Chongqing Jinmao Textile Accessories Co., Ltd. is a key enterprise specialized in manufacturing steel travelers and steel rings for spinning as well as various steel reeds for weaving in China. With over fifty-year professional production, Jinmao has been equipped the capacity of manufacturing 550 thousand pcs travelers, 12 million steel rings, 150-thousand-meter various steel reeds, and 15 million pieces of profiled reed wires each year. There has been an all-around production & sales network, including the investment holding cooperation’s subsidiaries (Chongqing Jinmao Impex Co.,Ltd. & Hebei Yuzhou Jinmao Textile Machinery Accessories Co.,Ltd.), and “Jinmao Sales Reserve Center” among such developed areas in textile as Shandong, Henan, Jiangsu, Zhejiang, Fujian, and jiangxi, as well as a variety of sales agents. The products are sold not only to the 29 provinces (municipalities) and autonomous regions in China, but also to the countries and regions in Asia, Europe, Africa, and America; where there is textile, there are Jinmao products.
Steel travelers, Chongqing Jinmao’s leading competitive products, after years of technical equipment modification and product upgrades, has achieved the process reengineering from the finished film manufacturing, to forming, heat treatment, polishing, electroplating and a variety of surface treatment, which ends decades of traditional and backward production. Jinmao has become one of China’s largest R & D manufacturing bases for steel travelers with varied products (high, medium and low-level range) and high market share.
In addition to several constant upgrades in the transformation of technology and equipment, Jinmao’s steel travelers have been put great efforts in new material application and surface treatment upgrades. Manufacturing material has been improved to domestic alloy and advanced imported alloy material from 72B、82B、T9A high-quality carbon steels; surface treatment has enjoyed the promotion of various new surface treatment products SP (new surface treatment), NT (nanotechnology), BS (foreign advanced diffusion technology) from single nickelplate. It keeps up with the upgrade pace of technological transformation in the textile industry, which can basically meet and adapt to technology requirements on spinning high-count, high speed, and special yarn as well as compact spinning. Dozens of high-end enterprises in China such as Anhui Huamao, Nantong Dasheng, Shandong Lutai have put them into use, improving that Chongqing Jinmao’s BC (sapphire) steel travelers can completely replace the similar imported ones.
In order to achieve as soon as possible the objectives and requirements of R & D of high-performance steel travelers and steel rings proposed in the 12th-Five-Year Program of China Textile Machinery Equipment Industry, Jinmao, as a chief unit in China Textile Machinery Association and Steel Traveler Professional Committee, took the lead to form a “Technology Alliance of Steel Travellers” with the guidence of the Association. Chongqing Jinmao is the president unit within the Alliance which includes foure members Qingdao Fengyi Textile Accessories Co., Ltd., Shanghai Yuandong, Changzhou Hangyue Ring Traveller Co., Ltd., and Wuxi Owl Textile Accessories Co., Ltd. After the establishment of the Alliance, R & D of new surface treatment and high-precision special equipment is taken as a recent project to be implemented step by step. Research of new surface treatment has been commissioned to the National Key Laboratory of Tribology of Tsinghua University, which has been progressing smoothly. The laboratory phase of testing will be completed shortly, and then Chongqing Jinmao will undertake the pilot plant test. The completion of the project will greatly improve the overall performance of steel traveler spinning and significantly extend the service life.
Steel travelers and steel rings are a pair of friction components. The former takes the latter as the track to achieve twisting spinning through high-speed rotation. Some well-known enterprises in foreign countries often put the two into production within one same company, while the vast majority of enterprises in China only produce one of them in their own ways, without being able to carry out research and manufacturing aiming to improve the comprehensive performance of this pair of products which need to work closely. Chongqing Jinmao, as one of the industry leaders in China’s steel travelers, has been expecting to develop steel ring products for a long time; however, only relying on Jinmao itself, it will takes longer time and more detours, and more importantly, cut-throat competition will appear with the existing steel ring company in the region, wasting a lot of resources.
Finally at the beginning of this year, based on long-time investigation and contact as well as many negotiations, Jinmao and Chongqing Runfeng Textile Machinery Co., Ltd. reached an agreement. Specifically speaking, Chongqing Runfeng becomes a shareholder in Jinmao in a way of investment with appraised price of sets of production equipment as well as technologies, and the technicians, salesmen, and chief skilled workers are transferred in an organizational system. While Chongqing Jinmao invests in the project with the plant, part of advanced equipment, and capital to achieve a set of R & D, production, and sales through win-win cooperations. To let steel travelers bring along steel rings while take the latter promote the former, and gather both parties’ techniques, technology, and finance, to work together for building China’s R & D of steel travelers/rings.
Runfeng’s joining gives a fresh impetus to the development of Jinmao as well as a new opportunity for Jinmao to create a “kingdom” of manufacturing steel travelers and to realize leap-forward development.
This cooperation mode is the first case in China’s textile equipment industry. After six months’ breaking-in, the company carried out the work successfully, sales of steel ring reaching a record level. In order to push ahead the R & D of steel travelers and steel rings, the company quickly set up two project research teams, in which their own technical staff are the backbone while cooperating with universities and research institutes. Starting from new materials, further processing, and surface treatment, they made a detailed planning for the application of new materials, production process reengineering, and the innovation of new surface treatment and implemented step by step, creating conditions for the formation of Enterprise Technology Center.
After the cooperation of steel ring projects, the company’s decision-makers positioned the development of Jinmao in a middle-high-end market, “building a R & D and manufacturing highland for steel travelers and steel rings” as the mission and catching up with the world-class products as the goal, locking the direction of new product development in “adapting to high-counts, high-speed, high wear-resistant, long life, and high-performance”.
