Profile: Liao Guofeng, welding training specialist and skills expert at the Large Machine Plant of the Loader Business Unit of Guangxi LiuGong Group Co., Ltd. He has worked at LiuGong for 20 years and won the LiuGong welder skills competition championship for three consecutive years. Through mentoring, he has directly benefited more than 500 people.
　　“To be a good master, one must first be a good apprentice.” In the Loader Business Unit of LiuGong, Liao Guofeng is quite well known, because whether as a frontline welder in the early days or as a welding training specialist today, he has performed outstandingly and cultivated a large number of welding technical talents for the company.
　　In 1993, 18-year-old Liao Guofeng graduated from a vocational school and joined LiuGong as a welder. As a newcomer, Liao Guofeng, who had studied rural electromechanical maintenance at school, was somewhat at a loss when it came to welding, so he put great effort into learning welding knowledge and studying technologies such as robot programming. He read the more than 900-page, brick-thick “Comprehensive Manual for Robot Operation Guidance” three times from cover to cover. Whenever he encountered a difficult problem, he would go to the site to consult the manufacturer’s technicians; if the manufacturer’s technicians were not available, he would consult them by phone, and he would not rest until the difficulty was overcome.
　　Programming required the use of 3D drawing software, and Liao Guofeng, whose computer foundation was weak, asked the younger apprentices for guidance, progressing from basic understanding to in-depth application. “If you can settle your mind, it is not difficult.” Liao Guofeng said, “To make progress, you must put in effort in your spare time.” During that period, Liao Guofeng almost moved his home into the workshop, working overtime until 10 p.m. every day and leaving home after 6 a.m. “I spent little time at home then, and my wife often joked, asking whether I was earning US dollars, otherwise why was I working so desperately?” Liao Guofeng said with a smile.
　　At present, Liao Guofeng has mastered the important technique of “mirror translation calculating 11 axis points.” The “Optimization of Boom Welding Process” project, with Liao Guofeng as project leader, was launched in February 2013 and will be fully completed in August. This technology achieves specific optimization of boom welding from manual to mechanical operation and will create a value of 120,000 yuan per year for LiuGong.
　　If these achievements are evidence that Liao Guofeng can be a good apprentice, then the outstanding results of his team members in the 2007 LiuGong welder position skills competition are proof that he can be a good master: among the top 10 in that competition, 7 were Liao Guofeng’s apprentices. This showed the leadership his training ability, and in 2009 they sent him to Tianjin LiuGong Company to further carry out technical training work. In the first welder skills competition of the Tianjin Airport Free Trade Zone held that year, two young apprentices he trained won second place in gas shielded welding and third place in arc welding, respectively.
　　After serving as a master for so many years, Liao Guofeng has recently become an apprentice again. The development of new technologies has also brought him some bottlenecks in “tooling design.” In response, the company launched a “senior technician pairing” activity, pairing senior engineers with bachelor’s degrees who have mastered new technologies but lack practical experience with senior skills experts who have rich practical experience but a weak foundation in new technologies, so that they can learn from each other’s strengths to make up for their weaknesses. “Liao Guofeng is the master who is best at being an apprentice.” His coworkers commented.
　　“I really have learned quite a few new things.” After pairing up with Xiao Li for mutual learning, Liao Guofeng is now both a master and, even more, an apprentice. As for future goals, Liao Guofeng does not have a very clear plan. He says he approaches his products with the mindset of creating works of art, enjoys the pleasure of work, and steadily walks the road ahead; fame and fortune actually come naturally.