Article/"Car Man" Zhang Min
Wu Bilei, deputy general manager of FAW Jiefang, director of the Commercial Vehicle Development Institute and party secretary, will never forget that he first arrived in Changchun more than 20 years ago The situation at the Automobile Research Institute at that time.
In Changchun in the winter of 1992, it got up very late in the morning and it was surprisingly cold. When we arrived at the proving ground, we had to warm up the car first. After more than ten minutes, the car was getting hot, and the person in the cab was freezing. Even wearing a military coat could not stop him.
Wu Bilei still misses that difficult early career, "It's okay, I will be young and my body can handle it." He said it's okay to be hard, and he learned a lot from the senior R&D people.
With his passion for technology and his drive to study hard, he quickly stood out from his peers.
Today's FAW Jiefang Commercial Vehicle Development Institute has changed its name several times. From 2017 to 2019, it was called "Liberation Business Headquarters Commercial Vehicle Development Institute", and from 1995 to 2017, it was called "FAW Technology Center" , and further forward it is called "Changchun Automobile Research Institute".
No matter how the name changes, it will always exist as the only R&D base of FAW Commercial Vehicles, and Wu Bilei has experienced all these changes. After graduating from Jilin University of Technology in 1992, he was assigned to the then Changchun Automotive Research Institute. He spent more than 20 years becoming the dean and never "moved". He was promoted from the grassroots level and is an expert and project development talent cultivated purely by FAW Commercial Vehicle.
It can be said that Wu Bilei spent his entire career here and tasted all the ups and downs. Although he is born in the 1970s and can be regarded as a "young reserve cadre" of the group, his R&D qualifications are unparalleled by few colleagues.
Wu Bilei said that he was very lucky and caught up with a good era. Many older generation "research and development people" may not be able to catch up with a big project in their lifetime. The CA10 was sold for 30 years before it was discontinued. He participated in the planning of J3 and J4, presided over the development of J6 and J7, and experienced the development process of four generations of commercial trucks, growing and strengthening with every step of liberation.
Open cooperation, independent innovation
On July 15, 2019, the 1 millionth Jiefang J6 truck rolled off the assembly line. Wu Bilei, who has always presented himself as a tough guy, has red eyes. From the first car to the millionth car, he was online the whole time. The setbacks and failures experienced in the process are like the scars of a warrior. The latter can only make the victory look more glorious and convincing.
In Wu Bilei's career, no commercial vehicle can compare with the J6. At the Nanchang Business Annual Conference at the end of 2019, 66 products were lined up. The momentum shocked onlookers and fascinated the participants. After experiencing the stumbling blocks of research and development, Wu Bilei said: "The Jiefang J6 is of great significance to me personally, to Jiefang, and even to the Chinese commercial vehicle industry." When others hear this, they feel the status of the J6, but In Wu Bilei's heart, it contains memories of his youth and past events. After thousands of sailings, he has a special feeling in his heart.
J6 is a new generation of heavy truck with complete intellectual property rights. The project team led by Wu Bilei has solved more than 1,500 technical problems, achieved more than 300 technological innovations, and obtained more than 100 patents. 46 of these innovations were applied on domestic trucks for the first time, and completed the five J6 product platforms and 12 J6 products in one go. Series and more than 300 vehicle models developed.
FAW Jiefang has obtained a team that has been beaten repeatedly, can win battles, is united, and has a very different level and vision than before. Wu Bilei himself has grown into a well-established R&D leader.
Before J6, there was not much domestic demand for high-end heavy trucks. Guangdong had T850 heavy trucks imported from Japan. For high-end heavy trucks, domestic R&D personnel not only had no relevant design experience, but had rarely even seen them.
In 2000, FAW was discussing commercial vehicle cooperation with Mercedes-Benz, and FAW's own new-generation commercial vehicle project (later the J6) had also been established. Someone proposed merging the two lines, but it was immediately rejected. Li Jun, then deputy chief engineer of FAW Group and director of FAW Technology Center, believed that the core technology must be mastered by oneself.
This decision seems to be very wise 20 years later, but the dilemma faced at the time was that we did not know how to design, nor how to verify and produce.
According to Wu Bilei, the Mercedes-Benz cooperation project has broadened the horizons of R&D personnel and greatly improved their target selection. To put it bluntly, understand where the target value is and how to do it. At the same time, Mercedes-Benz has an evaluation system that serves as a reference for product replacement.
In the year 2000, Shen Yanxing, the former deputy chief engineer of FAW Technical Center, led various professional and technical personnel to come up with a planning plan. They have experience in designing second- and third-generation products, and their basic skills are also very deep. What they lack is a little "instruction." It can be said that the start of J6 was very smooth.
The earliest styling design of the J6 was carried out by the Italian IDG company, while the engineering design was jointly participated by both China and Italy, with the FAW team as the mainstay.
