What Yang Yijun experienced was like most of Ruian people born in that period, quite ordinary. At 16, he graduated from middle school, after that, he became farmer, apprentice, carpenter, and then learned mechanical design by himself. As he turned 23 in 1975, he raised fund, solve processing problems, and ran for orders by himself for his hardware workshop, which specialized in manufacturing small parts for cars. However, at that time the private business is illegal in China, his workshop was closed down for the nature of “underground factory” in 1977, all those purchase payments were returned to the payer. What’s more, he was even forced to “refresh ideology” for over forty days. Helpless in that situation, Yang Yijun had to sell his furniture to pay off debts. But the saying goes; every cloud has a silver lining. His perseverance and entrepreneur spirit was appreciated by leaders of Ruian Common Printing Equipment Factory (local state-owned), and he was later employed as the supply and marketing manager.
For catching the reform and opening up trend, Yang Yijun finally managed to see his own harvest time. Although 30 years have elapsed, but for the first generation entrepreneurs from Ruian, we have to own most of our success to the policy of reform and opening up, and Deng Xiaoping, exclaimed Yang Yijun.
Blister packaging machine has broad market prospects
In 1984, National Food and Drug Administration Bureau issued the notice of “Accelerating the Popularization of Aluminum-Plastic Package for Drug”, however, due to expensive cost, ordinary pharmaceutical factory were afraid to try the equipment. In 1985, Yang Yijun saw the potential prospect for Blister Packing Machine market, through multi-aspect market survey and confirmation, and he devoted himself in pursuing this target with courage. He visited the National Food and Drug Administration Bureau, Shanghai Pharmaceutical Design Institution, Shanghai Xinyi Pharmaceutical Factory, and many other government organs to collect information and data related to Blister Packing Machine for drug at home and abroad. After comprehensively analyzing various machines in China and all over the world, and combining structures and characteristics of printing equipment, he drew hundreds of drafts and tested repeatedly. In that period, he lived frugally, and bet all his money, time, energy in developing the machine. The shadow of the machine just haunted him whether he was eating, sleeping, or taking a ride. Four years just slid silently, and the God of Luck finally showed her mercy, the first generation sample DGB-250 Multifunctional Plate-type Automatic Blister Packing Machine was successfully introduced. On the Shanghai Autumn Pharmaceutical Equipment Order Fair held in 1989, this machine hit the eyes of all pharmaceutical enterprises with new structure, complete functions and affordable cost. Luck always follows one by one, prosperous market future and high technical content made the machine elected as one of the Key Development Projects of Zhejiang. Furthermore, in 1991, the machine was awarded “Zhejiang Elite Product” by Zhejiang Economic and Trade Bureau, and won the Gold Medal in the “Third National New Technology and New Product Exhibit”. Its launch not only completed the vacancy in China and also manifested Yang Yijun’s relentless pursuit and wisdom for entrepreneur. Wenzhou Daily, Hong Kong and Macao Information News, Light Industry Equipment News, China Patent News, China Pharmaceutical News and other famous media had specially reported him and his “Jiangnan Pharmaceutical Machinery Co., Ltd.”。
In face of much and much fiercer market competition, “Internal conflict is the least thing you want to do. You have to smooth internal relationship before the enterprise can develop soundly”, said Yang Yijun. During the development of Jiangnan Enterprise, several key staffs requested to leave Jiangnan and fight their own “battles”, Yang Yijun realized that unwilling stay of these staff would certainly lead to internal conflict, which would drag Jiangnan behind. So he decided to create opportunities for them, to train some competitors for him. Consciously training your competitors would at least benefit the local economy, and force yourself to improve product quality and technology without stop, confessed Yang Yijun. Boldness and the spirit of adventure speak loud for his courage and outlook on competition. China Pharmaceutical News once published an article “No Salesmen for Jiangnan, its Product Promotes itself all over China”, Yang Yijun argues that, pharmaceutical equipment like Blister Packaging Machin , Cartoning Machine , Capsule Filling Machine , etc. has its uniqueness, after-sales service ranks just after the function and quality. With favorable “word-of-mouth”, the customers would be our promoter!
For the consideration of long-term development and continuity, Jiangnan Enterprise purchased 56 mu of land in Shanghai Songjiang District in 2000 and started all over again. “Shanghai Jiangnan” Phase I project took up over 26,000 m2, including 7,000 m2 for culture area, living area and reception center. The new plant adopts the design theory of “garden plant integrating modern equipment, standardized production and normalized management”, with R&D center, trail manufacture center, training center and new product exhibition hall for main product, Blister Packaging Machine, Cartoning Machine. “General design and details of the plan are all depicted by myself”, Yang Yijun told us excitedly.
Although Jiangnan has already been the torch bearer in China’s pharmaceutical equipment industry, Yang Yijun still holds that continuous improvement is the key to invincible position. Following the enterprise spirit of “Exploration, Innovation, Pursuit of Perfect”, Jiangnan expanded its R&D team to support the overall application of CAD, CAPP, and CAM, and invested huge fund in introducing advanced CNC processing center, mirror linear cutting equipment and other high-precision processing equipment. Jiangnan also established Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) for on-line management of finance, production, sales and information, which carried the new product design, manufacturing and standardized management to a new level. A three-dimension management mode is established to guarantee product quality. There are four checkpoints for quality check, i.e. processed part check, assembly recheck, commissioning check and user check. If user finds any quality problem within one year from the product manufacture date, the company would trace the responsibility level by level, which is also connected to the year-end bonus for related management. High quality standard, strict requirement and whole-process monitoring contribute to Jiangnan’s excellent performance in all national quality supervision and random inspection. For now, “Shanghai Jiangnan” is displaying the strength and glamour of Chinese pharmaceutical equipment in the international stage with its brilliant quality and integrity. Jiangnan products Blister Packaging Machine, Cartoning Machine, Capsule Filling Machine, etc. set its foot in over 70 countries and regions, including U.S., Russia, Southeast Asia, Middle East and Australia, with sales volume occupying the front row among the peers worldwide. As the enterprise leader, Yang Yijun greatly values the team spirit. As he would always say “one should first learn to how to be a man before he can succeed”, the ideology comes first. As part of the society, enterprise is to create fortune for the society, including paying tax, creating jobs, and training professional talents, and also provides the platform for every employee to show their talent and create the value of life. Because one person’s energy is limited, only through cooperation and labor division can the enterprise develop soundly and gain maximum profits. And this is called overall effect formed by optimizing combination and scientific management. For over 20 years, Yang Yijun followed this ideology, and led Shanghai Jiangnan to become China’s largest drug blister packing equipment provider with his innovation and unique management (excerpt from The 30th Anniversary Catalogue for China’s Pharmaceutical Equipment Industry). On the other hand, Jiangnan Enterprise has trained numerous professional talents for Ruian, a pharmaceutical equipment base with reputation all over the world. You reap what you sow, the honor would only come through hard work, for Yang Yijun, it means the titles of “Zhejiang Star Entrepreneur”, “Zhejiang Excellent Patent Factory Director” and “China Excellent Innovative Entrepreneur of 2009”, and for Jiangnan, it means 17 national patents, the honors of “Advanced Private Company and Large Taxpayer of Songjiang District”, “Advanced Group with Innovative Technology of Songjiang District”, “National Torch Plan” in 2002, “Shanghai High-tech Enterprises” in 2009. At the end of the interview, Yang Yijun sincerely stated that “Our generation is lucky to grasp the opportunity created by the times”.
Excerpted from Ruian People in the World, Volume 26, December 2012, By Xia Haibao
Entrepreneur/Times/Ideology