Forging the "Heart" of Cars, Controlling Error Rates to "One in a Million"
Nanjing is one of the key automotive industry bases in China. The automotive industry, as one of the four major pillar industries in Nanjing, has gradually formed a relatively complete industrial system and brand advantages after nearly 70 years of development.
Traditional industries are undergoing deep transformation and upgrading, forming new productive forces. In recent years, the automotive industry in Nanjing has been moving towards innovation, promoting the transformation of the entire supply chain, accelerating renewal and upgrades, continuously improving industrial capabilities, and stabilizing the "fundamental plate" of Nanjing's economy. Starting from today, this newspaper launches a column titled "Transformation and Upgrading: New Productive Forces Emerge from Traditional Industries – 'Wheels Roll with Infinite Innovation'", exploring the new momentum, advantages, and values emerging within Nanjing's automotive industry.
"Along with the rapid development of electric and intelligent vehicles, we have also kept pace with the times and started supplying components to the 'new forces' in the new energy vehicle field last year," said Sun Nanzhang, General Manager of Nanjing Automotive Forging Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as "Nanjing Auto Forge") during an interview yesterday.
Nanjing Auto Forge was originally a professional subsidiary of Nanjing Automotive Group engaged in forging production. Tracing its history back more than 70 years, it has evolved from a single team, section, workshop, and branch factory into an independent specialized forging company.
Sun Nanzhang introduced that Nanjing Auto Forge previously produced a wide variety of forgings, covering almost all forgings used in automobiles, and was a typical multi-variety, small-batch enterprise. With product optimization, it has now formed a "3+X" product business structure, including forgings for passenger car crankshafts, forgings for track links in engineering machinery, forgings for pistons in large horsepower diesel engines, and other businesses.
Among them, the leading product, high-end passenger car crankshaft forgings, have replaced imported crankshafts, assisting in the localization of high-end models such as Mercedes-Benz, BMW, and Jaguar Land Rover, ranking first in domestic market share.
Crankshaft forgings are widely used in automobiles and are one of the core components of the engine. "The automotive industry has very high requirements for forgings, emphasizing precision, fine structures, hollow part formation, and minimizing weight. The processing technology of crankshafts directly impacts their performance and service life," explained Sun Nanzhang.
Due to the importance of crankshaft forgings, automotive companies have set extremely high standards for suppliers, requiring error rates at the "one in a million" level. At the same time, problems such as overcapacity and fierce market competition have put significant pressure on Nanjing Auto Forge.
In the context of the new era, Nanjing Auto Forge deeply understands that new productive forces are not just about technological innovation but also reflect the comprehensive strength of an enterprise in core competitiveness, sustainable development capability, and adaptability to rapid market changes. It covers multiple dimensions such as technological innovation, management innovation, model innovation, and digital transformation, which are key forces driving enterprises to transform from traditional manufacturing to intelligent, green, and service-oriented manufacturing.
According to Sun Nanzhang, for Nanjing Auto Forge, new productive forces mean achieving qualitative leaps in forging processes, product performance, production efficiency, cost control, and market response speed, to meet the high-end, intelligent, and green development trends of the automotive industry. In recent years, the company has proposed the "three-character formula" for faster transformation and upgrading: "Precision" in forging processes, "Cleanliness" in machining residues, and "Economy" in production costs.
Improvement and breakthroughs in forging processes are the key points. Relying on its profound technological and talent accumulation, as well as industry-leading 3D design and forging process simulation software, Nanjing Auto Forge pioneered the post-heat quenching process and precision shearing process for engineering machinery track link forgings, which are now widely applied in the industry. Simultaneously, it rapidly absorbed and innovated upon foreign high-end passenger car crankshaft forging production technologies.