Superior Quality Meets High Requirements – NMS Chairman Li Shunshan Had an Exclusive Interview with China Aggregates Association

During the 8th National Aggregates Industry Science & Technology Conference (hereinafter referred to as “the conference “), the Integrated Media Center of China Aggregates Association (CAA) took an exclusive interview with Li Shunshan, Chairman of Nanchang Mineral Systems Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as “NMS “) who was one of the co-organizers to tell you about the future development strategy of NMS in the past 50 years.

Q: China strives to achieve carbon peak by 2030 and carbon neutrality by 2060. The theme of the conference is “green innovation, low-carbon development”. Please talk about your understanding and how does NMS participate in it?

A: The target of carbon peak and carbon neutrality is to solve the climate problem. The natural changes caused by the climate are enough to make mankind disappear from the earth. Therefore, the realization of carbon peak and carbon neutrality is related to the sustainable development of the Chinese nation and the construction of a community of human destiny, which is inevitable to bring a profound change to the social economy. Sand and aggregates is an industry of high energy consumption. It is directly related to the generation of carbon. Through all links of aggregates production, it makes practical contributions to carbon peak and carbon neutrality from technology, process, equipment and management. The theme of the conference is “green innovation, low-carbon development”, which points out the development direction and path of our industry and is worthy of attention.

In 2012, NMS put forward the mission of enterprise development: “innovation, pursuit of excellence, commitment to mining health, environmental protection, sustainable development and maximization of resource value”, which coincides with the current green and low-carbon development advocated by the nation.

Over the past decade, NMS has attracted a large number of excellent talents home and abroad, with professional backgrounds from large mining design institutes and international well-known enterprises. It has invested a lot of money to carry out research on innovative technologies and solutions for stone and mineral processing, equipment development, and implement intelligent manufacturing and intelligent operation & maintenance, so as to make the green concept start from R&D to equipment manufacturing, operation and maintain the of the whole life cycle to implement. JC series jaw crusher, CC and MC series cone crushers, MOS and HFS series screens, sand-making machine and tower developed by NMS all reflect the great comparative advantages of unit energy consumption and consumable, bring considerable economic benefits to our customers, and contribute to low carbon and green. Definitely, the development of science and technology is endless. Our achievements today are far from the requirements of the industry. We still need more investment and greater efforts. NMS will unswervingly practice the enterprise mission and contribute to the national development.

Q: The annual use of sand and aggregates in China is about 20 billion tons, and the market prospect is huge, which also leads to fierce competition in this industry. How can NMS ensure that the enterprise is in an invincible position in the competition and achieve considerable development? Under the global epidemic situation, what obstacles have been formed to the overseas market of NMS layout, and how should NMS deal with it?

A: In 2015, the Fifth Plenary Session of the 18th CPC Central Committee put forward the new development concept of “innovation, coordination, green, openness and sharing”, which was written into the 14th five-year plan this time. This is the guiding ideology of national development and points out the direction for enterprise development.

Today, NMS is recognized by the majority of customers and peers in the industry, which is the result of adhering to the enterprise values and practicing the enterprise mission. How to maintain and further enhance our competitiveness? I think NMS can survive and develop as long as we don’t forget our original intention, remember our mission, focus on customers and innovation, take talents as the core and culture as the foundation.

First, scientific and technological innovation ability. NMS has always regarded enterprise innovation and product development and upgrading as the driving force of enterprise development, established a perfect scientific and technological innovation system, made full use of international advanced crushing and screening technology and ideas, and successfully developed a series of domestic leading and international advanced equipment. The high-performance GC series gyratory we developed has reached the international advanced level. The CC series intelligent single cylinder cone crusher we developed is the first one in China. CC800 has been successfully applied in Gucheng Mining Industry, which is the largest model in the world and won the first prize of excellent new product of Jiangxi Province in 2020; “2HFS1875V hydraulic high-frequency screen” won the second prize of excellent new product of Jiangxi Province in 2020; the processing capacity of VS2000 vertical shaft shaping sand-making machine developed by us is up to 800 t/h, which is also the largest model of this product first launched in China; the screening machine MOS3675 and high-frequency screen HFS also set a precedent for efficient screening in China. The research and development of these products has laid a solid foundation for NMS to win the market and customers.

