A bullet train stops at the platform of Beijing West Railway Station in Beijing, capital of China, Dec. 26, 2022.
BEIJING: When CRRC Corp Ltd (CRRC), China’s leading train maker, signed a light rail vehicle supply contract with the Monterrey Metro Bureau of Mexico more than three years ago, the company faced an immediate challenge concerning supply of components due to the Covid-19 outbreak.
As a result of serious disruptions to the global supply chain caused by the pandemic, the adoption of domestically manufactured elastic wheels became a matter of urgency for CRRC in implementing the contract.
CRRC managed to deliver the trains, and did so ahead of schedule.
In January 2022, CRRC’s smart bullet train featuring automatic driving made a debut by galloping at 350km per hour on the Beijing-Zhangjiakou High-speed Railway, setting a world record.
Tailor-made and designed by a CRRC subsidiary for the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics, the Fuxing smart train also demonstrated high accuracy when it made a stop, with the accuracy of the stopping point controlled within just 0.5m.
With a growing share in the rail transport market abroad, coupled with continuous technological innovations at home, China’s high-speed railway sector has invoked questions and queries regarding the type of industrial planning and business models that have nurtured the industry’s competitiveness – and fame.
One may have to look for an answer within a highly sophisticated industrial chain that spans the sector and where companies – upstream, midstream, and downstream – work in synergy to provide markets with products and services, and vie for business deals through improved technologies, great craftsmanship, and high-quality products.Take the CRRC’s smart high-speed train featuring automatic driving for instance.
This train is the result of a combination of cutting-edge technologies including cloud computing, big data, artificial intelligence, and 5G telecommunication, which required higher levels of technology from various suppliers involved.
To realise precise positioning and timing for automatic driving, the train, for the first time, applied the home-grown Beidou Navigation Satellite System after CRRC’s subsidiary, CRRC Changchun Railway Vehicles Co Ltd collaborated with participating firms to build a testing system that confirmed the project’s feasibility.
The core technology behind such wheels used to be mastered by foreign suppliers, which meant that the purchase cost, delivery date, and after-sales service were all uncontrollable for CRRC.
To deliver the trains to its Mexican client on time, CRRC partnered with Zhuzhou Gofront Equipment Co Ltd, a firm based in south China’s Hunan Province.
With technical support from CRRC, the firm, through trial and error, successfully developed the wheels, enabling CRRC to deliver the trains to Mexico.
“Motivated by CRRC, our industrial chain leader, we have not only mastered the key core technologies, but also learned from CRRC’s mature management experience. Through cooperation, our wheels successfully penetrated the overseas market together with the trains,” said Zhou Houkui, the company’s general manager.
“It is precisely because CRRC shares mature manufacturing and management experience, as well as market access, that our company has managed to roll out a batch of competitive products,” Zhou added.China’s rail transit equipment sector epitomises the nation’s efforts to promote high-quality economic development, foster and expand strategic emerging industries, and develop more mainstay industries. — Xinhua
