Shandong bolsters innovation to boost new quality productive forces

In the prefecture-level city of Heze in East China's Shandong province, an automatic brick unloading and packing machine heading for Kyrgyzstan is ready for shipment at Shandong Juxiang Machinery Co Ltd.

The company, located in Juye county, has received more than 20 orders from Kyrgyzstan for such automatic packing machines, which is the first domestically-produced packing machine suitable for the brick and tile industry, with some key parts breaking foreign monopoly.

The innovation, a fruit of cooperation between industries, universities and research institutes, came into being as the company boosted its innovative vitality through deepening reforms and transformed itself into a listed company on the New Third Board, said Yang Jichong, a senior engineer at Shandong Juxiang.

Besides the automatic packing machine, Shandong Juxiang, previously a traditional brick machine manufacturing factory, also had other achievements from cooperation with others.

A fourth generation unmanned intelligent sweeping vehicle, newly developed through a partnership with Shandong University of Technology, can clean an area of up to 20,000 square meters per hour, achieving multiple functions such as automatic drawing, monitoring and cloud management, Yang said.

At present, the enterprise has obtained 52 national patents through independent research and development, achieving a sales revenue of 400 million yuan ($56.3 million) in 2023, he said, adding that cooperation between industries, universities and research institutes is a powerful force driving this magnificent transformation.

Yang noted: "Our own technicians have good practical experiences, and a good understanding of the application scenarios and customer needs, while in universities, their technical research and development strength is strong. Our cooperation can lead to good utilization of technologies on actual products."

In recent years, Juye county has comprehensively improved its level of scientific and technological innovation, by focusing on key tasks such as activating innovation entities, building innovation platforms and transforming innovation achievements.

In 2023, the county's R&D spending reached 589 million yuan, and eight training sessions were held on high-tech enterprise application and R&D investment application, serving more than 260 enterprises.

Zhang Zun, secretary of the Leading Party Members Group of Juye County Science and Technology Bureau, noted: "By activating innovation entities, we promote the gathering of various innovative elements into enterprises; and by sharing the resources of universities and research institutes, enterprises in our county can help accelerate the development of new quality productive forces in Juye."

Please contact the writers at zhuangqiange@chinadaily.com.cn