly decorated and dressed up, this city, is waiting to embrace the 16th Asian Games to be held during November 12 and 27 with a fresh look.

On the service car of Yuchai's service office in Guangdong, Gong Zhihua, the chief technician from Yuchai's Customer Service Centre and the chief coordinator for the service guarantee for the Asian Games pointed at the bus traffic outside the car window and full of pride told the reporter, "More than 8000 buses serving the Asian Games in Guangzhou are equipped with Yuchai engine, accounting for over 95% of the total." With a bit pause, he continued, "of course, the responsibility on our shoulder to secure the service during the Games is also the heaviest."

With the largest proportion of the engine number, the heaviest responsibility to secure service, and the most compact schedule ahead, Yuchai is faced with another "hard battle" matching the transportation service guarantee task during the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games. As the Asian Games coming around the corner, is Yuchai's service guarantee team ready?

Yuchai's service guarantee team for the Asian Games: We're ready!

Yuchai's service guarantee: pursuing non-limitedly higher excellence

Liu Wei, deputy director of Guangzhou Municipal Transportation Committee, once highly praised Yuchai's service guarantee team for the Asian Games as "pursing non-limitedly higher excellence, earnest and responsible". Among all the service guarantee units, Yuchai shoulders the heaviest responsibility. However, since Yuchai has delivered service guarantee duties in a timely, fast, well-planned and implemented way and always come to serve ahead of others in the pre-security period, it has been established as an example for other enterprises by the Guangzhou Municipal Transportation Committee.

Led by the general manager himself, Yuchai is a service enterprise with the soundest organization assigning the largest number of personal to secure transportation services. Serveing as the team leader, General Manager Li Tiansheng has established the soundest organization to secure all the transportation services for the Asian Games, and appointed former director of the Guangdong Office Huang Weibin to be the assistant to General Manager dedicated for the service guarantee work during the Asian Games who will be in charge of the on-site direction and coordination during the Games to secure services. Meanwhile, a technical service team of about 50 members has been built, a feasible guarantee program have been put forward, and a series of pre-Games service guarantee tasks are being urgently yet orderly implemented.

Debugging and testing the service car for the Asian Games

Yuchai is also the earliest enterprise to finish the hand-over process of the service guarantee tasks with Guangzhou Transportation Committee. On August 7, deputy general manager of Yuchai Machinery Co., Ltd. Wu Qiwei and other executives effectively communicated with and took over the service guarantee duties from the Guangdong Transportation Committee. In early September, general manager Li Tiansheng personally went to Guangzhou for job handover with the Guangdong Transportation Committee and further coordination and communication on the service guarantee matter. Yuchai's technical service guarantee team was already in place before September 24, and was divided into 6 service teams to serve different stations in the city according to the characteristics of public transportation in Guangzhou. Each weak, personnel will be sent to participate in the communication session with the Guangdong Transportation Committee.

On October 26, on behalf of Yuchai's service guarantee team, Guangdong Office reported to Gu Tangsheng, president of Yuchai Group who came to check on the work progress, "After our constant efforts, the pre-Games guarantee services have been basically in place and pushed forward in an orderly manner awaiting the Asian Games". 

Implementation of three phases of pre-Games guarantee services 

Yuchai is carrying out the Pre-Games guarantee services in a tense atmosphere yet orderly manner. From September 10 when the first phase was officially launched, Yuchai started training technical service guarantee teams and conducted a comprehensive inspection on more than 8000 buses in Guangzhou which are equipped with Yuchai engines.

More than 8,000 buses in Guangzhou are equipped with Yuchai engines including gas, hybrid, and diesel engines, among which gas engine accounts for more than 90% of the total, with diverse varieties and complex models. The comprehensive inspection is a complex and fragmented process. Especially the 1000 buses that directly serve the Asian Games do not allow the slightest carelessness. Each of them must be carefully examined to ensure smooth and trouble-free operations. The technical service guarantee teams are Bus Security Team I, Bus Security Team II, Bus Security Team III, Hybrid Bus Security Team, Guangzhou Passenger Bus Commissioning Team, and Motor Guarantee Team, distributed in Tianhe District, Baiyun District, Haizhu District and other stations. With the help of Guangdong Office and Guangzhou Franchised Company, the teams have successfully completed the first phase of the mission.

