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Completing Transition from Repair to Manufacture

The purpose of constructing factories and assembling and training personnel was after all to realize the development target of the aviation industry from repair to manufacture. Approved by the government, the detailed tasks of aircraft manufacture in the First Five-year Plan of aviation industry were: to successfully produce Yak-18 Primary Trainer with a Chinese name of CJ-5 and its M-11 engine by the third quarter of 1955; and to successfully manufacture MiG-15bis jet fighter and its engine VK-1A by the end of 1957. In October 1954, the fighter and engine types were changed to more advanced MiG-17F and VK-1F with Chinese names of J-5 and WP5 respectively.

There were only a few people who had the experience of aircraft repair and overhaul among the working force of aviation industry at the beginning of First Five-year Plan, most people were new to the aviation industry and some of them even had not seen the aircraft. Some automobile repair workers were working on the aircraft assembly line, some watch repairers and tin smiths were working as fitters and instrumentation workers. It obviously was not an easy task for such a young and inexperienced working force to produce in three to five years two types of aircraft, especially newly appeared jet fighters.

Pioneers of new China's, aviation industry were dauntless and their only wish was to let the aircraft manufactured by themselves fly in the sky at the earliest date. The Secretary of the Party Committee of Jiangxi Province said: "Jiangxi is an old revolutionary base. And Nanchang is the place where the first bullet was shot in August 1 military uprising to seize power. The first aircraft of new China must also be manufactured here in Nanchang." His remarks truly expressed the desire of workers of Nanchang Aircraft Factory and the wish and enthusiasm of all workers and people of aviation industry to manufacture the aircraft as soon as possible. This strong feeling of honor and the strong sense of master's responsibility turned into the spirit of hard working and diligent study. Workers and staff made their efforts in learning technology, striving to reach the target of manufacturing aircraft by climbing up the ladder of repair.

Since 1953, the aircraft sent back for repair by the Air Force were damaged ever more. Repair work load and the type and number of parts for replacement were increasing rapidly, which would not be fulfilled if just relying on the normal way of repair. The stored spare parts were limited, the ordered parts from abroad could not be supplied on time and some parts could not be supplied from abroad because production of them was stopped. To let the repair and manufacture move forward each other, the Bureau of Aviation Industry promptly put forward the policy of "while meeting the requirement of repair, taking into consideration the technical development *and actively developing new products," and quickly organized enterprises to enlarge the manufacturing scope of components to meet the requirement of repair, which accelerated the growth of manufacture factory.

The types of new trial produced parts in each factory increased quickly after implementing the above mentioned policy. Shenyang Aero Engine Factory only produced 767 parts in 1952, but rapidly increased to 1,574 in 1953, 2,720 in 1954 and 3,353 in 1955. 44 percent of RD-20 engine parts and 55.6 percent of RD-45 engine parts could be manufactured in our factories. Before the manufacture was carried out in full swing, Zhuzhou Aero Engine Factory had trial-produced 60% of complete M-11 engine parts. The period of manufacturing large number of parts to meet demands of repair was the period of employees to learn and master the complete complicated manufacturing techniques of machining, heat process, test, assembly and inspection.

Management skill was quickly improved due to the extension of scope of part manufac¬turing. Production of important and complicated parts must be carried out strictly according to the manufacturing specification and production tooling should be produced. Actual production should not be allowed prior to the trial production and certification. It was obvious that the management method for the repair was no longer suitable and the management system must be reformed according to the requirement of formal manufacture factory. Therefore, the Director's responsibility system and Chief Engineer's production technical responsibility systems including metallurgy, process, design, power supply and production were established in each factory. To ensure product quality, a complete organization of management was set up, planning and production technical management were strengthened and the incoming material inspection and finished part inspection were more strictly controlled. Eventually, a good foundation of scientific management was laid for the transition from repair to manufacture.

During this period, each factory, according to the plan and work division for developing new product, adopted the method of "dividing work in accordance with profession and with workers fixed to it," technical persons were fixed to their professions and workers to the job and operation, so that every one was working with clear aims to improve their skills. To let the employees adapt themselves to the modern large scale production, and get rid of the habit of repair, it was stipulated that production could not be started until a complete and correct manufacturing process was established and worker was certified for the operation. This greatly improved the quality of technicians and workers.

Because attention was paid to the correlation between repair and manufacture at an early stage, after three years repair work conditions for manufacturing were technically prepared and management improved and people trained. As the Chinese saying goes: where water flows, a channel is formed. The year of 1954 was the turning point of aviation industry from repair to manufacture, which was fully proved by the successful trial production of the primary trainer CJ-5 in the Nanchang Aircraft Factory.