Second, talent training. One of the characteristics of NMS is that it has gathered a number of high-end talents in the industry home and abroad. There are many scientific research institutions home and abroad, maintaining a long-term and stable relationship with university research cooperation with many colleges and universities, and setting up scholarships in Central South University and Jiangxi University of technology to reserve talents for the rapid development of NMS. NMS has set up a municipal “doctoral research and innovation center” and a “provincial postdoctoral innovation practice base”. September 29 of each year is defined as NMS innovation day.

Third, enterprise culture construction. NMS attaches great importance to improving the soft power of enterprise culture and puts forward the professional thought and code of conduct of “conscience and responsibility”. NMS treats customers and partners seriously, actively and responsibly with conscience and responsibility. NMS is a model enterprise with harmonious labor relations of Jiangxi Province awarded by the provincial government. 50 years’ hardship and cultural innovation of NMS people has been rated as a typical case of national building materials enterprise culture construction in 2020-2021 by China Building Materials Enterprise Management Association.

During the epidemic period, in order to keep promises and fulfill contracts, NMS concentrated human and material resources to solve problems, and everyone worked together to overcome difficulties and ensure the delivery of multiple overseas projects on schedule. NMS dispatched dedicated staff to KMR project in South Africa to help complete the installation and commissioning of the project; for projects in areas where the epidemic situation is too serious, NMS provides 24-hour telephone online service for remote assistance equipment commissioning. In June 2021, the South African project successfully completed the hot commissioning and officially entered the final production acceptance of production and operation. Everyone’s full cooperation ensured that the equipment was delivered on time and the project was operated on schedule during the epidemic, which fully demonstrated the responsibility of NMS.

Q: Superior quality meets high requirements. As an enterprise with a history of more than 50 years, NMS has a good reputation in the industry. Can you introduce the most impressive successful project cases of equipment application？

A: NMS brand is closely related to national key projects and major projects. From the Three Gorges project, Pakistan Karachi nuclear power plant, CGN Namibia uranium mine, to the Baihetan hydropower station reported by CCTV recently, NMS crushing and screening equipment has been widely used. In the new green mine Anhui Changjiu Shenshan project of PowerChina with an annual capacity of 70 million tons, 50 sets of NMS are applied to the project site; Huaxin Cement Hubei Beiyang new green aggregates production line with an annual capacity of 100 million tons, more than 70 equipment of NMS has been selected. These are the vivid embodiment of NMS “superior quality meets high requirement”. There are many successful cases of NMS. Let me talk about some impressive examples:

 1. Enter Europe market, RUDUS aggregates, Helsinki, Finland

RUDUS Aggregates, Helsinki, Finland

Ireland CRH aggregates plant, one of the world’s top 500 companies, has always used the crushing and screening equipment of international well-known company. After a comprehensive investigation for NMS, it decided to choose the hard granite mine from Finland for trial. It was chosen in Finland because it is a place famous for its hard rock in the world, It is also the birthplace and headquarters base of world-class rock drilling equipment and crushing equipment. In the words of the procurement director of CRH, “if NMS crusher passes the test of RUDUS, it is equivalent to obtaining the global pass to enter CRH”. In April 2016, CC300S cone crusher produced by NMS replaced a well-known international brand crusher and began production and operation in Helsinki aggregates of RUDUS, a subsidiary of CRH. After more than a year’s investigation, the performance and reliability of the equipment exceeded the customer’s expectations, reached the international level, won the customer’s trust, and also contributed to the subsequent Atlanta project, Salt Lake City project and Canada project of CRH group, the procurement of NMS and multiple cone crushers has laid a solid foundation.

