Craftsman of Great Powers: Female technician crafts new path

Su Daomei, a technician working at Chongqing Silian Measure & Control Technology Co Ltd, tests a PDS intelligent pressure transmitter at the company's workshop in Chongqing, Nov 14, 2017. [Photo by Zhu Lingqing/chinadaily.com.cn]

Bustling around a narrow working space, Su Daomei, a 45-year-old technician working for Chongqing Silian Measure & Control Technology Co Ltd (CSMC), was busy testing a PDS intelligent pressure transmitter on Tuesday.

Dressed in a pale grey uniform, she looked like an all-too-common worker that can be found in any workshop, except she is petite than most of her male colleagues.

But Su's work has already earned her fame in Chongqing, Southwest China's hilly riverside city.

She became the champion of "Chuanyi Cup", the first national instrument manufacturing industry occupational skill competition, this March. And she was elected as one of the 10 craftsmen representing Chongqing's craftsman spirit this year.

The greatest skill is responsibility

A batch of high temperature resistant intelligent pressure transmitters were put on a tote cart, waiting for detection.

In her left hand, Su was holding a check list, while with her other hand she was operating the computer every now and then, with her eyes shifting between the computer screen and several pressure controllers.

The work Su does everyday is detecting and adjusting the parameters of the transmitter to make sure it's performances can meet the requirements of the design.

In industrial process control, a transmitter, which is a crucial component of an instrument, refers to a telemetry device which converts measurements from a sensor into a signal, and sends it to be received by display or control device located a distance away.

As a key process before the product enters the market, Su's work is very important.

"I have been working at the production line of CSMC for 12 years and I enjoy my work. It is not difficult but needs great patience," Su said.

Su had dreamed to be a technician since she was a teenager. At that time she was attracted to a TV character who was a technician working at a factory's workshop.

"From that TV character I found solving problems such a fascinating thing, so I chose to go to Sichuan Instrument Industry School. It was a bold choice at that time because most of girls wanted to learn nursing," Su recalled.

After she graduated in 1993, Su was assigned to Chongqing Chuanyi Analyzer Co Ltd, a subsidiary of Chongqing Chuanyi Automation Co Ltd (Chuanyi).

In 2005, she was transferred to CSMC, which is also a subsidiary of Chuanyi.

After 24 years of work, Su has accumulated great experience of assembly, testing and adjustment work and has made a list of accomplishments.

Ten years ago, when CSMC's PDS intelligent pressure transmitter was just put into market, the connecting wires inside the sensor broke down frequently because of improper use. And once the transmitters broke down, customer would send them back to the factory.

For workers who produced these transmitters, seeing their products valued at thousands of yuan were discarded as useless was pitiful.

"Maybe I can do something to rescue them," She thought. Su turned the problem over and over again in her mind and decided to repair these transmitters by herself.

First, it took her several hours to use a blade to scrape the wires out of the pouring bit by bit. Then, she needed to weld a row of hair-thick wires and use glue and heat shrink tubing to fix them.

This series of processes must be done with great patience. Through Su's efforts, dozens of broken sensors were successfully repaired, which meant an enormous savings for both customers and the company.

When her accomplishments were highlighted by her colleague, Su blushed.

"I am an ordinary worker, the work is not difficult, I just do my duty," she said.

However, while she carries tons of modesty, her talents are outstanding.

At this year's "Chuanyi Cup", after three rounds, which included theory test, practical test and on-site defense, Su defeated all 84 competitors of 29 teams from the instrument sector all over the country to become the champion.

"Most of the competitors are men," Zhu Xiang, deputy Party secretary of CPC at CSMC, said. "People tend to think men are more competent for technical work, but Su proved her skills are better than all of them."

It only took her five minutes to find and fix the faults of a self-contained instrument, while other competitors needed more than 10 minutes; to weld a 0.025 mm membrane on a pressure transmitter body with a diameter of 35 mm, she only needed 20 minutes, while it took more than 40 minutes for most competitors.

"At present, Su is leader of a team in which she is the only female," Zhu added.

When Su talked about her work, she smiled a lot with sparks of passion gleaming in her eyes.

"Not only managers need to follow new trends, we workers should also keep studying and improving our skills," Su said.

Having to work more than 10 hours a day sometimes and standing on her feet during working hours, Su still can squeeze time to do self-learning.

In addition, the company has offered her training on team management.

"I always try to do the best job I can. I believe it is the right attitude toward work. And self-improvement is crucial for technicians," Su said.

She has been instilling this kind of attitude to young workers at the workshop, guiding them to tackle troubles and enhance skills.

Make 'Made in China' greater

At CSMC, Su witnessed the birth of the high accuracy intelligent pressure transmitter, which is known as the "crown jewel of instrument industry" because of its complex and difficult manufacturing process.

As the first and only company in China that has the ability of independently designing, developing and manufacturing such kind of transmitter, CSMC broke the overseas technical monopoly in this filed and became one of the only three companies in the world that can produce the product.

The error rate of this transmitter, as low as 0.0004, reaches the world's top level.

As a worker, Su is not involved in the core designing work of high-tech products, but she has been practicing making innovations in her position.

Sometimes, even if the error of a transmitter is within the reasonable range, Su will analyze why the error is relatively big and then solve the problem to ensure it achieving best performance.

"Although the quality of these products reached the standard, but their performances are not the best. We should ensure every transmitter we make deliver to the users with the first-class technology and first-class quality," Su said.