Technological innovation - an urgent requirement for businesses

(Baonghean) - Investing in innovation and applying technology to production and business is one of the leading factors determining the capacity of enterprises. However, currently in our province, technological innovation is still limited, significantly affecting the competitiveness of products and the sustainable development of enterprises.

Currently, the ability of enterprises to invest in improving and innovating technology is still limited, but this can be considered a positive signal of enterprises in the process of finding new and advanced technologies to meet production needs; a necessary direction to be able to reach sustainable development.

Trung Do Granite Brick Joint Stock Company is one of the few enterprises that have received many annual awards for science and technology innovation in the province. Recently, this enterprise continued to receive 2 awards: Successful research on 3C coal dust to replace 4B kiln coal was awarded First Prize; Successful research and design of a technological line for the production of ceramic tile accessories was awarded Second Prize.

Production of baked roof tiles on Trung Do granite tile production line

Regarding the scientific work that won the First Prize, the Director of Trung Do Granite Factory said that every year, Trung Do Granite Factory produces more than 2 million m2 of ceramic tiles, printed tiles and various types of ceramic tiles. To produce these products, the factory must use a large amount of fuel, which is 4B coal. After many years of production, many problems have arisen such as the high price of coal, and the difficulty in finding a stable supplier in terms of quality and quantity. After having successful test results from 3C coal to replace 4B coal, the factory decided to increase the capacity of the coal pressing line from 3 tons/hour to 6 tons/hour to meet 100% of the coal used by the entire factory.

Regarding the application of the second prize-winning scientific work of Granit Brick Joint Stock Company, the glazed ceramic tile accessories product was produced for the first time in Vietnam using ceramic body plastic pressing technology, fired in a continuous room kiln. Compared to the technologies currently used in Vietnam for products shaped by pouring method, the production line at the factory has allowed for industrial-scale production, large capacity, and lower product cost.

Since the product was put into production, it has increased revenue and created job opportunities for workers in the context of the country's economy in general and the tile industry in particular facing difficulties. On the other hand, the successful production of this product has helped the factory take the initiative in providing tile accessories for the factory's ceramic tile production and trading activities in both quantity and quality.

Although not having big awards like Trung Do Granite Tile Joint Stock Company, Hoang Thi Loan Textile Joint Stock Company is also a company with many innovative initiatives in production, helping to reduce costs and increase business efficiency; such as: installing Amron lights on the surface of the C40 carding machine's sub-box invented by workers of Hoang Thi Loan Textile Joint Stock Company, limiting damage to the needle system and the frequency of production stoppage for replacement. Each time like that, the company loses hundreds of millions of VND to install another needle system.

In 2014 alone, the company had 16 initiatives applied to production, bringing high efficiency, the value of profit was not large, about 500 million VND, but through that, it met the production needs, progress as well as improved business efficiency... Yarn is a traditional product that accounts for over 2/3 of the company's total annual revenue, but with the old and outdated production line system, the products made cannot compete in the market. Faced with that situation, in 2009, the company invested 29 billion VND to install a new generation of Chinese yarn production line, with a capacity of 6,500 tons/year, product quality meeting export criteria...

Identifying technical improvement and technological innovation as the shortest path to business success, the movement to promote initiatives and technical improvement has also been strongly responded to in other businesses. Many topics and initiatives with optimal and rationalized solutions have been applied to improve production efficiency for the unit. Many initiatives applied by units in production and business have reduced investment costs for machinery and equipment, bringing hundreds of millions of VND in benefits to businesses. In 2014, Vinh City alone had nearly 2,760 recognized technical improvement initiatives, with an estimated value of about 2 billion VND.

Milk production line at TH Fresh Milk Factory in Nghia Dan.

