Factory Z173 (aka Hong Ha Shipbuilding One Member Limited Liability Company), under the General Department of Defence Industry, is tasked with building and repairing warships, taking part in building ships for the country’s economic sectors and export, importing and exporting materials and equipment for building ships and manufacturing metal modules. In recent years, the task of building and developing defence industry and the trend of integration have imposed higher objectives and requirements together with a lot of issues on the Factory. In addition to advantages, the Factory has been faced with many difficulties and challenges, particularly in maintaining and developing high-calibre human resources, exploiting and acquiring imported materials, and ensuring the high quality, progress, and competitive price of products. Meanwhile, the Factory’s elements for production have yet to be synchronised; equipment and production lines have yet to keep pace with the development of tasks; skilled workers have increasingly aged.
Against that backdrop, the Factory has advocated intensifying unity and uniformity and heightening political resolve to overcome all difficulties and challenges for the sake of integration and development. Grounded on the 13th Politburo’s Resolution 08-NQ/TW, dated 26th January 2022 on “fostering the development of defence industry towards 2030 and beyond”, the Factory has focused on formulating the system of strategies for its development, the system of strategies for its products, and plans to develop itself comprehensively with feasible roadmaps and steps. Importance has been attached to renewing the way of thinking, improving the quality of business administration, developing modern, hi-tech ships with moderate tonnage and high economic value instead of super-long, super-tonnage ships. Grounded on that selected line, the Factory has focused on building high-calibre human resources, making huge investments in improving its productivity and competitiveness, developing science research and new products, expanding its market, and building its brand.
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| Lt. Gen. Nguyen Doan Anh, Deputy Chief of the General Staff of the Vietnam People’s Army visits and inspects the Factory |
Being fully aware that high-quality human resources and modern equipment and technology play a decisive role in the competitiveness and productivity of an enterprise, the Factory has concentrated on developing its human resources and re-organising its manpower in an “elite, lean, effective” manner relevant to its mode of operation. On the one hand, the Factory has focused on adjusting functions and tasks of its offices and boards and streamlining its workshops in accordance with its task requirements and long-term, short-term development orientations. On the other hand, the Factory has made plans on training and retraining to develop high-calibre human resources with comprehensive capacity and standardised craftsmanship according to each position. Significance has been attached to building a pool of commanding and technical cadres with a good command of foreign languages, great professional competence, and capabilities in accessing technology and managing modern production as well as a contingent of skilled workers as the core force in domains of expertise. With reference to the re-organisation of its manpower, the Factory has minimised indirect, supplementary, supportive labour and increased personnel in charge of production, with priority given to defence production and hi-tech economic products. In the process, a part from measures to attract and recruit new human resources, the Factory has focused on maintaining and improving its existing staff via the implementation of proper compensation policies, recruiting professional service men and women and defence workers and officials, bettering its personnel’s expertise, and re-using its labourers who are at retirement age but have good fitness and craftsmanship.
To remain highly competitive in the labour market, the Factory has actively worked with universities, research centres, and vocational schools to recruit knowledgeable, skilled employees; at the same time, the Factory has recruited discharged soldiers and citizens in difficult areas so that it could organise its own training programs or assign this force to implement policies regarding Army rear. The Factory has achieved reformation in its mechanisms and policies to attract high-quality human resources; more specifically, it has appointed young cadres with great capacity to key positions and built a friendly working environment to enable its staff to keep their mind on their work. As a result, the Factory has managed to develop high-calibre human resources with a proper structure; all technical cadres have bachelor’s degree or postgraduate degree, while 75% of technical workers have reached an advanced occupational skill level (from level 5/7 to level 7/7). This force has been promoting its core role in the Factory’s development.
In addition to developing human resources, the Factory has attached significance to mobilising resources to make investments in new technology and modernising equipment to lay a solid technical foundation for improving its productivity and product quality, thus meeting the requirements of economic and defence production in the new situation. Based on its development strategy, the Factory has proactively researched and followed the latest technologies for ship building and repair worldwide, and taken advantage of advice given by foreign experts and top experts from universities and research centres as the basis for proposing investment projects, thereby meeting both long-term and short-term task requirements. Since 2021, the Factory has fulfilled 4 projects on upgrading facilities and modernising equipment and technology. Currently, the Factory is implementing the project on “investment in improving technologies to examine and correct the establishment and repair of weapon and military hardware systems”, while designing and proposing 7 projects on building, improving, and repairing workshops, acquiring equipment for lifting and lowering modern machines and devices as well as realising investments in its logistics – technical zone and carrying out the approved works to expand its production premises. That lays an important foundation for improving technological capacity, bettering production and work conditions, raising the quality and progress of production, and creating competitiveness in the market.
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| High-speed ship BP-18, a new product of the Factory used by the Border Guard Force |
To keep improving its competitiveness as the adaptation to robust fluctuations in the market, the Factory has stepped up science research and development of new products with the motto of “good quality, nice form, affordable price”. With the aim of narrowing the technology gap between Vietnam and other developed countries, the Factory has “gained a head start by taking a shortcut”. The Factory has directed its offices and units to enhance science research, promote technical initiatives and innovations towards the improvement in its existing equipment, technologies, and technological procedures and in the automation of production phases so as to raise the quality of its products, better its productivity, and reduce its production costs. Adhering to higher echelons’ guidelines and its selected path, the Factory has developed new products to meet each partner’s demands and technological trends, with importance being attached to building multi-role cargo ships, replenishment oilers, high-speed aluminium ships, and oil tankers as defence and security products. It has also developed high-speed patrol ships, specialised ships, passenger ships, cruise ships, yachts, and motorboats. To that end, the Factory has actively updated itself on technologies to design and build modern ships relevant to the development of both domestic and global shipbuilding markets, while grasping the demands and practical tasks of its partners both at home and abroad to design and build new types of ships, thereby satisfying its customers’ increasingly higher requirements regarding products’ quality, technical features, and aesthetic.
Expanding its market and building its brand represent a basic, consistent measure and necessary and sufficient conditions for the Factory to keep developing in the market economy. Thus, the Factory has promoted commerce, mobilised the collective strength in market research, survey, and development, while encouraging product marketing, seeking more partners both at home and abroad, and making commitment to well implementing basic policies for improving its prestige and brand. To ensure the full implementation of its product-related policies, the Factory has enhanced inspection and supervision of technological discipline, closely managed the quality of products in all phases of production, completely settled its partners’ proposals and requests on the quality of its products, and well carried out its warranty policies. Currently, the Factory’s products have been seriously controlled under the European quality management system ISO 9001:2015. With reference to its price policies, the Factory has closely managed its production costs, practised thrift, reduced the rates of defects and breakdowns, improved its staff’s capability in price setting, fostered coordination between relevant offices to establish prices appropriate to each type of products, thereby ensuring the mutual benefits of the Factory and its partners under regulations of the State and Ministry of National Defence. Besides, to create prestige and position in the global shipbuilding market, the Factory has concentrated on complying with the State’s law and international regulations on production, business, export, and import, standardising business administration procedures, applying developed countries’ advanced production operation and management standards, well implementing environmental policies, improving its working conditions, and guaranteeing its labour’s safety and health.
Being proactive in integration for development, Factory Z173 has kept stimulating creative innovations and overcome all difficulties to build many types of modern “Made-in-Vietnam” ships for the armed forces’ protection of seas and islands, marine economic development, and export, thereby asserting its prestige and brand in the domestic and international markets, actively contributing to the building and development of Defence Industry as well as the cause of Fatherland construction and protection.
Col. PHAM VAN TUAN
Director of the Factory