Covering 39 subsidiaries and over 10,000 employees, Zhongtian Technology's approach to digital knowledge management.

Zhongtian Technology started in optical fiber communication in 1992, entered the smart grid in 2002, laid out new energy in 2011, and exported products to 160 countries and regions in 2020, achieving full coverage of the "Belt and Road" initiative. The company conforms to the new economic order of "clean and low carbon," striving to become a main force in the long-term race for "dual carbon," and is committed to becoming a green manufacturing technology group responsible for regional economic development. The company has received multiple honors such as "Top 100 Chinese Electronic Information" and "Top 500 Chinese Enterprises."

Zhongtian Technology has leadingknowledge managementInnovative achievements have won the 2023 China MIKE Excellence Award and will be recommended for the global MIKE Award. This issue of the "MIKE Award Case Tour" event is honored to invite Lan Yanrui, the deputy chief engineer and chief knowledge officer of Zhongtian Technology Group, to share successful experiences in knowledge management and innovation management.

Promoting the digital upgrade of the manufacturing industry, with annual economic benefits reaching 25.97 million yuan.

Over the past 30 years, Zhongtian Technology has gone through the innovation path from "introduction, digestion, and re-innovation" to "collaborative and joint innovation" to "independent innovation and even source innovation," with continuous enhancement of understanding and continuous upgrading of innovation models:

√ Introduction and re-innovation have made optical fiber preform "better than blue," with the manufacturing technology of optical fiber preform developed from scratch, from existing to superior, and from superior to strong, achieving production efficiency three times that of the original Hitachi process.

√ Joint innovation tackles the "bottleneck" technology of deep-sea optoelectronics, jointly establishing a marine systems company with Zhejiang University, focusing on the research and production of underwater connection boxes; collaborating with the Shenyang Institute of Automation, Chinese Academy of Sciences, to develop "wet plug-and-play optoelectronic composite connectors."

√ The independent innovation strategy leads the technological frontier of emerging industries, conducting forward-looking research in fields such as superconducting current limiters, superconducting cables, graphene, 3D printing materials, smart sensors, and industrial internet, leading industry development.

With the arrival of the digital transformation trend, Zhongtian Technology has also embarked on a unique innovative path in the field of digital transformation. The company has set goals and plans for technology development and transformation, confirmed by the technical committee and various industrial groups, adding 197 new R&D projects, 159 digital projects (technical transformation, information technology), and 4 service projects, totaling 360 new projects. Continuing with 147 projects from before 2021. In 2022, the total number of technology projects reached 507. The cumulative R&D investment in 2022 exceeded 1.8 billion yuan.

In terms of digitalization in manufacturing, through more than two years of promoting digitalization in the manufacturing industry, the company has achieved fruitful results in packaging automation, intelligent detection, production automation, and basic information technology. "In 2021, it directly reduced the workforce by 50 people, with direct economic benefits of 25.97 million yuan/year. In 2022, 206 digital projects were initiated, with a total funding of 210 million yuan."

In terms of service-oriented manufacturing, after nearly three years of cultivation, four major service-oriented directions have been formed: system integration, engineering general contracting, construction operation and maintenance, and testing services, with 14 projects. In 2022, five service-oriented projects were key cultivated and expanded: physical infrastructure solutions for data centers, sensing monitoring systems, operation and maintenance of marine and land cable faults and military testing, marine product design consulting services, and power storage system general/subcontracting and operation and maintenance, achieving a sales target of 290 million yuan in 2022 and 1.2 billion yuan in 2025 through talent introduction and training, capability and qualification building.

In terms of green manufacturing, the company has achieved the design of 82 green low-carbon products. In the past three years, it has promoted ten major energy-saving technologies, cumulatively saving 47 million kWh/year (equivalent to 32.9 million yuan/year) and reducing carbon dioxide emissions by 12.784 million tons/year. In 2022, 37 green energy-saving technological transformation projects were initiated, with a total investment of 30 million yuan.

The number of users of the knowledge management system exceeds 10,000, covering 39 subsidiaries.

As part of the digital transformation, the digital construction of knowledge management is also valued by Zhongtian Technology. Since 2020, the company has established a knowledge management system and built a knowledge information system. Currently, the system is basically established, and the information system is operational, covering 39 subsidiaries and departments of the group, with more than 10,406 people and a knowledge repository of 12,201 articles.

The strategic goal of Zhongtian Technology's knowledge management is "digitalization of knowledge management, helping to do things right the first time." By building the Zhongtian Technology management platform and operational system, it has determined the construction and development path of the knowledge management platform from knowledge accumulation to knowledge operation to knowledge service and finally to knowledge intelligence, as well as supporting four business directions: improving work efficiency, ensuring work quality, building talent capabilities, and driving technological innovation. At the same time, based on the strategic requirements of knowledge management, a medium- and long-term plan for 5 and 10 years has been formulated, aiming to achieve knowledge scenarioization by 2025 and knowledge intelligence by 2030, ensuring effective implementation of knowledge management.

Based on the method of "institution as the foundation, platform as the core, offline as the source, and business as the traction," Zhongtian Technology has constructed a "one platform, three supports, five scenarios" 135 knowledge management system architecture, with initial results in knowledge management construction:

1. Covers the management and platform implementation system: a comprehensive system covering knowledge activities, knowledge management, platform management, etc., providing guidance for knowledge management.

