Note: The Republic of South Africa, referred to as South Africa, is also known as the "Rainbow Country". With the abolition of apartheid in 1990, the Archbishop of South Africa proposed that the forthcoming Republic of South Africa be called the "Rainbow Country", which implies that people of different races and cultures will live peacefully in this beautiful country in the future. The gorgeous natural scenery is a perfect and vivid interpretation of the literal title of "Rainbow Country".
Under the influence of the national #onebeltandoneway spring breeze, we are committed to carrying out the strategy of "five localization"（localized production, localized procurement, localized employment, localized after-sales service and maintenance, and localized management.）of CRRC and deeply cultivating the African market. After intensive and orderly preparations, South African CRRC Zhuzhou United Company (Note: The Zhuzhou Commonwealth Company, which is composed of four Zhuzhou enterprises, CRRC Zhuzhou Locomotive Co., Ltd., Zhuzhou CRRC Times Electric Co., Ltd., CRRC Zhuzhou Electric CO., Ltd and Zhuzhou Lince Group Co., Ltd., has jointly established CRRC-Transnet Rail Transit Equipment Co., Ltd. with Transnet Group of South Africa as the entity to carry out daily operations in South Africa.) was formally registered in South Africa in November 2016, and started the upgrading of the factory buildings synchronously, opening the prelude of localized production of eight key components including traction converter in 22E electric locomotive project.
(one)
"Go to South Africa " - embark on the journey
According to the project plan, in July 2017, the joint venture company must have the basic ability of localized assembly production. In April 2017, the parent company began to select the team to carry out the converter production mission in South Africa. After layer by layer selection, a "cultivation team" with "manufacturing golden eagle" super combat effectiveness finally obtained this glorious and arduous task.
After completing the procedure of going abroad, on the afternoon of June 30, they boarded the car to Changsha Huanghua Airport with excitement and hesitation under the heavy rain, and officially started the journey of working in the "Rainbow Country". Faced with the upcoming pioneering journey, they are excited about the first time to go abroad, feeling very fresh; worrying about how to deal with all kinds of challenges when facing a new environment, far away from headquarters, colleagues and family.
Traveling southward with uncertain, they flew for 14 hours, across the Indian Ocean, across the northern hemisphere in summer, and arrived in Johannesburg, South Africa, at 7 a.m. local time on July 1 (13 p.m. domestic time). The blue sky, the bright morning light and the piercing coolness are the criteria of South Africa's winter.
Everyone wrapped up their coats，went out and took the vehicles to the joint venture company in Pretoria. About 40 minutes later, they arrived at an old locomotive depot that was still under construction. On the rough road in the middle of the factory area, cars came and went, rolling up the dust. Local construction workers, in twos and threes, slowly and orderly did the work at hand. Through the construction site, the car finally stopped in front of a low pink bungalow, and they knew it was the joint venture manager's office.
They already know that this is where the future will work. From what they saw along the way, they could not help recalling the headquarters just left, and felt that the future work was not as simple as they had imagined it would be to produce converters on another site. At that moment, however, they have no time to think about it. They can only go hungrily to the newly built canteen to solve the " stomach" problem.
In the breakfast, they generally know the current situation facing the joint venture company: although the factory building has come to an end, due to many reasons of the construction side, the delivery of the nodes is not in accordance with the plan, but still in the equipment commissioning, ground construction and other work, and the main engine factory (TE) landing progress has approached 120#. According to the plan, from the 121 # car, the joint venture company must deliver the products, and the company is facing tremendous pressure. In order to speed up the progress, the company decided to carry out the work of inventory of tools and materials, process layout and so on. Because colleagues from other brotherly units arrived in South Africa earlier, the "late" cultivation team has lagged in all aspects of work.
In order to catch up with the progress, after consultation, they decided to give up the rest time and put into work immediately. Therefore, the opening of material boxes has become the task of the first day on duty, and played the "first hoe of cultivation" in South Africa.