[ Qingdao News Network Exclusive]
(Reporter Li Litao Ning Guanyu)
"In the past, everyone chose Japanese and German to buy good home appliances. Now when it comes to good home appliances, the first reaction is our domestic brands." This is a great affirmation for Li Min, who has been deeply engaged in the home appliance industry for ten years. In 2014, Li Min, who graduated from from Tsinghua University, joined Haier and participated in the research and development of home appliance products. From focusing on product performance to focusing on user experience, abandoning closed-door manufacturing and advocating open innovation, Haier's R&D philosophy has allowed Li Min to see many possibilities in the home appliance industry.
From R&D personnel to business director, Li Min grew up all the way, witnessing Haier's continuous innovation and breakthroughs, and the domestic home appliance industry has also gone from following to leading, ushering in the era of high-quality development of .
is oriented towards user needs Tsinghua Doctor "entering the sea" to develop home appliances
"What attracts me most is to always do research and development based on the needs of users." In 2014, Li Min, who is about to graduate from Tsinghua University, stopped in front of Haier's campus recruitment station for a long time, and the concept of "building a world-leading solution service provider for a better life" kept this top student. Li Min, who is a material science background, joined Haier's product research and development department, and the "first lesson" taught her the importance of "user needs".
When other home appliance brands are still obsessed with the curing standards of traditional refrigerator performance indicators, Haier took the lead in proposing to pay attention to "user needs". "The rigid requirement for every time a plan is to have user interaction. If there is no user interaction, the plan must be redone." Li Min said that these regulations, which seemed to be somewhat strict at the time, could allow users to participate in the entire process of product research and development.
For example, for the common " air conditioning disease " that users have nasal congestion, dizziness, fatigue after blowing air conditioners, Haier communicated with 670,000 users to various air conditioning ideas, and finally interacted with a smarter, healthier, and able to blow natural wind. This solved the century-old problem of the air conditioning industry.
Haier's refrigerators, air conditioners and other home appliance technologies lead the industry's development, and Li Min, as the behind-the-scenes R&D personnel, is very proud. "When going shopping with your family, I will take them to the Haier counter to check it out and tell them that these popular products have my hard work."
"collision" miracle of cross-border technology. Open innovation opens up a new world of R&D
After continuous learning and practice, Li Min repeatedly combines his professional knowledge with user needs and designs innovative solutions. However, the research and development supported by single-discipline knowledge is inevitably limited. How to make excellent products beyond their capabilities? "Open innovation" is the second lesson Li Min learned at Haier.
At that time, Haier launched a dry and wet storage refrigerator. According to user experience, Haier wanted to iterate the development of a new refrigerator that can make ingredients such as salmon, strawberry that are not easy to store, and still maintain nutrition and taste while extending the shelf life. Li Min has carried out in-depth and comprehensive technical disassembly on the path of high-quality storage of food. "Control the concentration of oxygen in the refrigerator is the key." But before that, no company in the industry has explored the issue of oxygen concentration in the refrigerator, and everything is blank.
At this time, the open innovation platform created by Haier provided strong support. Through the platform links 200,000+ experts and 1 million+ innovative resources, Li Min invited experts and innovative resources in the industry such as fuel cell , industrial gas, ship transportation, water treatment, etc. to conduct cross-border exchanges, and finally gained inspiration from oxygen-rich membrane technology in the medical field and locked in the breakthrough direction.
Then, it connected to the global resource network through the Haier platform, attracted advanced resources such as Chinese Academy of Sciences, , membrane material startups, etc., and jointly created it with Haier R&D, industry and other teams, and finally realized the implementation of the industry's first MSA low-oxygen preservation refrigerator solution. The refrigerator's low-oxygen preservation technology has obtained 36 international patents. On this basis, Haier also led the first IEC international freshness preservation standard, broadening the refrigerator evaluation dimension from a single refrigeration efficiency to a freshness preservation effect that users care more about.
"I didn't expect that the cross-border integration of medical and refrigerator technology would produce such a big 'chemical reaction'. This is the surprise brought to us by open innovation!" Now when recalling it, Li Min still sighs.
She is a "slash youth" and uses data intelligence to accelerate innovation
"Who would have thought that in her thirties, she would have to learn python from scratch and learn data modeling." Li Min joked that after joining Haier, she became a "slash youth" who is professional and versatile. After nearly 10 years of entering the industry, the Tsinghua PhD has now grown into Haier's backbone. Her HOPE innovation ecosystem platform is based on, which conducts 24-hour uninterrupted innovation around user needs, injecting "technology energy" into the innovative development of smart residence, industrial Internet, big health and other tracks. At the same time, resource parties have also accelerated the industrialization of scientific and technological achievements through the platform, and gained sharing in the process of creating value to create win-win results.
Under the background of the outline of the "14th Five-Year Plan" that proposes to "form a technological innovation system with enterprises as the main body, market-oriented, and deep integration of production, education, research and application", Haier's three major platforms accelerate integration and innovation. Among them, the HOPE innovation ecosystem platform introduces scientific and technological innovation resources, Haichuanghui is accelerating incubation, , Kaos is carrying out ecological empowerment, and the three major platforms work together to accelerate the transformation of scientific and technological innovation, creativity and results into the industrial chain, and ultimately become a part of people's better life. After accumulating sufficient R&D practical experience in
, Li Min became the business director of Haier HOPE innovation ecosystem platform, responsible for introducing the most leading achievements in the academic and industrial circles for R&D, allowing limited R&D personnel to link with unlimited external R&D resources to quickly form technical solutions to improve the efficiency and quality of innovation. Now, she has led the team to establish an enterprise technology demand database, dynamic intelligence database, and technical resource database, and uses data to intelligently explore, recommend and connect more innovative resources.
In Li Min's view, personal growth cannot be separated from the development of the enterprise. "The home appliance industry has gone from focusing on products to focusing on user experience, and enterprises have changed from R&D and production to service providers for better life solutions. I am looking forward to what new forms will appear in the industry in the future, but no matter when, I firmly believe that our Haier's R&D team can continue to lead the industry forward." Li Min is full of expectations for the future.