2. Integrated management platform: The knowledge management platform serves as the main system for implementing the institutional system, accumulating knowledge achievements, sharing, and displaying.

3. Focus on business and processes to carry out knowledge construction: Focus on key businesses and processes to carry out knowledge base construction, ultimately achieving the intelligence of main businesses and processes.

4. Multi-channel collection, sharing, and application of knowledge: Collect knowledge through training, learning, industry-university-research collaboration, intellectual property banks, common technology research, marketing characteristic reports, patents, competitive product analysis and comparison, and solidify it into the knowledge management platform through information technology.

"TATC + Craftsman Talent" training system empowers employees to innovate and create value.

Zhongtian Technology currently has 16,467 employees, of which overseas employees account for 14.32%. The proportion of employees with professional/university qualifications reaches 38.76%. The proportion of employees who need to develop their own solutions/work methods/protocols (corresponding to management, technical, functional, marketing, and logistics support sequences) is 42%; the proportion of personnel who accept task completion instructions (corresponding to operational sequences) is 58%.

To help employees grow rapidly, the company has established a talent training model with Zhongtian characteristics called "TATC + Craftsman Talent Training," building a training system based on different positions and roles. The company establishes standards through building a talent standard system, identifies gaps through a talent assessment system, and promotes development through a talent development system. Based on capability quality models and talent inventory results, it identifies capability gaps and formulates improvement measures according to personnel categories in line with future capability needs.

▲ Zhongtian's characteristic talent training model of "TATC + Craftsman Talent Training"

Lan Yanrui introduced that the company invests 28.64 million yuan/year in training, by building education training rooms, practical training rooms, creating Zhongtian Technology College APP, web pages, and other software and hardware resources, selecting internal lecturers, ensuring the effective implementation of training strategies. "In 2022, employees spent an average of 1.5 days/week learning and acquiring new knowledge, accounting for 30% of their work time. For senior management and technical personnel, the proportion is even higher, at 40%-60%."

In terms of information technology construction, the company has established a knowledge management platform KMS system as the core of the knowledge accumulation and sharing platform, which runs through internal OA systems, R&D management systems (RDM), intellectual property bank systems (IPM), and various databases and other internal information systems, and has introduced integrated knowledge management technology facilities from external literature management systems, achieving comprehensive accumulation and storage of organizational knowledge to facilitate knowledge exchange among employees, allowing everyone to self-service search, consult, and learn.

The company has developed differentiated performance assessments for different personnel sequences and conducts evaluation work according to the assessment cycle, accurately reflecting employee performance levels. Among them, the performance-related work for senior management is led by the company's performance management committee, while other personnel sequences are led by the performance management working group of their respective units and departments, conducting performance evaluations according to employee performance contracts at the corresponding cycles.

The company implements a multi-dimensional compensation mechanism, including annual salary assessment systems, base salary commission bonus systems, and quality and technology-linked piecework systems, as well as multiple incentive measures that combine material and non-material incentives, as well as incentives for all employees and those who strive, positively motivating employees and achieving benefit sharing while attracting and stabilizing employees to support the company's development needs. At the same time, through various measures such as the intellectual property bank, innovation and entrepreneurship conferences, special commendations, and job promotions, employees are encouraged to actively participate in management and various improvement and innovation activities, providing suggestions for the company's development. "As of 2022, the cumulative redeemable amount of the intellectual property bank exceeded 15 million yuan, and the cumulative bonuses distributed at the innovation and entrepreneurship conference exceeded 50 million yuan."

【Wonderful Dialogue】

KM Special Edition：Zhongtian's KMS platform has accumulated over 12,000 pieces of knowledge. How do you encourage employees to share knowledge?

Lan Yanrui：First, we use our intellectual property bank. Employees can receive 50 yuan for a suggestion and about 200 yuan for accumulating a piece of experiential knowledge, using this material reward method to motivate everyone. Second, there are designated tasks from relevant leadership. Third, reading and uploading knowledge on the platform will generate corresponding points, which further stimulates everyone's participation motivation through point rankings.

KM Special Edition ：How much does Zhongtian's knowledge management platform help employees in their actual work by integrating some external information databases?

Lan Yanrui：First, we need to explain why we integrate. In the past, employees did not have permission to log into the external network to consult literature materials while at work. After connecting to relevant external literature management systems, they can directly link through the KMS platform, which is very convenient and quick. Employees no longer need to wait until after work to consult relevant materials, nor will there be issues like forgetting to consult or declining motivation after work. According to the platform's data, the number of literature materials consulted by our employees has significantly increased. Moreover, we have found that after integrating external literature management systems, the authorization rate of our inventions in recent years has significantly improved, from 30-40% two years ago to 60%, with the core patent authorization rate reaching over 70%.

November 9, 2023China Knowledge Management Annual Conferenceand the 13th China MIKE Award Ceremony will be held at the Shenzhen Shentie Crowne Plaza Hotel. At that time, Lan Yanrui, Deputy Chief Engineer and Chief Knowledge Officer of Zhongtian Technology Group, will give a keynote speech, providing a detailed interpretation of Zhongtian's knowledge management innovation practices. You are welcome to attend and explore the latest trends in knowledge management with KM experts!