Wu Shengrong has been facing the biggest business challenge of his life since the end of January. And not because the coronavirus has left him out of business, but quite the opposite: he can't cope. It is easy to understand why.

The company in which he is the CEO, Dasheng, manufactures different types of masks in a nondescript industrial warehouse on the outskirts of Shanghai: from the simplest, which are used in the industry to avoid inhaling dust or in the street to protect against air pollution, up to those used by health personnel in the ICU, classified as FFP3 and capable of filtering more than 97% of particles and pathogens in suspension. The demand for all of them has skyrocketed to levels never seen before. So much so that, on his website, Dasheng warns of the proliferation of counterfeits with a note written in English and Chinese in which he also informs that he does not work with agents.

"The market has gone crazy," admits Wu, who speaks in his office about the proliferation of opportunistic intermediaries in search of easy money. Even governments put obstacles in their way to get masks. “We have made a commitment to keep prices stable. Its fluctuation will depend only on the fluctuation of the raw material,” says Wu, who is identified by a pin on the lapel of his jacket as a member of the Chinese Communist Party.

However, his is a private company and, as such, he does not want to miss out on the opportunity to do business. So the first thing he ordered, even before the Lunar New Year holidays were over and the coronavirus spread across the world, was to start the difficult process of reinstating his 170 workers.

The explosion in demand

The Shanghai government, concerned about the shortage of masks, included Dasheng in the list of 12 essential factories to produce this protective element whose use has been mandatory in China. That facilitated the permits at a time when the second world power was closed to the ground. “We normally work two shifts, but we have added a third at night to deal with the unloading of the giant rolls of fabric in the warehouse. At the other end, hundreds of boxes full of coveted masks wait for trucks to take them away.

The new machines are already at full capacity and Dasheng has increased the workforce with more technical profiles: on January 31, it was manufacturing 40,000 masks a day; two weeks later it reached 100% of its pre-pandemic production, 250,000 units per day, and has now doubled that figure. "At the end of January, the government asked us to stop exports - Dasheng did not sell in the Chinese market before - and to direct the production to the domestic market," recalls Wu. Now, however, the company has resumed shipping worldwide.

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"Automation has also meant an increase in quality, which is now more homogeneous," he says, proud that helping to fight SARS CoV-2 has allowed him to give a new dimension to the company, in line with industrial transformation. that the Chinese Government itself encourages.

Darwin in the factory

Both Dasheng and Laird advance that the coronavirus pandemic is going to have profound consequences in the industry. It will lead to consolidation in many sectors, and only those with the highest productivity and the most advanced technology will emerge stronger. According to data provided by the Chinese business information portal Tianyancha, more than 460,000 companies closed down definitively in the Asian giant during the first quarter of the year. "This difficult situation should serve as a spur to accelerate the country's industrial transformation and economic model," says Wu Shengrong, executive director of Dasheng. “The only way to compete is with innovation. For this reason, we allocate more and more resources to R+D+i, which develops materials with special properties for all kinds of uses. I think that China is on the right path”, says Zhang Li, head of production at Laird.

saved by technology

In Minhang district, not far from where Dasheng makes masks, another company also owes technology for being able to resume business earlier than most. Although, in the case of Laird, who has already completed his particular technological revolution, what has helped the most has been the hunch his manager had: when he saw that an outbreak of atypical pneumonia had broken out in Wuhan, he remembered what happened during the SARS between 2002 and 2004 and decided to order surgical masks from a manufacturer in the Czech Republic.

“We ordered them even before Wuhan was closed, because we knew that they would be scarce and that they would be essential to work. This has allowed us to comply with the new requirements imposed by the authorities to resume activity”, says Zhang Li, production manager during a visit to the factory of this company of high-tech materials for military use and for industries such as the automotive industry. electronics or medical equipment. The masks have been providential, but the high degree of automation of their processes has been key.

“China is investing a lot of resources in upgrading the industry to counter rising labor costs, increase competitiveness, and adapt to energy consumption and environmental regulations. No one buys more robots than China in the world, and the trend will continue,” says Zhang as he shows off one of the new numerical control systems. “At this juncture, we need much fewer people in the factory, which makes it easier to space workers so that they maintain a safe distance,” he adds, pointing out how employees now leave a free space between each other on a production line.