 2. Selection of crushing and screening equipment of Jidong Yutian aggregates plant

Jidong Yutian aggregates plant

Jidong Cement is one of the first cement enterprises to enter sand and aggregates industry. Its first project was to build a 1000t/h production line in Yutian, Hebei. In order to accumulate experience for more than 20 subsequent production lines, they were very confused about whether to choose imported brand equipment or domestic in terms of crushing and screening equipment. Through various investigations, Finally, it decided that the 1000t/h production line shall be constructed as two 500 t/h production lines. NMS was selected for all jaw crushers and feeders, and a well-known imported brand is selected for one line of medium and fine cone crusher, and the cone crusher of NMS was selected for the other line. Through the actual production and operation, the reliability and performance indexes of NMS cone crusher were not inferior, which also led Jidong Cement to select all domestic brands for subsequent crushers.

 3. CC800 for Gucheng Mining

Gucheng Mining project

Guangdong Qingyuan Mining Group is a famous enterprise of aggregates and manufactured sand in Guangdong. Chairman Lai is an aggregates wonder who likes to study and innovate and make in-depth on-site observation. Many of our innovative products were born with his encouragement and support, including the world’s largest CC800 single cylinder hydraulic cone crusher, MOS and MLS large-scale screening machines. Among them, CC800 cone crusher has been put into production after more than two years of continuous improvement and improvement, the equipment is now running stably. It has excellent performance in product size, energy consumption, capacity and yield, and has entered the world-class level. At present, CC800 has won the approval of Baowu Group in the competition to produce iron tailings aggregates.

The three examples were the concrete embodiment of NMS development concept of “superior quality meets high requirement” for decades, which was consistent with the national supply side reform and high-quality development concept.

Q: Please talk about your views on the development trend of the future sand and aggregates industry. How will NMS comply with the current situation and promote the healthy and orderly development of the industry and enterprise in the future?

A: Large-scale, intelligent and green were the appearance or measures for the development of aggregates industry, but sustainable development was the fundamental. In this sense, in addition to the fact that greening was the iron law for the development of all industries and the premise of sustainable development, large-scale and intelligent had their relative applicability. It was a way to solve efficiency, cost and quality, but it was not the only way. Ignoring the differences of objective conditions and adjusting measures to local conditions, blindly large-scale and intelligent may lead to difficulties in enterprise operation and loss of sustainable development momentum, so we should pay great attention to it.

The general development trend of aggregates industry was actually a process of “from chaos to governance, from short supply to oversupply, from huge profits to reasonable profits, and from resource competition to internal operation and management competition”. Therefore, both investment and aggregates production enterprises should rationally view the hot scene of the aggregates industry, make overall planning, and practice their internal skills in enterprise management and market development.

The future development strategy of NMS was to upgrade the traditional manufacturing type to an intelligent manufacturing plus Intelligent service-oriented enterprise, take “innovation and green” as the development concept, based on the domestic market and develop the international market through technology guidance and excellent management, and realize NMS vision that become an international well-known brand.

Li Shunshan, male, Chairman of NMS, Deputy President of CAA, Excellent Entrepreneur of National Sand and Aggregates Industry

Jul. 1986, assigned to the Yangtze River Survey, Design and Research Institute of the Yangtze River Water Resources Commission of the Ministry of Water Resources;

Nov. 1992, Deputy Director and Acting Director of Design Office of Construction Enterprise, main participants of the national Three Gorges artificial sand key projects in the 7^th and 8^th five-year plan, served as the Chief Designer of the Three Gorges Xia’anxi artificial sand processing system (800 t/h of finished sand), the largest artificial sand processing system in the world, and participated in the compilation of Construction Guidelines for Water Resources, Hydropower and Sand Processing Plant;

Nov. 1993 – Apr. 1994, went to the USA to study the technical scheme of the Three Gorges concrete construction;

Jan. 1996 – Jan. 1997, Deputy Director of Concrete Construction Technology Office;

Dec. 1997, Manager of Shanghai Representative Office, Svedala Industries AB;

Oct. 2001, General Manager of China, Sandvik SRP AB;

Jul. 2005, President of Sandvik Mining Engineering Machinery (China) Co., Ltd.;

Feb. 2007 to now, Chairman of Nanchang Mineral Systems Co., Ltd.