Hashida's observations at the Hannover Industrial Fair: Keep your feet on the ground and focus on the future

On April 21, 2024, Liu Xiaoping, the founder of Qiaotian, and 6 core team members visited the "ceiling of manufacturing exhibitions" - the Hannover Industrial Fair in Germany for a visit and study. This visit was the second study trip of Qiaotian Intelligent 's team going overseas. In the future, we will organize more outstanding employees to go overseas for exchanges and study, so that every Qiaotian person will have the opportunity to expand their horizons.

The origin of Hannover: War and depression led to the Hannover Industrial Fair

In 1947, shortly after the end of World War II, Germany's economy fell into a huge crisis, with houses collapsing, industries bankrupt, and long-term food shortages. In order to quickly restore the German economy, the Hanover City Government decided to hold an exhibition from August 18 to September 7, 1947. The first "Hannover Industrial Fair" was officially opened. During the 21-day exhibition period, as many as 1,934 orders and business contracts were signed, with a total amount of approximately US$31,600,000.

After more than half a century of development, the current Hannover Industrial Fair has been called the "barometer of the industrial world", "the ceiling of industrial exhibitions" and "the originator of the exhibition world". What is even more interesting is the logo design of the Hannover Industrial Fair, whose profile portrait is none other than Hermes, the patron saint of commerce in Greek mythology.

The 2024 Hannover Industrial Fair in Germany attracted enterprises from more than 60 countries, including 1,333 German companies, accounting for 33.8%, followed by 1,220 Chinese companies, accounting for 31%, followed by Italy, the United States, India, etc. Among the 17 pavilions, there are 4 pavilions related to the new energy theme, which also reflects from the side that in addition to the generative AI industrial application, the hot theme of this industrial expo is that sustainable development has become the main theme of major companies.

Chinese companies’ participation in the exhibition: an army of ants

Among the participating companies, although the number of Chinese companies is second only to that of German companies, reaching 1,220, there are only a few that are actually in the main venue and main position. Most Chinese companies are still in the form of standard booths around each exhibition hall. Various industrial equipment and posters are displayed in the exhibition area. Most of them are participating in the exhibition through exhibition companies, government park groups, etc. The main types of companies are bearings, drive shafts and precision tools.

Although they seem to be mainly small booths, they play a very important role in the entire European industrial supply chain. In Wu Xiaobo's words, this is a battle of ants. In conversations with several Chinese companies in the central area, we learned that most of them specialize in overseas markets and have been established for decades. In addition to acquiring more European customers, they also need to continue to "show their faces" at the Hannover Fair so that many European customers can still see them at the exhibition. According to the latest statistics, Germany ranks in the top 3 among companies going overseas.

In summary, Chinese companies still have a strong leading edge in photovoltaics, energy storage, fuel cells and other fields. They are also actively going global and have the determination to participate in global competition. At the same time, they are also continuously improving their replication-improvement-innovation and productization capabilities, and have become an indispensable production force in the global manufacturing supply chain system.

Inspiration from the development of excellent enterprises: both innovation and sustainable development

At the exhibition, we also saw the display of many excellent companies and innovative products. For example, in the robot industry, the main applications are currently grasping, tightening, wiring, assembly, welding, palletizing, etc. In order to better meet these applications, robot companies have developed functions of the robot body from different angles: for example, a small-range six-degree-of-freedom compensator similar to a universal joint is added to the end of the actuator to solve the problem of correcting small-range errors; airbags are set on each arm of the robot, and the airbags are used instead of six-dimensional force sensors to control the start and stop according to the changes in air pressure. Compared with traditional collaborative robot solutions, it is faster and safer;

In addition to the product displays of innovative companies, the most eye-catching booths include Siemens, Bosch Rexroth, Festo, Beckhoff, Schneider Electric, etc. These European automation giants have shown off their innovative products and future technology directions. Taking Festo as an example, the highlight of their booth this time is the bionic bee. The skeleton weighs 3.6g and it has its own motor, transmission mechanism, and actuator. It can fly for 8 minutes, achieving a high degree of lightweight components.

In summary, German companies still occupy the main stage in the entire Hannover Fair. They are still very competitive in the high-end product industry. At the same time, the scale and economic benefits of the companies are good, and they have strong pricing power, high added value and high profitability. In terms of innovation, German companies have fewer homogeneous scales, more innovative and differentiated development, and attach great importance to sustainable development, including energy conservation and recycling. Compared with the labor-intensive and low-value-added manufacturing industry in China, German companies have always been worth learning and catching up in terms of cross-industry and forward-looking research.

Hashida's insights and gains: Enterprise development needs to always uphold altruism

Before the visit, our goals were mainly focused on three aspects: looking at the companies, looking at ourselves, and looking at the world; looking at the development logic of excellent companies, looking at the gap between ourselves and them and what we can learn from them, and finally looking at the development and environment of the world.

■ Looking at the enterprise: Product innovation and people-orientedness complement each other

When visiting Festo's valve island factory, the biggest feeling is that this company has always adhered to the spirit of "innovation and iteration", including continuous changes and optimization of process technology, continuous optimization of management systems, and customized more flexible solutions for customers as much as possible. In terms of humanistic care, the air in the factory workshop is completely pumped out every 24 minutes, and then replaced with clean air from outside, so as to ensure the clean smell of the factory and the health of employees. Although this operation requires expensive costs, the company's people-oriented logic is: product innovation is ultimately driven by talents.

■ See yourself: Giving employees the opportunity to see the world will help them achieve mutual success with the company

The inspection team this time is composed of senior executives and outstanding potential employees. It is the first time for each of them to go out and participate in the Hannover Industrial Fair. Everyone has made profound summaries and insights from the aspects of corporate brand, product innovation and organizational culture. In the future work, everyone can continue to exercise personal growth through hard work. Outstanding potential employees continue to challenge and turn the impossible into possible, and create their own value through hard work. In this process, Qiaotian will continue to give employees who are willing to work hard the opportunity to try and make mistakes, provide professional training, and provide opportunities to broaden their horizons. Only when outstanding employees continue to see the outside world and understand the gap will they have the motivation and awareness of sustainable development and eventually grow together with the company.

■ Viewing the world: Altruism can make development healthier and more sustainable

When touring German cities and villages, we found that the windows of every house were very bright and clean, and every exterior wall looked brand new as if it had been renovated. However, these houses were actually more than 20 years old. Upon closer inspection, we learned that German law stipulates that every house must undergo minor repairs every few years and major repairs every 20 years. Therefore, when buying and selling a house, the owner will basically repair and tidy up the house first to ensure that the new owner can feel comfortable and at ease. We were deeply impressed by this altruistic concept.

This field trip made us realize that we still have a lot to learn and improve, and the gap between us and outstanding European companies is still large.

As a business leader, you need to pay more attention to the long-term development of the company, and clearly plan and optimize the short-term and long-term goals of each stage, so that every employee in the company knows what the company's goals are and what they should do.

Secondly, from the perspective of organizational development, outstanding employees and potential employees need to be given more opportunities to learn and grow, because outstanding employees do not need to be managed, they have clear goals and methodologies, and companies need to give employees more opportunities to see the world from an altruistic perspective.

Finally, each of us needs to have a more inclusive, appreciative, open-minded and continuous learning mentality and ability, and use more critical thinking to think about the gap between us and the excellent ones and the real logic behind it.