From 2001 to 2002, several major assemblies (engines, gearboxes, transmission shafts, front and rear axles) and other sub-projects of the commercial vehicle project were launched at the same time. FAW has also made sufficient investment in the final assembly process. In September 2003, the first batch of three A-prototype vehicles were trial-assembled and put into testing.
During this period, Wu Bilei took over from Zhu Qixin as the project general manager.
The J6 verification time is actually longer than the design and trial production time. The third-generation verification method adopted by the J6 team is an internationally accepted practice. With the efforts of Wu Bilei's team, the J6 heavy-duty vehicle successfully passed the German TüV Rheinland European standard certification and the Austrian MAGNA European 1 million kilometers durability test, obtained Russian and Iranian export certifications, and won the first prize of the 2010 National Science and Technology Progress Award.
The success of Jiefang J6 has allowed Jiefang to regain confidence in independent research and development, and also made Wu Bilei see the importance of foreign cooperation. Without joint development with overseas design companies and without learning advanced technologies from European manufacturers, we cannot develop products of the highest domestic level. Of course, the purpose of openness is to make good use of resources, but ultimately we must return to independence.
The success of liberating J6 reflects the importance of independence and persistence. Developing products to withstand loneliness requires time accumulation and technical precipitation. Wu Bilei looked back on the issue of "road choice" when J6 started. He said that he admired the older generation of decision-makers who looked far ahead and did not focus on short-term interests. The journey of liberation relies on being passed down from generation to generation. It is not only the inheritance of technical heritage, but also the confidence of the road. If you go the right way, your efforts will pay off. It seems that Wu Bilei is quite confident in the current path of liberation led by research and development.
Scars of a Warrior
However, J6’s growth has not been so smooth. Wu Bilei said that only 1,700 J6s were sold in the first two years of its launch, and sales were not good. He said that not only the marketing department, but the entire R&D team is also reflecting. J6 product positioning is relatively high, and the domestic purchasing power at that time has not kept up. J6 looks a bit "born too early".
Moreover, the preset premise of J6 design is "standard load transportation", but the market is still helping customers to build overload vehicles. In terms of transportation management, the phenomenon of fines and the absence of laws is serious. In this way, it seems a bit embarrassing for Wu Bilei's team to pursue technology closer to Europe.
Wu Bilei downplayed the process of finding problems. In just over a year, J6 quickly adjusted its configuration and achieved a sales explosion in 2009, with 64,000 units sold that year. For a single model of commercial vehicle to reach this point is an unmitigated success.
Subsequently, regulations became stricter and overloading was curbed. Customers also gradually have greater demand for high-end models. Although the initial investment of high-end models is relatively large, they are still cost-effective from the perspective of the entire life cycle due to their long lifespan, fuel economy, high reliability, driving comfort and wide application scenarios.
Wu Bilei concluded that the commercial vehicle market during this period was a combination of policy and market power. His understanding is that the right product is the right technology at the right time.
In the eyes of colleagues, Wu Bilei did not talk about difficulties to others and did not mention his difficulties to others. They say the market is the gold standard, but is the market always and always correct? Wu Bilei thought a lot during that time. "My hair turned gray the fastest at that time." Wu Bilei admitted.
It is certainly painful to predict the situation a few years from now. Wu Bilei said that he has been walking a tightrope between looking ahead to three to five years from now and balancing current market demand. The key is that he has to bear the responsibility for inaccurate predictions, and it is a heavyweight product of Jiefang, so there is actually no room for error.
In the process of adjustment, the advantages of independent research and development are highlighted. Because the R&D power is in our own hands, we can respond quickly when we see it. J6’s iteration speed is so fast that it has gradually accumulated a reputation. This laid the foundation for J6 to become the king of commercial vehicles.
What is iteration? Wu Bilei explained that users have used J6 and know everything. Every year, product advantages are inherited and shortcomings are improved. Over the past few years, word of mouth has naturally been established. So far, J6 is still an evergreen tree in the commercial vehicle market.
The success of Jiefang J6 has allowed the outside world to see that Jiefang not only has first-class R&D capabilities, but more importantly, it has found the password to effectively combine R&D and market operations.
Joint work system
The J6 was successful, but in the future it will be necessary to develop new future models for the international market and intelligence. If the original intention of J6 is to catch up with international standards, then J7 is completely born to surpass.
Therefore, it is logical for FAW Jiefang to invest more money, time and resources in the J7. In fact, the planning and project establishment of the J7 took three years, and the styling design also took one year longer than that of the J6. Due to the success of J6, time was also bought for J7.
Wu Bilei told the development team at the time that if the workmanship, quality, and performance of the J7 did not reach the international high-end level, it would rather not be released than to stick to this goal. This is not a slap in the face decision. FAW Jiefang has seen that the domestic market is very different from before the 10s, and the demand for high-end commercial vehicles is growing year by year.
