When alive, President Ho Chi Minh taught us that: “It is necessary to remind soldiers to keep weapons and equipment in good condition; save every round and every grain of rice”. His teaching has always been imbued by the Party Committee, the Board of Directors of the A31 Factory and become the motto of action for the Factory to ensure good weapons and technical equipment for the missions of the Air Defence - Air Force.

The A31 Factory, under the Technical Department of the Air Defence - Air Force (formerly known as the A31 workshop), was founded on January 24, 1966, with the task of repairing and maintaining air defence missiles, military vehicles, and other equipment. Besides, it is also tasked with producing and restoring some spare parts and materials for maintenance; studying and applying new scientific and technological advances to production, well performing defence production and economic tasks according to the assigned tasks.

Checking and repairing missiles

Over 55 years of building and development, under the leadership and direction of the Party Committee, the High Command of the Air Defence - Air Force, directly the Party Committee and commanders of the Technical Department, with the support of the local Party committees, authorities and people, generations of officers, employees, and soldiers of the Factory have always strived to overcome all difficulties and successfully complete their assigned tasks. For its achievements, the Factory has been awarded the title Hero Unit of the People's Armed Forces in 1985 and many other noble awards.

Its achievements are attributed to the fact that the Party Committee and the Board of Directors of the Factory have implemented many practical and effective guidelines and measures. In particular, special importance has been attached to well implementing Directive No. 05-CT/TW of the Politburo (12^th tenure) on promoting the learning and following of Ho Chi Minh's thought, morality and style. In order to make this work highly effective, every year, the Party Committee and the Board of Directors of the Factory supplement the criteria and targets to implement Directive No. 05; ask its cadres, party members and the masses to register the content of learning and following and clearly determine specific measures for realising their goals. Party committees, commanders, political agencies promote propaganda, education, and study of the topics of Directive No. 05. The contents are about Uncle Ho's thought, morality, style, and deeds which have been divided into different topics, associated with the implementation of the Central Resolution 4 (12^th tenure) on Party building and rectification and key tasks, breakthrough stages of the Service, the Department and the Factory, especially the difficult, complex and specific tasks. Along with that, it steps up the Campaign of promoting tradition, dedicating talents, deserving the title “Uncle Ho's soldiers” in the new period associated with Drive of “Good, durable, safe, economical management and exploitation of weapons and technical equipment and traffic safety”, with practical jobs of each officer and worker; strengthens the training and fostering of political qualities, ethics, lifestyle, professional qualifications, skills, working manners, responsibility of cadres and workers, etc.

Implementing Uncle Ho's teaching that: “We need to maintain well weapons, equipment, and vehicles; save ammunition and gasoline; cherish people's contribution and strength”, the Party Committee and Board of Directors of the Plant focus on improving the quality of repairing and enhancing special weapons and equipment. Due to the fact that the life cycles of some weapons and missiles have expired; materials and spare parts are rare while the budget allowed is limited, ... the factory has promoted the spirit of self-reliance and upheld the roles and responsibilities of the engineers and workers in their task performance; improved professional qualifications, promoted technical innovations and improvements in repair, ensuring quality and uniformity of weapons and equipment. For new weapons, the factory has actively researched, repaired, and participated in technical assurance for annual fire drill. In particular, in 2020, for the first time it was assigned the task of repairing new and modern weapons, the factory has researched and built a technological process with new repair methods from the beginning of the year; compiled technological documents, supplemented equipment, promptly served the repair process. In addition, every year, the factory also deploys its task forces on mobile repair missions; advises the units to quickly overcome the damage arising during the exploitation of weapon and technical equipment. The products repaired by the factory are always accepted with high technical specifications, synchronicity, stability, and reliability, and have been handed over and put into operation, serving the combat readiness and training missions of the units.

Implementing the technology-intensive investment projects, the factory focused on well implementing the Project 31DA06.I, Project “S”, Project “V”, the task of upgrading anti-aircraft missile paint lines with required progress and quality. In 2019, the project "31DA06.I" was accepted with good quality, gradually improving the technological capacity of the Factory, and achieving the investment targets set forth; effectively exploiting and using the invested equipment and lines, contributing to its successful completion of tasks. Along with that, the factory has always promoted technical initiative and improvements, the application of new technologies into production and repair. In the 2015 – 2019 period, the factory had 67 scientific research projects and technical innovations which have been effectively applied, contributing to overcoming difficulties, improving the initiative and saving the repair costs.

During its task performance, the Factory also focuses on training and retraining, focus on the training of new technology and weapons, foreign language training (Russian, English). In the past 5 years (2015 - 2020), the Factory held 40 training courses with more than 900 participants; tested vocational skill level for 174 employees with good results. Regularly pays attention to the leadership in the formality construction of the technical branch; invests in renovating and upgrading the technology level; restructures functional sub-zones and rearranges equipment on lines in compliance with the technological process; compiles tens of thousands of pages of technological documents, ... contributing to improving working conditions, the regularity for production and repair lines. Strictly maintains the discipline in the workshop, nurture and practice professionalism of employees, thereby making significant changes in their attitude and responsibility.

The most obvious change of the Factory in “following” Uncle Ho's words is that, the quality of Party building work has been constantly improved. Its Party Committee and party cells have thoroughly grasped and strictly implemented the above directives and resolutions on the Party building, concretising them into the monthly, quarterly and monthly resolutions and plans of the Board of Directors, workshops to ensure comprehensive leadership, with focus on important tasks. It has thoroughly implemented and supplemented working and leadership regulations on important working aspects; strictly maintained the regimes of Party meeting, self-criticism and criticism; and promoted democracy to improve the comprehensive leadership capacity of all levels of the Party Committees and Party cells. Regularly consolidate the committees at all levels, ensuring sufficient quantity, reasonable quality and structure; actively foster and develop new party members. Along with that, the factory always performs well the cadre work. The plan, review, deployment and promotion of cadres are done in a serious and democratic manner. At the same time, it strengthens the inspection, supervision, management, education and training of party members and cadres, especially the leading ones. Thanks to these measures, its cadres and party members have always maintained good qualities, morality, and lifestyle. They are always enthusiastic with their job, committed to the unit and capable of fulfilling all assigned tasks.

Sr. Col. TRUONG XUAN BACH, Director of the Factory