In order to help businesses overcome difficulties, in recent times, the Provincial People's Committee has had many policies and programs to support the implementation of technological innovation. Along with prioritizing budget allocation, the province has directed all levels and sectors to create conditions for businesses to gradually innovate advanced domestic and foreign technologies to apply in production. Through incentive mechanisms to support businesses in applying and innovating technology, businesses in the province have had many innovations in production technology such as: Technology for cultivating and producing functional foods from Spirulina algae (Thanh Mai Company Limited), CNC technology on stone (Phu Quy Stone and Mineral Company), high-tech passion fruit incubation and propagation of Napaga Development Investment Joint Stock Company; drip irrigation technology of Nghe An Sugarcane Company - Nasu; Tea drying technology using hot air of Truong Thinh Tea Company... or some enterprises with high technology applications such as Nghe An Agricultural Materials Joint Stock Corporation, Thanh Mai Biotechnology Company Limited for Production, Trade and Tourism; Vinh Hoa Company Limited. Vinh Hoa herbal rice variety is granted a certificate of industrial protection for plant varieties, expanding the production area to over 6,000 hectares in the spring crop of 2014.

In particular, TH Milk Group is a pioneer in applying technology to production. Recently, after a comprehensive comparison with dairy farms across Asia, in February 2015, the Asian Record Organization (located in India) confirmed and honored TH Farm as “Asia’s largest concentrated, high-tech dairy farm”.

CNC automatic 4-corner welding machine helps increase labor productivity and high precision of Austdoor Joint Stock Company. CNC automatic 4-corner welding machine helps increase labor productivity and high precision of Austdoor Joint Stock Company.

However, in reality, for many reasons, there are not many enterprises investing properly in technological lines in production. Among more than 10,000 enterprises in the province, most are small and micro enterprises, very few are large enterprises. Small and medium enterprises have not actively devoted appropriate investment resources to innovation and application of science and technology. Due to limited financial capacity, they use outdated technology; old machinery, equipment, and technological lines, which are patchwork. Machinery and equipment in many enterprises are at a very low level, dating back to the 70s and 80s of the last century, limiting labor productivity, and making it very difficult for products to compete when integrating.

For example, Song Lam Sugar Joint Stock Company (formerly Song Lam Sugar Factory) has been operating since the 60s of the last century with an initial capacity of 350 tons of sugarcane/day and 50,000 liters of food alcohol/year, using Chinese technology. Since 1999, due to the planning of raw material areas, the factory has moved from Hung Phu (Hung Nguyen) to Dinh Son commune (Anh Son) and invested in expanding its capacity to 500 tons of sugarcane/day and 1 million liters of alcohol/year.

In 2008, with the support of the Cleaner Production in Industry Component (CPI), Nghe An Department of Industry and Trade and Vietnam Cleaner Production Center, the unit participated in both stages of clean production. Every year, the company has solutions to improve and overcome limitations in production, but in general, machinery and equipment are outdated, still patchwork, and production efficiency is not high.

Currently, in the country and in the province, there are many vocational training schools, scientific research has achieved certain achievements, but there are still gaps between research and application. Talking to us about the connection between scientific research and application in enterprises, a mechanical teacher of the Vietnam - Korea Industrial Technical Vocational College said that if training units like this school are the suppliers, then enterprises are the demand source of the technology market. However, in reality, the two sides are not connected, so many domestic technologies are available but enterprises do not use them; some enterprises even spend money to buy them from abroad at high prices and inappropriate levels, many times after investing, they cannot use them or are tricked into buying outdated technology.

Because investment in technology still has many issues to discuss, although the number of businesses in the province is large, they are mainly in trade and services. The number of businesses producing products is small, the quality of the products is not high, and the competitiveness is low.

Mr. Tran Quoc Thanh - Director of the Department of Science and Technology emphasized: To improve product quality and increase competitiveness, enterprises need to improve their scientific and technological activities, such as product research and development activities, creating new products or innovating technology to improve products. Therefore, in the coming time, we will focus on promoting and guiding enterprises on deploying and implementing mechanisms and policies for enterprises to innovate technology and equipment; prioritize the development and attraction of enterprises applying high technology, stimulating the market for science and technology, and at the same time building a roadmap for technological innovation for key product manufacturing sectors of the province.

Along with that, it is creating conditions for research institutes, science and technology organizations, universities to demonstrate and introduce new science and technology products, aiming to replicate scientific research results to develop into commodity products. Developing a system of science and technology enterprises, guiding enterprises to establish enterprise science and technology funds to invest in research and application of science and technology in enterprises. Promoting support for enterprises to apply advances, innovate and transfer technology, apply advanced quality management systems to improve the competitiveness of commodity products in the market...

Thu Huyen