Technological transformation and acceleration

In recent years, the international and domestic market situation has been complex and ever-changing, and the overall economy has been sluggish. Every market entity is facing severe market tests. KAN New Materials assesses the situation, carefully studies the overall market situation, seizes market opportunities, reasonably plans strategic layout, fully leverages the flexibility and efficiency of the new mechanism of the enterprise, decisively builds multiple high-end production lines, empowers the enterprise with technological transformation acceleration, helps the enterprise deeply adjust and optimize the product market, and takes the overall product quality to a new level, achieving a virtuous leap development of the enterprise.

Setting up a high-performance electrolytic capacitor diaphragm production line, targeting the high-end market

After decades of continuous development, KAN has become the world's largest production base for electrolytic capacitor diaphragms. However, for a period of time, due to the relatively lagging production line equipment, KAN's high-end market share of products is not high. As a leading enterprise in the domestic electrical paper and other special paper industries, KAN also bears the responsibility of ensuring the safety of the domestic electronic industry industry chain. KAN urgently needs to achieve breakthroughs in high-end products.

With the continuous development of electronic products towards high-precision and cutting-edge directions, in order to meet the market demand for separators for high-voltage small electrolytic capacitors. Meanwhile, in recent years, KAN's system transformation, asset sinking, and increased corporate autonomy have accelerated the pace of technological transformation investment.

In 2022, the company completed the renovation of the original No. 8 paper machine in just over half a year and built the KY01-2640 high-performance electrolytic capacitor diaphragm production line.

Old production line

Technical renovation construction

The renovation of this production line did not add new environmental capacity, achieving intensive utilization in all aspects. The KAN people have accumulated decades of production technology experience, adopted the most advanced international key equipment and control systems, and achieved digital and intelligent control of the entire production line, with production efficiency nearly 8 times higher than before. According to traditional new construction projects, the total investment is hundreds of millions of yuan, and the construction period requires more than two years.

New production line

The introduction of a new production line marks a significant improvement in the quantity and quality of KAN's electronic material production field. The overall voltage resistance of the company's electrolytic capacitor diaphragm products has achieved a significant breakthrough. Based on this, the company's thin diaphragm products have advanced to a thickness of 12 microns. The company utilizes the advantages of high-voltage high-end products to deeply adjust its market strategy for electrolytic capacitor diaphragm products, targeting high-end customers, focusing on alternative layouts for foreign high-end products, and will collaborate with industry backbone forces to innovate and develop cutting-edge new products.

New production line

Since the beginning of this year, the electrolytic capacitor diaphragm market has experienced a significant decline due to multiple unfavorable factors such as the global consumer market downturn and RMB depreciation. KAN has benefited from the timely landing and production of high-performance electrolytic capacitor diaphragm production lines, seized the opportunity, and gained a relatively stable market dividend in industrial and high-end product demand, making up for the shortcomings of the shrinking consumer market. In the first half of this year, the overall sales volume of the company's electrolytic capacitor diaphragms slightly increased compared to last year, going against the trend and rising, which is not easy.

new product

Next, the company will continue to target large core customers, fully utilize the talent mechanism of product directors and product engineers, continuously accelerate the pace of new product promotion and entry into the market, and achieve the overall high-end market strategy of the enterprise.

Setting up a high-end filter paper production line and continuously exploring the international market

While steadily advancing the market for electrolytic capacitor diaphragms, the company is striving to explore the tea filter paper market to enrich its product line and form effective supplements.

The main market for tea filter paper is concentrated overseas, especially in Russia, which has the world's largest producer of bagged tea. And these representative manufacturers have strict requirements for product quality, and once the supply chain is locked, it will not be easily replaced. Previously, these manufacturers mainly imported filter paper products from the European Union.

Splitting packaging line

KAN has sharpened his sword for over a decade, never giving up or giving up, persistently sending samples to Russian manufacturers for sixteen to seven years, laying a long-term market foundation. Last year, the international situation underwent a sudden change. With a keen sense of the market, KAN conducted in-depth market research and immediately contacted and negotiated with foreign investors. After multiple rounds of video conferences, progress was made. This year, foreign investors visited KAN Company on-site for inspection, and the two sides reached a long-term cooperation agreement.

Customer visits

In response to this major market breakthrough and the high demand for products from foreign companies, combined with the current situation of insufficient production capacity of the company, KAN decisively launched the No. 11 paper machine technical renovation project to meet the new market demand and increase the filter paper production capacity.

Old production line renovation

KAN No. 11 paper machine was originally a small experimental paper machine. In order to seize the filter paper market and expand production capacity, the company began to discuss the technical transformation plan for No. 11 paper machine in August last year. In the shortest possible time, the preliminary work such as project feasibility study, design, and equipment ordering was completed, and construction officially began in mid December. This project integrates KAN's years of manufacturing experience, adopts multiple new processes and imported key equipment, and is a high-end filter paper production line with international advanced level.

The KAN equipment installation team, filter paper project team, and production team work closely together. The leaders of each team have been stationed on site since the start of the project, constantly following up and solving various problems that arise during construction to ensure the smooth implementation of the project.

Preparation for Test Run

Due to the complex and ever-changing international environment, multiple imported key equipment have been delayed in arrival. In order to ensure the timely completion of the project, form production capacity as soon as possible, and alleviate the current tense situation of insufficient production capacity in the company, the KAN equipment installation team has worked overtime and made every effort to seize the time of equipment delay. Some members of the filter paper project team are leaders from other manufacturing departments in the company, who not only need to ensure the normal production of the machines in charge, but also need to participate in the construction of new paper machines. The hard work of working across machines can be imagined, and it can be said that a full-scale war has begun, with standby mode available 24/7.

The production team of the 11th paper machine, while cooperating with the construction process of the paper machine, also needs to consider the production of the 12th and 14th paper machines, which is also under full pressure and in a tense battle.

KAN's various teams worked together to implement the project compactly. On May 17, 2023, the installation of the new paper machine equipment was completed as scheduled, and the production team immediately began the trial production work day and night. The new equipment, production line, process, and everything are challenges that need to be explored and adjusted. After more than two months of continuous struggle, continuous trial production and adjustment, the new paper machine has finally succeeded in trial production, becoming the "new force" in filter paper production and will become the main machine for the company's filter paper products.

Successful test drive

Tea filter paper

The technical renovation project of the No. 11 paper machine started in August last year and was put into production in May this year. The entire process only took about 10 months. From this, we can see KAN's efficient and decisive response to the market, the cooperation of KAN's various project teams, and the strong combat effectiveness. All of these have jointly achieved the acceleration of KAN's technical renovation and helped the company continuously leapfrog development.

The new No. 11 paper machine has effectively solved some of the problems that have plagued the company's filter paper products for many years. The uniformity and filtration performance indicators of the products have achieved a new leap, and the overall quality has reached a new level.

New paper machine

The total investment in the technological transformation of the above two high-end production lines is about 150 million yuan. The use of these high-end production lines has enabled the company to gain more market initiative, continue to maintain its leading advantage in the high-end special paper field, significantly enhance the company's core competitiveness, and continuously enhance its development momentum, providing effective hardware support for the company's comprehensive entry into the high-end market.

At present, the company's filter paper products are still in short supply, and there is still a significant gap in production capacity. Next, the company will launch multiple new production lines in the near future, including two high-efficiency filter substrate production lines and one ultra-high voltage electronic diaphragm material production line, forming a good development pattern of electrical paper and filter paper products keeping pace. KAN is steadily moving towards the vision of "building a world-class research and production base for special paper" with an accelerated running posture!