In fact, the J7 launched on the market in 2018 has also achieved the goal of high-end positioning and competing against imported cars.
Looking back at the development process of the J7 now, the design standards have been set high from the beginning, and the traction manufacturing standards and supplier standards must also keep up. Chassis painting, which is invisible to customers, is far superior to previous products. Moreover, the front and rear axles and gearbox are also specially developed for the J7. After experiencing high-end commercial vehicles, the experience and capabilities of the entire team have also reached a higher level.
Not only that, Wu Bilei said that J7 used the entire company's efforts to establish a joint team at the beginning of the project. The manufacturing technology team, manufacturing process team, design team, marketing team, and supplier management team participated at the same time. When the J6 was being developed, the latter two were only involved at a later stage. J7 R&D played a key role in promoting the development institute's "joint development" concept.
In a sense, the success of J6 and J7 also benefited from the Jiefang J3 and J4 launched more than 20 years ago. Although there is still a gap according to the current quality standards, these two generations of products are of great significance from the perspective of the growth of the Jiefang R&D system. It is through the actual training of J3 and J4 that the Jiefang R&D system has taken a big step towards marketization.
Especially when J4 was developed, the Jiefang market was at a low point. Wu Bilei is very sensitive to this. He went to North China for investigation with Wang Zhicai, the current general manager and party secretary of FAW Jiefang Sales Company. The two of them traveled for more than ten days and visited the markets of Hebei, Tianjin, Henan and Shanxi. This visit experience was of great help to him in later product design.
This sensitivity to the market continued until he led the development of J5, J6, and J7. The close integration of the R&D system and the sales system, deep market penetration, and deep understanding of user needs are the reasons why Jiefang products have always been able to lead the trend of commercial vehicles.
Restraint and Achievements
J7 is still very restrained in the use of technology in the goal of facing future intelligence, and immature technologies cannot be directly used in the car. L5 level autonomous driving is the goal of J7. Now J7 has L2 level assisted driving capabilities. In April 2017, L3 and L4 level autonomous driving demonstrations were performed at the FAW Nongan Intelligent Test Site. Wu Bilei calls it "product shaping" rather than "product maturity".
Wu Bilei is optimistic about the application prospects of taking the lead in realizing high-level autonomous driving in specific scenarios. In ports and mines, this demand is clear, and Jiefang has already had such capabilities. However, he has fully estimated the difficulties. There are still some technical problems that have not been perfectly solved, and there are also questions about commercialization.
The "Columbus" plan released by FAW Jiefang aims to provide full-chain solutions from the product end to the service end. But how to build an industrial chain cannot be accomplished by one company. Therefore, we need to open up cooperation and "each company should bring out what they are good at." Wu Bilei believes that as a host company, the liberation must be done well.
Wu Bilei said that the idea of ????liberating the development of autonomous driving and connected cars is different from that of start-up companies. The latter may be considered completed once the technical calibration is successful; while the liberation of putting these technologies on products must comply with business logic. To put it bluntly, you must provide value to customers and make money yourself.
Wu Bilei said it very honestly, and rarely even mentioned the technical achievements of J7. In fact, Wu Bilei's team proposed a reliability prediction curve for heavy-duty truck models, combined with the actual development system, established the usage conditions of 95 users, and through experimental verification, ensured that the three major assemblies of the vehicle reached the world's advanced level.
“Core technologies cannot belong to others. If you buy them with money and have no control over them, it will not be good for the long-term development of the company.” Wu Bilei told "Autobot". His summary of this period of time, the conclusion is still based on his own, this is just a guiding ideology, how to do it specifically? Can commercial vehicles pursue advanced technological capabilities on the basis of improving traditional technical indicators? Can commercial vehicles use technology more boldly than passenger cars? Being cautious is not a reason to shrink back. “When user demand forces you to adopt technology, it will be too late,” Wu Bilei said.
In 2019, the L2 intelligent driving J7 has been put on the market, and in 2020, the L3 J7 super heavy truck has also been released. Wu Bilei said that this is just the beginning, and FAW Jiefang still has a long way to go in terms of intelligent commercial vehicles.
Mentioning his professional experience, Wu Bilei said that he used to focus on technology research and development, but now he spends a lot of time to sort out the process at the management level. Always build and optimize processes around product lines. This part of the work is a "multiplier" for R&D capabilities.
He does not think that research and development is hard, but feels very happy, especially when a product is successfully launched and is well received and popular. Doing only one thing well in your life is already very satisfying. (Text/"Autobot" Zhang Min) Copyright Statement This article is an exclusive original manuscript of "Autobot", and the copyright belongs to "Autobot".
This article comes from the author of Autohome Chejiahao and does not represent the views and positions of Autohome.