Editor's Note

This year marks the convening of the 20th National Congress of the Communist Party of China, an important year for the 14th Five-Year Plan to build on past achievements and forge ahead, and also a year of high-quality development for Sunward. In this crucial year of great significance, Sunward has seen the emergence of one after another advanced individuals who work diligently and contribute silently. They come from ordinary positions, yet with extraordinary deeds they write colorful lives and never stop chasing their dreams. The "Sunward Craftsmanship" column takes us to meet these inspiring "Sunward people" and listen to their ordinary yet vivid stories.‍
Wherever there is Sunward equipment, there is a Sunward service engineer on site, safeguarding the equipment and supporting the customer's project construction.

In early September 2022, a Sunward double-wheel trench cutter entered the construction site of Yaoling Station on Changsha Metro Line 7. Wang Xi, as the leader of the equipment technical command team, shuttled between Sunward Industrial City and the construction site, guiding the installation and commissioning of the new equipment and coordinating the allocation and shipment of spare parts.

Since metro construction projects are mostly located in urban areas while Sunward Industrial City is relatively remote, the back-and-forth travel took a long time, and the pandemic further made travel inconvenient. To effectively ensure the normal operation of the equipment, Wang Xi volunteered and simply brought quilts and clothes from home to begin living at the construction site—and this stay lasted nearly a hundred days...

During the National Day holiday, Wang Xi's grandmother celebrated her 80th birthday. As a child raised by his grandmother, he naturally wanted to go home to show filial respect to the elderly and reunite with his wife and children, and this was also his first time going home after settling in at the site. Unfortunately, at that time the equipment at the site had a problem and required Wang Xi's technical support, so he rushed back to the site from out of town without delay.

Upon arriving at the site, Wang Xi found that the supporting equipment, the sand removal machine, had malfunctioned. Because the fault was inside the equipment and inconvenient to disassemble and inspect, observation could only be made through an arm-sized hole. In addition, the interior was full of mud and sand and poorly lit, making it impossible to determine by naked eye what had caused the fault. Everyone was at a loss and had no choice but to call him back from his leave.

Seeing this, Wang Xi said nothing, rolled up his sleeves, and squeezed into the equipment to investigate. Without tools it was inconvenient to disassemble, so he had to tough it out. Lying on his side, he braced himself with one hand gripping a pipe while the other hand kept feeling around inside the hole... It turned out that a piece of rebar had caused the equipment blockage. To pull the rebar out by hand, he reached his arm into the narrow hole and tugged back and forth. Before long, his hand was scraped and bleeding, and his clothes were soaked with sweat. Finally, he forcibly pulled the rebar out. A worker from out of town at the site exclaimed that now he had witnessed the Hunanese spirit of "being tough and enduring hardship." Afterward, Wang Xi said that hardship did not matter as long as the project could be completed on schedule; he only felt somewhat guilty toward his family, because during the entire National Day holiday he stayed at home for only 4 hours. Fortunately, his family understood and supported him.

It is reported that Sunward's double-wheel trench cutter was officially rolled off the production line in early 2022 and attracted customer attention as soon as it came off the line. However, after successful development, Sunward did not immediately put it on the market but conducted various experiments at the company, all to ensure trenching accuracy within 1/1000.

Easier said than done. Wang Xi joined the double-wheel trench cutter team during the testing period. Over half a year, Wang Xi and his colleagues worked regardless of wind and rain and endured the scorching heat, continuously running in and calibrating the coordination and matching of various combined action executions. By recreating working-condition test sites for trenching construction, they sought the optimal solution for functional matching and carefully polished the tens of thousands of components to achieve the most reasonable fit.

After the equipment entered the Yaoling Station construction site, it was highly praised by the customer. At present, in order to complete the diaphragm wall construction of the project before the end of the year, the double-wheel trench cutter operates 24 hours a day without interruption, laying a solid foundation for the start of first-floor cover slab construction at the station of Changsha Metro Line 7 in April 2023.

From research and development to rolling off the line and then to being introduced to the market, Sunward's "super equipment" embodies the dedication and sweat of a group of Sunward people, and Wang Xi, a service engineer of Sunward's Foundation Equipment Business Division, is one of them. Hardworking and enduring hardship, day and night, whenever customers need him—even late at night or in the depths of winter or heat—his craftsmanship service never slackens.

Sunward Official Website