Wuhan Huaxing Special Moment: How Does The Panel Factory Overcome The Difficulties?

The resumption of work in Wuhan, the worst hit area, is more difficult than it looks.

In Wuhan Optics Valley's display industrial base, Huaxing photoelectric staff Xiao bin also did not expect that the Spring Festival's daily rotation left behind will continue until now. Due to the special technology of the panel and semiconductor industry, even during the Spring Festival, it is necessary to operate, and can not stop production. The shortage of artificial labor caused by the epidemic makes the enterprises and the left behind employees double pressure.

In addition to Huaxing, nearby also stationed in the BOE, Tianma microelectronics and other domestic panel leader. Wuhan has always regarded Optics Valley as an important position for strategic emerging industries. Around the screen industry chain, the total investment is more than 100 billion yuan, which is used to build the largest and medium-sized display and production base in the world. The 5 production lines in Wuhan are affecting the heartstrings of the industrial chain. The sudden attack of new crown virus pneumonia has also challenged panel makers.

On the other hand are front-line employees who risk their work. Xiao bin told the twenty-first Century economic news reporter: "in simple terms, the state of personnel and machines is getting closer to the limit. During this period, rest six days per work. The intensity of work is nearly two times that of normal time, because people only have half of their normal work hours, and their working days work 10-12 hours on average.

Li Dongsheng, chairman of TCL group, also said on micro-blog recently: "because the semiconductor display industry has a special manufacturing process, it needs continuous production, and every day there are employees going to work. The staff of Shenzhen and Wuhan are still on the job, especially the Wuhan Huaxing factory is located at the front line. In the face of the severe epidemic situation, the core management team takes the initiative to stay behind the factory area and leads the seven thousand staff to stick to their posts.

On the other side is an effort to balance the epidemic prevention and rehabilitation efforts. At present, Huaxing has two production lines in Wuhan, of which T3 is the LTPS LCD production line, and T4 is a flexible OLED production line. Among them, Huaxing Wuhan low temperature polysilicon display (T3 production) accounts for 20% of the global supply, and the shutdown will impact the global industrial chain.

In February 20th, Hua Xing told the economic report in twenty-first Century: "at present, there are no cases of infection caused by company infection in Wuhan Huaxing. Before the relevant media articles are attached, the announcement is publicly announced by the company to all employees. Among them, the confirmed cases were infected by the staff during their vacation, and second days later, they were found to be quarantined on the same day. 20 people who had contact with them were isolated immediately. Relevant quarantine personnel daily health tests, and nucleic acid tests were negative, no abnormalities, confirmed that the employees are recovering well.

Although the panel plant is a relatively highly automated industry, it still needs a lot of labor. Gan Jun system

Frontline challenge

At present, both T3 and T4 are still in full production. For employees who have been on the frontline, their physical and mental pressures are multiplying. They are also the opposite of war epidemic.

Under normal circumstances, most of the left behind employees work until the sixth day of the year. However, because Wuhan is closed to the city, it is impossible to go back to the post. The rest can not go. There are still a small number of people who are willing to stay and support. Xiao bin told reporters, "usually working hours are 8:30-17:30, occasionally overtime to seven or eight points, up to ten points. But this time often goes to ten, sometimes even later. "

Although the panel plant is a relatively highly automated industry, it still needs a lot of labor. According to the technological process, the production of the panel plant is mainly divided into the front and the back sections. The former part is basically fully automated, and the latter is semi-automatic, requiring a large number of production line workers and labor intensive.

Therefore, we are most worried about the nature of safety, leaving the park may be more unsafe, but still worried about imported cases in closed environment. "We can see that the company is trying to maximize the capacity and control the spread of the epidemic in two aspects. A disposable respirator will be issued each day and disinfectant will be provided daily. The improvement of the restaurant's partition has been done last week, but the flow of people is still very large.

At the same time, the main demand of employees is to adjust the pace of work and reduce production properly. Xiao bin told reporters: "due to the lack of manpower for a long time, many machines did not have the opportunity to maintain on time, so the condition of the machine continues to become worse, and the working condition of personnel has also declined significantly. The errors caused by negligence of all kinds of personnel have increased significantly. If the traffic control caused by the epidemic persists for a long time, then it will be more difficult to continue to guarantee full production."

On the other hand, in terms of salary compensation, no colleagues who return to work and pay the same salary for employees who work for two people in Wuhan are also giving some front-line staff a sense of imbalance. It is understood that the current bonus is the double wage in February 14th before the working hours.

It can be seen that engineers and production line workers worked very hard this month. Behind the stability of the panel industry, the front line employees paid behind their backs.

