Since the start of this year, all staff of Xing Steel have risen to meet challenges. While guaranteeing stable production at the old plant, the company has pressed ahead with the construction of its new plant in Weixian County. Recently, Xing Steel released its April performance rankings and held a monthly commendation ceremony. Hou Haoran, Deputy General Manager, awarded floating red flags to the Steelmaking Plant and the Mechanical & Power Department in recognition of their outstanding contributions to overcoming hardships and tackling tough problems amid difficult conditions.

The Steelmaking Plant claimed first place among all production units in April with an overall score of 99.42 points, marking its second monthly championship since January this year. Despite pressures including production restrictions and fluctuating raw material supplies, the plant optimized converter operation and strictly controlled iron and steel material consumption. As a result, its processing cost per ton of steel was 4.45 yuan lower than budget, and refractory material costs dropped by 3.15 yuan per ton. Meanwhile, the remelting steel process generated an additional benefit of 177,700 yuan, exceeding the budget by 200%, with the primary inspection pass rate of steel billets reaching 98.8%. All employees of the plant stuck to their posts at the old production base, ensuring uninterrupted production lines and consistent product quality, and delivering steady financial and talent support for the new plant construction.

The Mechanical & Power Department ranked first among functional departments with a score of 101.81, including 62.45 points for departmental KPIs (full score 60, exceeding targets) and a top-ranked score of 9.99 for corporate regulation implementation. Faced with equipment nearing the end of its service life in April, the department established a joint consultation mechanism for equipment condition assessment to scientifically identify potential equipment failure risks and balance maintenance expenditure rationally. It overcame numerous difficulties such as aging equipment and the split deployment of core maintenance technicians across the old and new plants. By optimizing maintenance strategies, arranging equipment overhaul schedules reasonably, vigorously carrying out repair and reuse of old spare parts, and limiting excessive stockpiling of new spare parts, the department also encouraged production units to take over maintenance work previously outsourced to external contractors. This approach cut equipment maintenance costs while upgrading equipment management standards and employees’ technical capabilities, forming a virtuous cycle of cost reduction and efficiency improvement. In April, the whole company saved nearly 400,000 yuan on equipment maintenance, with equipment maintenance costs falling to a record low of 30.7 yuan per ton of steel. In addition, the blast furnace recorded seven consecutive months of operation without fault shutdown, and the monthly fault downtime of key equipment in other processes decreased by 0.12 percentage points compared with the historical average.

Affected by production curtailments and output shortfalls in February and March, the entire company quickly adjusted its operational rhythm in April. Production units minimized the impact of output limits through staggered production and optimized batching formulas, while functional departments volunteered to work on-site to coordinate raw material, energy and logistics links. At the construction site of the new Weixian plant, teams specializing in technology, equipment and safety worked day and night to synchronize civil engineering and installation for key projects of all processes. Thanks to the dedicated efforts of all Xing Steel staff to advance both production and construction with equal focus, the company stabilized its core operations and achieved accelerated development amid headwinds.

Monthly performance rankings are displayed in real time on screens in Conference Room 207 and the office building. A competition mechanism of "comparing performance, learning from models, and striving for red flags" drives all departments to benchmark and improve themselves. At the commendation ceremony, Deputy General Manager Hou Haoran emphasized: "The dual tasks of stabilizing old plant production and building the new plant serve as a true test of our workforce’s capability. The practices of the Steelmaking Plant and the Mechanical & Power Department prove that no challenge is insurmountable as long as we focus on value creation." Xing Steel will further deepen performance-oriented reform, rally all employees, and inject strong momentum into the smooth transition of the old plant and the early commissioning of the new plant.