The second phase of the mission puts more emphasis on the key guarantee matters in addition to routine maintenance. Starting from October 25, this phase mainly focuses on the commissioning of the 500 Yuchai engines newly installed into buses before operation, and follow-up with the run-in adaptation of hybrid and other new technologies in the operation. The 500 new engines were delivered with the vehicles until late October, but required to be completely debugged by October 31. It is the first time for Yuchai's new hybrid technology to be put into bulk use in Guangzhou, but there is only one month left for run-time debugging, essential as it is, which brings huge pressure and difficulty for the technical service guarantee personnel.

The third phase starts from November 1, shortly away from the Games. So the clock is tensely clicking to finish up the final preparation for the opening. All the service guarantee personnel frequently visit the maintenance stations outside each venue to get familiar with the actual situation and conduct drills for accessory security. All such works are part of the final preparation for the big event.

Accessory security is a key issue of all services. The speed of accessory delivery directly affects the length of service. Therefore, the guarantee team flexibly applies the successful experience from the Beijing Olympic Games to the service guarantee for this Asian Games, and adopts several master tricks to make sure that everything goes well. The first trick was used in late October when the accessory guarantee team conducted practical exercise themed with "solving problems within 2 hours"which means that from receiving the demand for accessories, the accessory guarantee personnel have to deliver the accessories within 2 hours to the accurate destination to ensure timely solution to the problem. The second trick is to transform the accessory guarantee patterns and the team has creatively built a "mobile service accessory kit" containing more than 100 commonly used parts and accessories which can meet the general maintenance requirements. During the Asian Games, specially assigned personnel will be dedicated to a specific sports venue in their allocated cars. In this way, the distance of accessory delivery will be significantly shortened so as to achieve fast service and the problems caused by long distance between the accessory warehouse and the city and the sports venues will be effectively eliminated.

Feng Wu, manager of the Guangzhou Franchised Company and chief coordinator for accessory guarantee said that to ensure adequate amount of accessories for the Asian Games, the amount of the required accessories, Guangzhou Franchised Company has built a dedicated warehouse of Asian Games guaranteed accessory inventory worth of RMB 2 million. Now the inventory has already expanded to RMB 9 million and is still growing. Meanwhile, the accessory guarantee team stands ready 7/24 to delivery accessories at emergency occasions.

Yuchai guarantee team: jointly delivering services for the Asian Games

Teamwork is the most important factor to the guarantee services for the Asian Games. Huang Weibin, assistant to General Manager dedicated for the service guarantee work said with pride that Yuchais service guarantee team is a highly united and reliable team. Due to its outstanding performance, Yuchai has been praised many times by Guangzhou Municipal Transportation Committee which calls on other enterprises to learn from Yuchai. 

Yuchai's Asian Games guarantee team includes Guangdong Office, Customer Service Centre, Guangdong Franchised Company, Engineering Research Institute, Application Development Department, Technical Support Department, Engine Factory I, Engine Factory II, and technical service elites selected from the service stations all over China. They come together from different units and departments to serve a shared goal and jointly shoulder the heavy guarantee responsibility.

Since personnel from?Guangdong Office and Guangdong Franchised Company are more familiar with the local conditions, correspondingly they shoulder the heavy responsibility for logistical service support and accessory security tasks. Tang Zhanghua, director of Guangdong Office emphasized time and again at the united meeting between Guangdong Office and Guangdong Franchised Company that everyone shall have the overall concept in mind to "unconditionally obey whatever is needed by the Asian Games" guarantee services", and that all personnel shall cooperate with each other to solve all problems arising during the event before judging whose responsibility it is supposed to be. Guangdong Office, the franchised company and the personnel at the service stations are subject to deployment at any time if necessary to support the service guarantee work.

The technical service guarantee team of 40 members selected from all units under the headquarters and local stations is Yuchai's main force active in the front line of Asian Games guarantee works. They guide and allocate the resources of the service stations, committed to solving any and all engine-related technical problems faced by Guangzhou's bus companies and OEMs. With an average age of less than 30 years old, this technical team is mainly composed of young members born after the 1980s. They are young, energetic, steady, professional, dedicated, and hard working. 