Hua Xing said in its latest statement that the company has adopted a series of epidemic prevention measures to fully satisfy the living needs and health requirements of the left behind employees, and provide scientific monitoring, testing and emergency protection for their employees. Huaxing insiders also told reporters that all of us were sticking to it and survived the difficult period. We also continued to improve the epidemic prevention measures and staff communication and counseling.

Hua Xing also said that due to traffic control, a small number of management teams and staff were on duty in the company, and some of them were supported by remote support to undertake epidemic prevention and guarantee the operation of the company. With the change of epidemic situation and the gradual return of personnel, employees who have been adhering to the work for nearly a month will be properly rested and adjusted.

According to the reporter, there are now management and R & D personnel from Korea and Taiwan to Wuhan.

But at the same time, the workers in the field are still facing difficulties. On the one hand, because of the epidemic, people are unwilling to return to the company immediately. On the other hand, factories are in short supply and need manpower urgently.

Another employee of Huaxing told reporters: "leaders will call you to talk, ask questions, and try to get you back. After all, after the epidemic, we have to go to work, and we can not shirk it all the time. So now the company may be more difficult, and many people can not go back, the pressure on the factory is even greater.

In this regard, Hua Xing said: "for all staff, in accordance with the three level of management mode, high-risk areas of people in situ standby; low risk area personnel under the physical conditions, local policies permit, voluntary application by employees, submit health documents and other relevant documents approved before returning to post; all returned to Wuhan personnel must be segregated / health monitoring according to company requirements. The company has never asked employees to rework before February 18th. "

Unstoppable production line

Not only is Hua Xing not stopping production, BOE has a 10.5 generation LCD panel production line in Wuhan, which has been mass-produced in December 2019, and is in the process of climbing capacity and improving yield.

The production line still works 24 hours during the outbreak. "After the production line is put into production, it will not stop again." A boe insider told the twenty-first Century economic news reporter that "machines will not stop because of the Spring Festival, so there will be staff on duty."

Why can't we stop?

On the one hand, from the special technological process, once the machine is started, it will not be able to stop. Otherwise, it will bring quality problems and serious economic losses. This is something employees and enterprises are unwilling to see.

Xiao bin explained to reporters: "the production of chips and panels is very special. In short, the shutdown of the semiconductor industry will lead to damage to the accuracy and life of the machine, and the production of half of the products will become a waste product. The rework will require a great deal of cost."

On the other hand, shutting down will also affect the global panel's industrial chain. For example, Huaxing T3's full production can reach 50K for one month, which accounts for 20% of the world's LTPS LCD, and China's big customers include Samsung, HUAWEI, millet and so on.

Therefore, the production line must be run, many industry insiders told the twenty-first Century economic news reporter that at present, the Wuhan panel factory has basically maintained its safety stock and maintained a low crop rate. However, due to the impact of the epidemic, some upstream materials, such as polaroid and PCB, are short supply due to reemployment delay and logistics problems, and manufacturers are coordinating.

At the moment, as long as the maintenance of production, from the overall panel needs, Wuhan's 5 production lines have limited impact on the market. Take Hua Xing as an example, Li Yaqin, general manager of group consulting, told the economic news reporter in twenty-first Century: "the impact of T3 is not particularly big for the whole market, because in the first quarter, the overall demand for LTPS panels is about 120 million, even if the loss of 600-700 million shipments is about 10% of the global demand in the first quarter. Moreover, we also consider that the first quarter is the off-season of mobile phone market, and the overall LTPS panel is basically not full. T4 mass production will soon have little impact on the overall market. "

This is also a realistic problem facing the Wuhan panel industry, and even a microcosm of Wuhan's manufacturing industry. In this special period, we will also expose more comprehensive problems and learn to solve them. How to balance the epidemic and return to work, how to arrange difficulties in orderly production under unexpected circumstances, how to establish better communication channels for employees, and how to shift from labor intensive to intellectual intensive industries.

The panel industry is a heavy tool for the country. In recent years, domestic panel makers have been attracting worldwide attention, especially in the field of LCD. According to the XinDa Electronics Report, in the year 2020 -2021, the global panel production capacity will increase by 0.67% on the basis of 2019. In addition, the capacity withdrawal of Korean manufacturers is not only the reduction of supply side capacity, but also the increase of supply chain concentration. In the future, the share of BOE and Huaxing optoelectronic market is expected to exceed 50%, and the industrial volatility will be greatly reduced.

This is also the driving force for the panel workers to join the panel industry, following the rise of the domestic panel industry, and step by step into the upstream industry chain. And during this period of anti epidemic, all parties need to work hard to overcome difficulties. (reporter Yang Qingqing contributed to this article).

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