Recently, Baoshan Iron & Steel Co., Ltd. released its 2025 interim results, achieving total profits of 6.59 billion yuan in the first half of the year, maintaining its leading position in domestic industry performance, with the Baoshan base further playing its stabilizing role. From driving the first pile into the mudflats along the Yangtze River in 1978 to the ignition and commissioning of Blast Furnace No. 1 on September 15, 1985, four decades have passed like a flash. As the most representative base of Baoshan Iron & Steel Co., Ltd., the construction and development of the Baoshan base not only represents an important epitome of China's steel industry modernization but has also led the development and progress of China's steel industry. Particularly in terms of iterative capabilities in products, systems, innovation, and R&D, as well as forward-thinking concepts and predictions, it has provided numerous examples and support for Baoshan Iron & Steel Co., Ltd.'s promotion of the "one company, multiple bases" management model.
In the current era where the steel industry has entered a long cycle of capacity reduction and structural adjustment, amid the waves of digitalization and AI, how should the Baoshan base face new challenges, adapt to new changes, and continue to maintain competitive advantages in the industry? Recently, we visited Baoshan Iron & Steel Co., Ltd.'s Baoshan base to explore its adaptive strategies.
On September 12, at the symposium commemorating the 40th anniversary of Baoshan Iron & Steel's commissioning, the "O5 plate incident" that occurred in the 1990s was once again recounted by those who experienced it as a "classic Baoshan Iron & Steel story." Since then, the concept of "user-centered" has been born and taken root at Baoshan Iron & Steel Co., Ltd.'s Baoshan base.
Today, facing new market competition environments and industry landscapes, the "user-centered" concept that once made Baoshan Iron & Steel people proud, along with the production-sales-research team operation model that started with automotive plates and gradually expanded, is undergoing a new transformation at the Baoshan base—production-sales-research is transitioning toward integrated and substantive operations, driving this traditional high-quality steel base to build new high-efficiency and high-end competitive advantages.
**Transformation: High-Efficiency with "User Goals as Our Goals"**
A "full-staff marketing" transformation is quietly underway in the automotive plate sector of the Baoshan base. The rise of new energy vehicles has brought enormous challenges and growing pains to the automotive plate production-sales-research operation model of the Baoshan base, which grew up during the era of traditional automakers.
"Led by marketing, with user goals as our goals, forming 58 substantive production-sales-research teams based on user dimensions," said Wang Yongli, Director of Sales Department II at Baoshan Iron & Steel Co., Ltd.'s Automotive Plate Company. This transformation gives those facing users and markets the most say, with marketing personnel as team leaders and R&D and production personnel as deputy team leaders, binding production-sales-research in substantive operations.
Assessment indicators are user-centered, with sales volume, market share, efficiency, and user evaluations all included in KPIs. The teams have also broken down departmental boundaries and hierarchical concepts. A team leader can be a regional marketing manager whose command can mobilize all resources within the team and direct any team member, even including direct management cadres and experts in production and R&D fields.
This transformation has truly integrated and substantiated the previously loosely connected production-sales-research teams, converting user needs and market changes into productivity, innovation capacity, and service capability at the fastest speed. Currently, "full-staff marketing" is in the stage of continuous optimization through trial and adjustment, and once effective, it will be promoted to other product areas.
At the 1550 cold rolling plant, this traditional automotive plate production line is operating at an increasingly faster pace, with rolls of silver-bright, wide galvanized automotive plate coils ready for shipment in the storage area.
"New energy vehicle companies have extremely high efficiency requirements. Just the stamping process alone has improved efficiency by nearly one-third compared to traditional automakers. They have fast capacity ramp-up, rapid new vehicle iteration, and allow no flaws whatsoever," admitted Plant Manager Liu Yuzhang. As the production link in the production-sales-research team, user needs have become the primary consideration for production.
The production line remains the same, but the production organization and rolling difficulty are completely different matters. A year ago, this production line piloted a product manager-like operation mode, where shift supervisors coordinate equipment, inspection, and other resources to organize production based on product orders, and have certain evaluation and assessment authority.
The transformation of the production organization model has led shift supervisors to think from the perspectives of users and operations, with urgently needed and highly profitable products being proactively prioritized and allocated better production resources. Now, the production line not only keeps pace with user rhythms but also continuously challenges equipment limits while strengthening quality management and improving equipment stability, based on the trend of automakers using thinner and wider materials.
Similarly, in the Steel Pipe & Special Steel Division, a "specialization + platformization" operation model is gradually replacing the previous linear and regional operation models. Previously, regional companies under the Marketing Center (Baosteel International) would receive orders, and the division's internal sales departments would need to process these orders again before passing relevant information to production units. In production departments, such as the high-speed wire rod area, production plans were then arranged by process.
Now, led by the Marketing Center (Baosteel International), production-sales-research teams are responsible for order taking, orders are directly issued, and product planning and scheduling are fully handled by one person, creating clearer interfaces, simplified processes, and improved efficiency. Full-process vertical integration ensures user requirements are thoroughly implemented from end to end.
Since this year, the division's contract completion rate and delivery rate have improved, with significant profit creation. Delivery schedules affect users' production rhythms and storage costs, receiving increasing attention from users.
"We organize our production by working backward from users' production rhythms," said Li Qingyong, Assistant Department Manager of the Manufacturing Department. The Baoshan base is promoting full-process user inventory management, organizing production based on user inventory according to daily consumption for each component users produce, eliminating opaque silos in intermediate processes.
