Tiger-branded safes reborn in Wuyi, Hebei

“Wuyi is one of the four largest safe production bases in China, and the ‘Tiger’ safes we produce are also one of the top ten famous brands of China's safe ...” said Wang Chengzong, deputy secretary of the CPC Wuyi County committee and head of Wuyi County. He made the remarks on June 30 in a livestreaming event, which attracted 100,000 viewers online.

At the same time, cutting, welding, spraying, assembling ...The workers are working hard in the workshop. Outside the workshop, trucks have been loaded with packed safes and will be sent to all parts of the country.

"The downturn continued in the first quarter, but orders grew in April and returned to last year’s level in May. Today, we sold 1,300 units per day, 30% higher than that in the same period last year, " said Li Huimin, chairman of the board of the enterprise. He said that in this special period, such achievements would not be achieved without the full support of the government.

The outbreak of the epidemic at the beginning of the year left Zhang Haifeng, the marketing director of Tiger’s subsidiary Aodi, unprepared. Although the enterprise resumed production as early as February 10, transportation was hindered and orders dropped sharply, from 4,000 or 5,000 sets to 1,000 in the first quarter.

The epidemic has brought enterprises into crisis, and also made Aodi have more profound thinking on the future development. "In the 1990s, the Tiger-branded safes won the national excellent silver award in the national safe industry and became the leader in the metal cabinet industry," said Li. He said that the most fundamental reason for Tiger's downfall is the lack of R&D and innovation ability.

Only by continuous innovation can we stand bravely in the tide," said Li.

"Plasma sterilization cabinet is a new product independently developed by us in response to the problems in the process of epidemic prevention and control, such as document signing and approval, disinfection of medical staff's clothes and hats, and other problems," said Zhang. In the product exhibition hall, he opened a file cabinet, pointed to a device inside, and said: "It contains mystery. This is a plasma generator, which can change the bacterial structure or energy conversion through the action of positive and negative ions, so as to achieve sterilization." Moreover, remote intelligent control technology is used in the device as well.

Zhang put the mobile phone on a bedside safe, and the mobile phone immediately entered the charging state. "In the past, our products were strong enough but not 'smart'. Now our products are not only more fashionable, but also more intelligent. This is a bedside table with wireless charging function."

While controlling quality strictly, through technological and management innovation, Aodi’s electronic fingerprint safes, multi-biometric safes and other new products have become the new favorite of the market again.

In the process of "cultivating new opportunities", Wuyi has given great help to enterprises. “We not only sent epidemic prevention materials, but also timely coordinated the bank to apply for a loan of 20 million yuan for us which ensures the normal operation of the enterprise ” said Zhang.

In recent years, Wuyi has vigorously implemented the strategy of "strengthening the county through e-commerce", which has also helped the county metal cabinet enterprises to sign strategic cooperation agreements with e-commerce companies such as Alibaba, Suning and JD, so as to promote the transformation from "face-to-face" offline sales to online "end-to-end". Last year, 950,000 safes were sold online, with sales volume of 2.2 billion yuan.

"It can be said that e-commerce marketing has opened a new window for enterprises," said Li during this year's June 18 festival, they set a sales record high of 15,000 sets.

At present, the safe automatic intelligent production line jointly developed by Aodi and the fifth Aerospace Academy has been installed, after which is put into operation, it will not only greatly reduce the production cost, but also greatly improve the production capacity and quality. The enterprise will also realize the annual production capacity of 600,000 sets. "This year, we have a higher goal, not only to achieve annual sales of 300 million, but also to layout the international market, so that the Tiger brand. Tiger safes are reborn!" Standing beside the brand-new automatic intelligent production line, Li Huimin is full of confidence.