Lifting the Power of Liberation: Filling the Gap in Technology to Help Products Lead the Way | Pioneers in Car Manufacturing

Zhai Liming is the Chief Engineer for Engine Structure Design and Analysis at the Liberation Powertrain Business Unit, and the person in charge of the Product Design Department of the Authorized Management Powertrain Product Development Department.

As a party member and a front-line R&D personnel, for 8 years, he has been fighting at the forefront of product development, actively playing the exemplary role of a party member, leading the team to adhere to innovation-driven development, continuously tackling difficulties, and making unremitting efforts to enhance product competitiveness and help products continue to lead.

From a research and development technician to a person in charge of an independent sector, honors such as "Taihu Talent of Wuxi City", "Jiangsu Province Double Innovation Talent", "Youth Post Expert", "Top 100 Science and Technology Stars of Wuxi City", "Jiangsu Enterprise Innovation Talent", and "Liberation Advanced Model" have become witnesses to his growth.

What Zhai Liming values more is leading the team with his own persistence in innovation and excellent professional ability, continuously filling gaps and solving problems on the front line of R&D.

Continuously Enhancing Innovation Capability and Successfully Filling the Gap in Technology

After completing his doctorate in 2016, Zhai Liming started as a technician and continuously explored and accumulated experience. In the early stages of his work, he found that "whether to innovate depends on courage, and whether to innovate successfully depends on ability." Zhai Liming believed that his ability reserve was still lacking, so he resolutely decided to continue studying and entered the joint postdoctoral workstation of FAW Jiefang and Tsinghua University's Department of Automotive Engineering, and successfully completed it. Continuously forging his own knowledge literacy has given Zhai Liming the ability to back up his innovation in the R&D field.

At the beginning of 2022, in order to create a new benchmark for high-end comfortable heavy trucks called "Yingtu", Zhai Liming led the team to overcome the problem of the whole vehicle shaking when the engine was turned off. After four visits to the market, they found the cause of the problem but could not find a solution for a while, and the problem-solving was once at an impasse.

By chance, an engine braking failure flashed an idea in Zhai Liming's mind: Can the engine braking function be used to quickly turn off the engine? So, Zhai Liming immediately organized a bench test for verification. The initial test results were not ideal, and after reviewing, he found that the verification method needed to be improved. Guided by this discovery, the shaking phenomenon was significantly improved. However, at this moment, the team faced the problem that the ECU software could not achieve control. Zhai Liming immediately held several special discussions with the business school's electronic control personnel and modified the underlying logic, achieving automatic control of productization. They successfully solved the Yingtu engine shutdown shaking problem and promoted the results to J7, J6V, JH6 and other main models. This technology is the first in the industry and won the "Top Ten Excellent Innovation Results of the Group Company".

Zhai Liming led the team to complete five liberation science and technology innovation projects such as "Technical Pre-research on Improving Thermal Efficiency of Light Diesel Engines", "Research and Application of Multi-axial Fatigue Life of Diesel Engine Main Bearing Bushes", and "Research on the Mechanism of Friction Work Change and Countermeasures for Ultra-high Explosion Pressure Diesel Engines". The research on the 45% thermal efficiency technology of liberation power light diesel engines and the high-precision friction work test of engines have filled the technical gaps. The team won honors such as "First Prize of Liberation Company Technology Innovation", "Second Prize of FAW Jiefang Product Innovation", and "Third Prize of Mechanical Industry Science and Technology".

Insight into Market Demand and Enhance Product Competitiveness

Not only in the development of technical details, Zhai Liming is brave in taking responsibility, and he still takes the lead in the transformation of the development process. I still remember that the business department implemented the pilot of the light vehicle IPD, which is an innovation for the product development process. Zhai Liming actively embraces the change and supports the realization of customer satisfaction and business success of the liberation power light vehicle product with practical actions.

Relying on the IPD process system, Zhai Liming regularly joins representatives from planning, marketing, and the whole vehicle to conduct in-depth market research in Hebei, Henan, Shandong, Jiangsu, Yunnan, Guangdong, Chongqing, and other places, and has traveled through the north and south of the country. Through in-depth communication with users, he has understood the needs of customers in different usage scenarios and clarified the direction of product improvement and upgrading.

Through on-the-spot research, the team analyzed the market demand collected and expanded and upgraded the product in a targeted manner. In response to the ultimate demand for cost and power of the 320N·m standard light truck market, various technical measures were applied to the light engine to significantly reduce costs, and at the same time, a 150-horsepower product was developed to quickly respond to the power upgrade of competitors; in response to the growing demand for high-horsepower and high-torque products in the blue plate light truck heavy load market, a 180-horsepower machine was developed to form an absolute power advantage and consolidate the advantageous position of liberation light trucks in the heavy load market.

In 2023, the 4DB platform achieved a cumulative sales volume of 15,000 units throughout the year. In 2024, Zhai Liming led the team to continue to strive for the ultimate fuel saving of the product. By applying some mature 45% thermal efficiency fuel-saving technology plans, a low fuel consumption and low-cost Jingwei series of annual machine products were developed, which reduced the overall CHTC cycle fuel consumption by 2%, further strengthening the fuel-saving advantage of the liberation power light diesel engine.

Solving Front-line Pain Points to Make Users More Satisfied

Only products that have withstood market testing and received user recognition are good products. In order to achieve the goal of "user satisfaction," Zhai Liming has been working hard, where there are difficulties and needs, he goes there.

In April 2023, the market feedback showed that the Hu VR light truck matched with the liberation power Jingwei engine had an idle shaking problem that needed to be resolved urgently. Zhai Liming quickly organized engineers to go to the scene, through a large number of test analyses, quickly locked the root cause of the problem, and took performance optimization and structural improvement measures to effectively solve the shaking problem, eliminating customer concerns and enhancing user satisfaction.

In November 2023, the liberation light truck in the Jiangxi area of the commercial supermarket market was challenged by the models of friends, and some users had concerns about the fuel consumption performance of the liberation light truck. In order to prove the real fuel consumption performance of the liberation light truck equipped with the liberation power Jingwei engine, he formed a joint investigation team of liberation power, liberation light truck, and dealers, and rushed to the scene for the first time, randomly selected several local liberation and friends of the merchant users to carry out a fuel consumption challenge. Starting in the morning, it was completed in the early morning. Under the meticulous preparation and meticulous test of Zhai Liming and the team, the two light truck models of liberation, under the same load and larger windage area, had a fuel consumption 2.38L lower than the friends' models! The team responded to the challenge with actions and proved the fuel-saving value characteristics of the liberation power Jingwei engine with facts, greatly boosting market confidence and giving customers a "reassuring pill" to choose liberation power.

Playing a Leading Role and Promoting Team Growth Together

As the person in charge of the Product Development Department Design Department, Zhai Liming actively plays the role of a "pioneer", taking project practice as a starting point, helping each other, fully mobilizing the enthusiasm of employees, and promoting the growth of the team together.

"I want to combine a group of technical backbones with 'single-soldier combat' capabilities into a team, allowing everyone to shine." said Zhai Liming. He often encourages young people in the team to take responsibility, exercise more in practical engineering projects, and improve their professional ability; he organizes the backbone forces such as the chief engineer and supervisor to take the lead in the new, actively answering questions for young people; he calls on everyone to think hard, summarize and generalize, organize internal academic and