Lu Huiying: Rising to the Challenge and Opening Up New Ground

Lu Huiying is currently head of the Research Management Section of the Lanzhou R&D Center. In 2011, when she first took charge of this work, it was a huge challenge for her, because she had never done real scientific research. But she did not flinch; she rose to the challenge and, with a refusal to admit defeat, won everyone's recognition and achieved outstanding results within just a few years.
She treats pressure as motivation, seeks advice humbly and studies professional knowledge assiduously to keep improving her abilities. As a research manager who had never done a research project, she clearly recognized that this was her biggest weakness and the greatest pressure she faced as a research manager. But rather than avoiding or giving up in the face of pressure, she used her work to read various research reports and literature. If she did not understand a literature report after one reading, she read it twice, three times and more; whenever she did not understand something she humbly asked leaders and colleagues until she fully grasped it. Through her persistent study, in just a few years she has basically mastered the relevant knowledge in key R&D fields and can handle all kinds of problems in research management with ease.
Actively organizing and coordinating overall. In 2014 the Lanzhou R&D Center had 80 projects under way. To ensure the projects progressed as planned, she followed up on their progress in various ways, focusing on key projects and pressing those lagging behind, so that each project advanced on schedule. When a project team hit a research bottleneck, she organized timely discussions on the topic and mobilized experts in relevant fields to find solutions and break through the bottleneck. Through her efforts and those of her colleagues, the Lanzhou R&D Center achieved a 97.5 percent completion rate for research project plans despite a sudden surge in short-term production and operating tasks. At work she insists on finishing the day's work the same day and always answers on time no matter the outcome. 2014 was the year with the largest and heaviest volume of short-term production and operating tasks in the history of the Lanzhou R&D Center, and these tasks required fast responses and timely feedback, completely different from the normal research rhythm. Faced with such sudden changes, researchers were uncomfortable and puzzled. Every task required establishing the real situation and needs and multi-level, multi-party communication and coordination, including with company departments and even company leaders in charge, sister units within the company, users and partner organizations, as well as coordination among the center's internal institutes and centers. Faced with so many complex, interwoven and suddenly increased urgent breakthrough tasks, she was able to organize actively and coordinate as a whole according to each task's urgency and importance, and whenever difficulties and conflicts arose she patiently studied and explored solutions together with the units and people concerned. Thanks to her orderly coordination and efficient work, in 2014 the Lanzhou R&D Center completed 207 ad hoc tasks, with a 99 percent completion rate.
The products made by the R&D Center are characterized by high quality requirements, difficult production, many varieties and small batch sizes. The center's production site is small, its production facilities have limited capacity, plans are highly random, and a single additive package requires several or even a dozen or more raw materials. Under these constraints, and in order to ensure products are delivered to users in good time and to guaranteed quality and quantity so as to safeguard the company's normal production and operations, she knew that such inherent constraints could only be offset by stronger coordination. Whenever production problems arose she would discuss solutions with everyone and even personally follow up on raw material supply cycles, arrival times and user demand, adjusting production plans at any time according to actual conditions; through the concerted efforts of her and her colleagues, production tasks were completed successfully, with 3,038 tons of various products produced over the year.
Keeping to her own duties and being ready to make sacrifices. Faced with such a sudden increase in workload and so many complicated tasks, there were only two choices: sacrifice work quality, or sacrifice her own rest time. She chose to give up rest and work overtime to ensure the work was completed on time and to quality. At the Lanzhou R&D Center she can always be found among those working overtime. Once, to rush a company document, she and her section colleagues worked three consecutive all-nighters to complete preparation of the materials for a company meeting, winning the recognition of the relevant company leaders. When the company organized the rollout of the R&D Center's ERP system, she gave up almost all of her rest time, working alongside everyone else and leading the team to bring the Lanzhou R&D ERP system fully online smoothly in just one month, winning praise from the ERP project team.?