In 2012, Yuchai's employed couple Qiu Yongcheng and Kang Yuxia lived a happy life. In this year, Qiu got the long-awaited car; Kang got pregnant as planned and gave birth after ten months' anxious wait. On the National Holiday of 2012, Qiu brought his parents here to show filial piety while taking care of his pregnant wife. "Amid the industrial slump, despite a decrease in our income, our life is not affected greatly," Qiu said.

"Despite a decline in Yuchai's engine sales in 2012, amid an average fall of nearly 35 percent in the industry, the share of Yuchai's six machinery plants rose by 3.2 percent, and the figure plays a fundamental role in assessing an enterprise," Yan Ping, chairman of Yuchai Group, said, adding, "The industry said Yuchai stays calm in the face of difficulties."

Yuchai's calmness is from its steady pursuit of own system.

With economic development and the perfection of highway conditions, especially the stimulation of the policy of expanding domestic demands, 2012 saw the blowout of China's auto industry, especially demands in commercial vehicle and truck segments. In this context, Yuchai achieved rapid growth, with an output value of over 40 billion yuan. However, days are not always good. Since the second half of 2011, with the weakening of the policy of fueling domestic demands, the adjustment of the industrial structure and the impact of the financial crisis that originated from across the Pacific, the machinery industry has shown apparent signs of lacking stamina and slowing down.

Facing the new reshuffle, Yuchai changed its business concept from purely pursuing scale growth to pursing enterprise safety and health, enhancing enterprise safety and constantly sharpening core competitiveness.

While strengthening internal management, Yuchai kept introducing top management talents, implemented state-owned enterprise reforms, activated and perfected the internal management mechanism to inject power into corporate development.

Since introducing the idea of lean manufacturing in October 2011, Yuchai has enhanced the preciseness of R & D to conduct real-time monitoring of manufacturing processes, increase product quality and sharpen market competitiveness.

While increasing product quality, Yuchai placed great value on segment development: in 2012, it sold 10,000 school bus engines, making it a new growth point of the coach sector; sold 20,000 gas engines, up 51.6 percent year on year; registered a year-on-year overall sales growth of 18 percent and a market share of 23 percent, up 8 percent year on year.

On January 18, 2013, Shen Jie, chief engineer of Yuchai Group, walked out of the Great Hall of the People in Beijing with a medal in hand. Yuchai's project of "Key Technologies and Industrialization of Energy-conserving and Environment-friendly Engines" won the second national prize for progress in science and technology, marking an epitome of Yuchai's long-term commitment to the R & D of core diesel engine technologies.

On December 27, 2012, Yuchai launched 7 National V gas engines and 5 National IV diesel engines, laying a solid foundation for Yuchai to occupy the market in the context of the implementation of the National V emission standards for gas engines and the National IV emission standards for diesel engines.

"We should be patient in running a business, 500 years outweighs top 500 enterprises, and sustainability outweighs scale," Yan was quoted as saying.

(Source: Li Xiaojun, Li Wei/Yulin Daily)