On July 1, Qi Ming, the chief technician of NCPC GeneTech Biotechnology Co., Ltd., received the award of "Outstanding Party Member" at the grand ceremony held in the Great Hall of the People in Beijing to mark the 95th anniversary of the founding of the Communist Party of China (CPC).

Party member Qi Ming

Qi was excited by the honor, which spurred him to keep learning at work. "I will keep updated on the latest technologies and be stricter on myself, thus playing the exemplary role of a Party member," he said.

Over the past 25 years, Qi has become an expert in the electrical automation and instrumentation field. In every post he has held, he's performed brilliantly.

"As a Party member, I should stick to my post and field. It's my obligation to work harder than others," he said.

Qi has been inspired by technology since his childhood. As a small boy, he spent much of his time thinking about why there was always a clicking sound when a radio was turned on.

When he grew up, he chose to learn low-voltage electrics at a vocational school instead of pursuing higher education as his parents expected. However, when he graduated as the school's top student, he was assigned the job of high-voltage maintenance at the North China Pharmaceutical Group Corp (NCPC) in Hebei Province. The mismatch didn't crush his confidence. Instead, he felt more motivated to learn.

In 1999, Qi was transferred to GeneTech Biotechnology, a joint venture of NCPC, and joined the Party there. GeneTech is the largest biotech company in China equipped with state-of-the-art devices produced in Germany, United States, Switzerland and other western countries. The English manuals were beyond Qi's comprehension, and they propelled him to study harder.

Gradually, Qi became a master of the complicated devices. Besides daily maintenance, he made many innovative designs. During pharmaceutical production, the storage of cells is very important. Cell bottles need to be rolled continuously, or the cells will die in a few minutes. However, the bottle roller used by GeneTech was unable to resume rolling automatically after a power failure, which caused great economic losses to the company, as a bottle of cells was worth tens of thousands of yuan. After careful study and repeated trials, Qi invented a gadget for the roller, which mimicked the movements of hands to restart the rolling after a power cut.

This is only one of the 167 inventions made by Qi, who owns five national patents. These inventions helped GeneTech earn more than 40 million yuan (US$6.03 million) in recent decades.

As Qi was making progress in technical innovation, he was diagnosed of leukemia. It was in 2008. He had just turned 36. The doctor told him that he only had a 15-percent chance of survival.

After hearing the shocking news, Qin fell into a depression for a while, but with the comfort of his family and friends he pulled himself together and became more determined in pursuing his dream.

He resumed study in hospital. "I must live every day as if it were the last. I will realize my dream even if I don't live long," he said.

After every round of chemotherapy, he vomited badly; but as soon as he felt better, he started reading, which helped him forget his pain. During this time he devised an automated precise weighing system.

Six months after therapy, he returned to his post despite his body being swollen. He couldn't wait to put his automated precise weighing system into practice. And it proved to be a success, saving the work of three to four people and reducing the failure rate of packaging from 42 percent to 5 percent.

"Will power gave me the strength to fight the disease," he said.

His disease didn't stop Qi from learning and making innovation, and he became the foremost authority in GeneTech on high-and-low-voltage devices, electrical apparatus, single-chip microcontroller and programmable logic array (PLA) design. And more good news followed. After several reexaminations, doctors told him that there was no sign of cancer in his body.

Over the past years, Qi has helped GeneTech train a large number of skilled workers and shared his experiences with other NCPC subsidiaries. In early 2015, he began to cultivate young innovative minds in cooperation with the Hebei Vocational College of Labor Relations. Following his example, more and more workers have acquired technical expertise and engaged in the pursuit of perfection.

Go to Forum >>0 Comment(s)