Yuchai's guarantee service personnel go out to deliver services 

Asian Games service car equipped with Yuchai engine

Gong Zhihua is the "boss" of these young people. The former chief coordinator of Yuchai services for the Beijing Olympic Games now arrives at Guangzhou to fight the hard battle on the Asian Games? battlefield. Also born after the 1980s, Gong is a young technician in chief. He looks mischievous and non-serious, but he works hard with great caution, carefulness and responsibility, and plays the "glue" role, always rushing between Guangzhou Transportation Committee and troubleshooting sites. He is very familiar with all the team members, deploys them and divides tasks reasonably according to their own characteristics and capabilities. With rich experience and adequate preparation, he looks calm and confident for the Asian Games this time. Each week, he organizes team leader routine meetings to communicate and solve difficult problems and convey new trends to effectively ensure the efficiency and direction of the team. He understands perfectly that "one who wishes to be good at his work should sharpen his tools first", and the "Service Guarantee Handbook", "Mobile Service Accessory Kit", and "Rescue Tooling Kit" he has innovatively proposed have all rapidly improved the team's productivity.

Pang Xiao, services manager of Guangdong Office, began to be engaged in gas engine service work in 2003, and has just been transferred from Guizhou to Guangdong this year' to serve the Asian Games, where he is in charge of the management and deployment of more than 70 service stations in Guandong. Although he is frequently waked up by mid-night phone calls, he never shows the slightest sign of fatigue. Instead, he is ready every day to ensure the service operation of the entire region. Pang Shaoli, director of Customer Service Center's Southern China District, is called by Gong Zhihua the technical rock? personality among all the team members. Just like Pang Xiao, he is also one of the few gas engine-related technical elites. By self-study, he has proficiently mastered the English operation interface of gas engines, and is the chief specialist in gas engine service field, serving as an example for the young team. 26-year-old Wang Yu is the youngest director-level engineer. With outstanding professional and technical capabilities and rich experience, he is also the "merrymaker" in the team. Zhang Liyuan, director-level engineer of the Motor Guarantee Team, once participated in the service guarantee works for NPC &CPPCC many times as well as the Beijing Olympic Games, so he has plenty of experience in ensuring the smooth operation of large-scale activities. Although his wife is about to give birth soon in faraway Yulin without enough care at home, he still adheres to his post every day in spite of his concern for her. Li Jiafeng, team leader of Bus Security Team I, quite as he is, he has been widely praised by bus companies related to Bus Team I due to his outstanding communication skills and unmatched technical and professional capabilities at work. Bus companies related to Bus Security Team II have the largest number of subsidiaries, so it is a hot potato to handle. However, the team leader Cheng Yan can handle all the works in a perfectly orderly manner with her excellent coordination and communication skills. Liu Liye, team leader of Bus Security Team III, can reasonably arrange assignments and lead the team to finish inspection of all vehicles and strengthened inspection of vehicles directly serving the Asian Games ahead of all other peers with her strong execution ability.

Since technical service support personnel are faced with random working time and scattered work locations, they usually hastily grad something to eat every day. To finish up work before 8 pm and have a real dinner is a luxurious aspiration for them. This group of "backpackers" who comes out to work early in the morning and goes back late deeply impresses the store owners along the street. The large backpack is everyone's "treasure chest", often containing laptops, related tools, simple dry food and a piece of clean clothes. The service guarantee personnel staying in the Tianhe District live only 10 minutes away from the landmark building "waistline"--uangzhou New TV Tower, but they never have the spare time to have a close look.  In order to perform their duties to ensure the trouble-free services, they have not taken a break for two months and they spent the Mid-Autumn Festival and the National Day working overtime in Guangzhou.

However, every day when dealing with customers, they show adequate vitality, extreme patience and meticulousness. They perfectly demonstrate the excellent quality of Yuchai's technical service personnel and are unanimously praised by Guangzhou Municipal Transportation Committee, bus companies and OEMs, which has erected an outstanding flag branded as Yuchai service over the sky of the Asian Games. In light of the absolute service advantage in Guangzhou's bus market enjoyed by Yuchai, Guangzhou Mahui Bus Company which had never used the machines of this brand also ordered some products from Yuchai before the Asian Games. At present, each bus company in Guangzhou is using Yuchai engine.  

On November 5, the vehicles for Guangzhou Asian Games have already been in place and the Guangzhou Asian Games traffic is officially started to await the opening of the Games and then Paralympics. For Yuchai's guarantee services team, the really severe test has just begun.

"A journey of a thousand miles begins with one step". After the full and orderly preparation in the pre-Games period, Yuchai guarantee service team already has a card up their sleeve for this test. Responding to the care and inquiry from all over the society, they announce full of confidence: "please be assured we are ready!"(Text by Zhu Xiaojie, photo by

(Zhu Xiaojie and Wang Zhen)