Scene of the melting section of the foundry

       At the noon of July 7, against the formidable heat wave, we walked in the melting section of the body shop of the foundry of Yuchai. Now, the section has achieved a daily production capacity of 600 boxes, workers are working against the clock for high production.

       Every post of the section deals with high-temperature melted iron. Melting workers have three indispensible treasures: flame-retardant clothing, protective mask and protective leg cover; tapping of melted iron, slag removing, casting and ignition, workers are so skilled. They sweated with strong will.

       "I have been smelting for nearly a decade, have a close contact with melted iron in work and have got used to it. Since January, we have succeeded in every furnace without any leakage of melted iron.? The foreman He Kang introduced proudly. He walked on a platform of the cupola and made an opening in the red-hot foundry ladle with an iron rod at one go, and melted iron mixed with spark ejected. He stood three minutes there. We learned from him that the company was concerned about staff health despite the hot temperature. To resist the high temperature, the team has prepared sufficient mineral water, and often buys fruits and cool beverage and distributes them to the workers. The foundry distributes a bottle of beverage to each worker and the team exercises the system of off-work rotation to ensure the sufficient rest of every worker.

        At the staff lounge, we felt cool under the air-conditioner. There were over 10 barrels of mineral water, and the water boiler was making herbal tea. Workers rest and drink here in rotation to dispel fatigue and prevent heatstroke.

        The other plants have also done the heatstroke work well. In the intense heat of summer, the first engine plant distributes beverage and milk to the workers. At a temperature of 32 degrees, the plant also provides the workers with cool and heat-relieving food such as red bean porridge and sweat potato soup.

        Due to the meticulous work of heatstroke prevention and the high spirit of workers, all the plants of Yuchai Group have worked in an orderly manner and increased production capacity steadily. In the first half of this year, the first engine plant achieved an output of over 170,000 engines, up 13% year on year. The cold working plant achieved record high in the output of the "four parts"-body, cylinder cover, crank shaft and camshaft. In the meantime, the group hit a new high in business performance with a sales income of RMB 19.756 billion, up 59.59% and 52.64% from 2008 and 2009 respectively.

                                            (Li Shaodong, Tang Ning)