In daily life, bearings are commonplace. As a supporting role in mechanical equipment, it is small, but its role is not small. Whether mechanical parts can rotate smoothly depends on it.

Fujian Funan Bearing Co., Ltd., located in Ximei Street, Nan'an, focuses on producing this unique "small part" and has made small bearings a big market. Recently, with the breakthrough of the Funan Bearing R&D team, a product called "Maintenance free Bearing for Agricultural Machinery" has entered the stage of small-scale production and will soon play a significant role in agricultural machinery.

Funan bearing technicians are testing product performance.

Small bearings break into the big market

On April 9th, at the Minxiao Industrial Park in Liantang Village, Ximei Street, upon entering the Funan Bearing Factory area, rows of specialized automated CNC equipment were operating in an orderly manner in the workshop, with precision machining, strict inspection, precise assembly, and careful packaging... each process was operating in an orderly manner.

The chief engineer leading the team, Liang Bin, stopped in front of a piece of equipment with great interest and picked up a produced product to introduce, "This is our latest research and development of maintenance free bearings for agricultural machinery, with a service life of 3 to 5 years. Once installed on the agricultural machinery, it can achieve 2 years of maintenance free

Although only the size of a fist, the launch of this product will solve the pain points in the field of agricultural machinery. Liang Bin explained that agricultural machinery often needs to replace bearings two or three times, or even more, during each harvesting season due to prolonged exposure to outdoor environments, field operations, mud, dust, and crop stalks, which shorten the service life of bearings.

This has brought a lot of trouble to farmers. On the one hand, replacing bearings is time-consuming, laborious, and expensive. On the other hand, it is difficult to find maintenance outlets, which greatly affects production efficiency. In order to effectively reduce the frequency of mechanical equipment maintenance and save costs, under the leadership of the research and development team led by Liang Bin, this dust-proof, mud proof, and maintenance free bearing will greatly improve the stability of agricultural machinery equipment.

Since October last year, more than 800000 yuan has been invested in the research and development of maintenance free bearings for agricultural machinery, excluding equipment investment, "Yao Guanghai, the general manager of Funan Bearing Company, told reporters. The first batch of bearings will be sent to agricultural machinery manufacturing factories and agricultural production areas such as Northeast China, Shandong, and Xinjiang." We will track user usage throughout the process, gradually improve and expand production capacity.

Small bearings have a large market. Relevant data shows that the annual sales revenue of agricultural machinery in China is nearly 100 billion yuan, and the annual demand for specialized supporting bearings is nearly 3 billion yuan, with thousands of models. Once maintenance free bearings for agricultural machinery are introduced to the market, there will be a market demand of billions of yuan and great potential, "said Yao Guanghai.

Maintenance free bearings for agricultural machinery are just a microcosm of Funan Bearing's technological innovation. It is reported that Funan Bearing has 160 employees, with 11% of them engaged in research and technological innovation activities. In 2019, the revenue of the bearing part was nearly 50 million yuan, and the R&D investment accounted for about 5% of the sales in the past three years.

Moving from low-end manufacturing to high-end

If 15 years ago, Funan Bearing was just a novice explorer, now, with technological innovation and craftsmanship spirit, focusing on bearing matching for more than a decade, Funan Bearing has achieved remarkable performance: in the field of ball bearings with seats, it has successfully entered the "first tier in China".

All the changes have to start from four years ago. In 2016, Funan Bearing encountered difficulties: due to low product quality, price wars not only resulted in low profits, but also made it difficult to produce. Only by relying on technological innovation and producing mid to high end products can we break free from the predicament.

The introduction of talents is particularly important. Liang Bin, who graduated from Henan University of Science and Technology with a major in Bearing Design and Manufacturing, is an expert in bearing manufacturing and research and development for decades. He has previously worked in large state-owned, private, and foreign-funded enterprises. At the end of 2016, he was hired by Funan Bearing with a large sum of money.

As the core component of machinery, bearings must ensure the stability of rotation and reduce vibration noise. "When Liang Bin arrived at Funan Bearing, he was assigned a task: to complete the research and development of" high-speed, low-noise high-end seat outer spherical ball bearings ".

Previously, many customers had a demand for high-end bearings, so we had to import them from abroad. Only by producing them ourselves can the profit be high, "Liang Bin told reporters. In order to develop this product, they spent 2 years and caught up in 4 years.

First of all, we bought design drawings and products from abroad, analyzed and tested the accuracy, performance, life and reliability of the products with reference to the standards of big brand enterprises, took their essence, and used reverse thinking to complement the weak points, digest, absorb and innovate again.

On the equipment, tens of millions of yuan are invested to purchase advanced CNC equipment, testing instruments, heat treatment production lines, etc. The finished bearings are strictly tested for three items: rotational accuracy, radial clearance, and vibration noise level. The vibration noise level of the bearings has stabilized at V2 level.

The vibration and noise of bearings are divided into four levels: V, V1, V2, and V3. V3 represents the international advanced level, and we are gradually narrowing the gap and approaching the international level Liang Bin explained that with the improvement of technological level and product quality, currently in the key product of seat outer spherical ball bearings, Funan bearings have caught up from behind and achieved a leap from low-end to high-end.

Yao Guanghai introduced that in addition to spherical ball bearings with seats, Funan Bearing also produces a full range of spherical ball bearings, bearing seats, and non-standard customized products. Annual production of 7 million bearing seats and 4 million sets of bearings, and supporting in fields such as wind turbine equipment, textile machinery, agricultural machinery, and automotive testing lines.

While expanding into the domestic market, Funan Bearing is also actively expanding into the international market. In regions such as Europe, North America, South America, and Asia, Funan Bearing products are already serving users.