“Not to cut pay, not layoffs” Why photovoltaic giants can calmly deal with the winter

Since 2011, due to the European debt crisis, the global PV market demand has shrunk, and PV module prices have dropped further. At the same time, the United States, considered as an emerging market for the photovoltaic industry, filed anti-dumping and anti-subsidy investigations on crystalline silicon photovoltaic cell products originating from China after three photovoltaic companies declared bankruptcy, which made Chinese PV companies worse and fewer photovoltaic companies reported layoffs. News of bankruptcy. Yingli Group, one of the world's largest manufacturers of vertically integrated photovoltaic power generation products, publicly stated that “no pay cuts and no layoffs” were made publicly. What are the secrets of Yingli to calmly deal with the cold winter of the industry? The reporter took this question and visited the company located in Baoding, Hebei Province.

"Do not leave any employee out of the team"

The 29-year-old Yang Baojun, who graduated from computer science at Jilin University in 2007, is expected to hire Ying Li from the ordinary operator. Now he has become the technical manager of the battery shop and is responsible for debugging and checking printing equipment. Close to the Spring Festival, the company's large number of orders to Yang Baoyan busy breathless.

“Once the equipment fails, it must be repaired for the first time.” Yang Baochen told reporters while debugging the equipment of the printing grid line, he did not feel that the market downturn had an impact on the company. “Businesses did not pay a salary for employees, not The promise of layoffs is such that we believe that our employees and employees are making every effort to create benefits for Yingli. I believe that companies can overcome difficulties."

When the industrial crisis struck and many enterprises were shut down, Yingli Group focused on corporate culture training for young employees and put forward the goal of “not leaving any employees behind”. Miao Liansheng, Chairman of the Board of Directors, used “diligent, honest, ethical, and loyalty” to motivate employees to work together to weather the harsh winter of the photovoltaic industry.

Yingli Group has more than 24,000 employees and the average age is only 24 years old. After the 80s and 90s, the employees accounted for 90%. Facing this situation, Yingli builds a variety of cultural carriers and uses active and healthy ideas to occupy the ideological position of its employees. At the same time, we focus on creating progressive teams, and in the course of corporate development, we have gradually formed a “three-image” corporate culture that is “warm like a family, grows like a school, and executes like a military”.

According to Liang Tian, ​​head of the Propaganda Department of Yingli Group, the “Three Images” culture formed the unique cohesiveness, combat effectiveness and execution power of Yingli employees, which provided strong support for the development of the company.

All staff technical innovation creates "cost killer"

Zuo Hongliang once studied mechanics. After entering Yingli in March 2011, he was assigned to the assembly workshop. It has been an important factor that restricts the speed of the assembly when the junction box is installed in the assembly process. Zuo Hongliang analyzes the cause of the problem and uses the rest time to develop a new clamping flow belt pliers. The enterprise named this achievement in his name as "Zuo Hongliang" type special clamp for the bus.

Zuo Hongliang is only a microcosm of Yingli’s technical innovation. The reporter saw on Yingli’s personal named hero list, “Li Ming” photovoltaic component feeder, “Zhao Huali” type power test connector, “Zhang Xingwei” scraper, “Liu Runzhong” source bottle method and other innovations from front-line employees. The results have continued to emerge in companies.

“In June 2011, the “Zhang Xingwei” scraper was used to save hundreds of millions of yuan for the company after large-scale application of the scraper.” Song Dunyuan, chief technology officer of Yingli Group, stated that Yingli’s technical innovation team is a pyramid structure with top-level innovation relying on photovoltaic materials and The State Key Laboratory of Technology and the National Key Laboratory of Energy Photovoltaic Technology, led by three academicians of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, focused on core technologies such as photovoltaic materials, high-efficiency solar cells, and electric energy storage. The mid-range innovation relies on the company’s original 500-plus technical backbones to improve the process in the mass production process. The low-end innovation relies on front-line workers in the workshop to improve technical equipment, materials and processes.

Yingli has a complete industrial chain in the photovoltaic industry, with obvious advantages in quality control and cost control. “The improvement in technology research and development capabilities has enabled Yingli to maintain the highest profitability in the industry at the lowest selling price. Yingli is also known as the “cost killer” in the industry. Yingli’s sales in 2011 increased by 46% compared to 2010.” Song Dengyuan told reporters. "The ultimate goal of technological innovation is to produce green electricity that people can afford!"