The thick plate production-sales-research team has established a production organization model that supplies materials according to shipyard production rhythms, providing JUST IN TIME supply to key shipbuilding enterprises. Nantong COSCO SHIPPING Kawasaki Ship Engineering Co., Ltd. has significantly increased its ship plate procurement from the Baoshan base to replace imports in recent years. According to Lu Ting, Vice General Manager in charge of procurement at this shipbuilding enterprise, the most important reason is the Baoshan base's long-term stable and scheduled efficient supply.
**Guiding Users Toward Most Cost-Effective High-End Material Usage**
Recently, Baoshan Iron & Steel's galvanized giga steel 1470DP-EG made its global debut, becoming the highest strength, thinnest specification galvanized dual-phase steel with specialized coating and special treatment worldwide. In recent years, similar strategic or key product global debuts based on the Baoshan base have been numerous, with product R&D capability being one of the Baoshan base's most formidable competitive advantages.
"Located in Shanghai, the Baoshan base cannot survive without taking the high-end and differentiated route, but it's not unlimited high-end development—it must consider cost-effectiveness," said Gao Zhan, Deputy Director of the Steel Pipe & Special Steel Technology Center at the Steel Pipe & Special Steel Division. This thinking is very common among research personnel.
During interviews, it has become commonplace for R&D personnel to charge ahead, go out to run markets, negotiate contracts, and provide technical services. Having left their ivory towers, their thinking is more aligned with business realities: "Convert user needs into products, preferably staying one step ahead to guide them toward using more cost-effective high-end products, providing comprehensive solutions that help users raise material usage thresholds and expand our competitive advantages."
Following this approach, the steel pipe production-sales-research team has successively developed underground hydrogen storage pipes, metallurgical composite pipes, small molecule gas sealing joints, and other series products for booming emerging industries like hydrogen storage and energy storage, creating personalized products that balance performance and cost while providing comprehensive solutions for material selection and usage. These products have been well-received by users upon launch.
The thick plate production-sales-research team has focused on high-end products in recent years, upgrading pipeline steel to high-strength steel and enhancing production and R&D of acid-resistant, corrosion-resistant pipelines and submarine pipelines. Ship plates focus more on thick plate materials for ultra-large container ships, liquefied petroleum gas ships, LNG ships, liquid ammonia ships, and gas carriers.
Recently, the steel pipe and thick plate production-sales-research teams jointly guided users to adopt Q690-grade high-strength pipeline steel, creating the large-span, streamlined roof of the Shenzhen Opera House. Due to product thinning and strong flexibility, it has strong demonstration and promotion effects for similar landmark buildings in the future.
For automotive plates and silicon steel, these two traditional strategic products, the Baoshan base continues to break through. "Taking ultra-high-strength steel as an example, this area used to be called a blue ocean, but now it's gradually entering the red ocean, with cost competition becoming a trend," admitted Yu Qin, Key Account Manager for the Automotive Industry at Baoshan Iron & Steel Co., Ltd.'s Automotive Plate Company. "We continuously develop applications for key vehicle body components such as door reinforcement parts, seat crossbeams, and battery pack crash protection frames. Compared to ordinary automotive plates that have become a red sea, we seek new blue oceans in the high-strength steel field, continuously innovating to create new thresholds."
Every one to two years, the team launches a new generation of "body-in-white," now in its fifth generation, providing early intervention based on different user needs and offering comprehensive solutions for materials, processing, and services similar to "full vehicle customization," giving users peace of mind.
In the silicon steel field, globally debut products continue to innovate, with comprehensive solutions providing more considerate services to users. Recently, the Baoshan base's globally innovative laser heat-resistant grain-oriented silicon steel won the special prize at the annual "Metallurgical Science and Technology Award," solving the "bottleneck" problem of core materials for wound core transformers.
But this is not enough. To make products more cost-effective and enable more users to access domestically produced high-end, cost-effective grain-oriented silicon steel products, the R&D team led by Li Guobao, Chief Scientist of China Baowu, continues to tackle challenges, further improving output and reducing production costs through continuous innovation in production line equipment and manufacturing processes.
Last year, Baosteel NewCreate Company was established. This company, relying on the Central Research Institute's technical R&D capabilities, explores and cultivates users' potential needs and provides advanced comprehensive material solutions to the industry, further bridging the "last mile" gap between the Baoshan base and end users.
CCUS pipes, compressed air energy storage pipes, BeyondECO green and low-carbon series products, and comprehensive solutions continue to innovate... Relying on strong production-sales-research system capabilities, the Baoshan base's premium advantages continue to consolidate and flourish in multiple areas.
What's even more gratifying is that the Baoshan base has played the role of an original technology source for Baoshan Iron & Steel Co., Ltd., with some key products and profit-creating varieties gradually expanding and transplanting to other steel bases, driving Baoshan Iron & Steel Co., Ltd. to comprehensively build "2+2+N" product clusters and cultivate new profit growth points.
"Future competition will be more intense, coming not only from external steel companies but also from gradually growing brother bases within the company. The Baoshan base must persist in the 'user-centered' high-end and differentiated route, launching one generation, reserving one generation, and developing one generation, guiding user needs and material usage, leading industry development, to walk more steadily and sustainably," almost every production-sales-research team expressed the same sentiment.
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