In order to fulfill the tasks of defence and economic production with increasingly high requirements and ensuring the lives of its staffs, the Party Committee and the Board of Directors of Z129 Factory implemented several solutions to improve production capacity, product quality; in which, intensive investment in technology is considered a breakthrough.

Z129 Factory under the General Department of Defence Industry is responsible for manufacturing and repairing all kinds of fuses and participating in production and business, contributing to socio-economic development. In recent years, the requirements of building and developing defence industry; restructuring and improving the efficiency of military enterprises, etc., have posed many problems for the factory. To integrate and develop, the factory has ceaselessly sought for solutions, in which acquiring new and modern technology is considered a breakthrough.

Implementing the breakthrough, first of all, the factory accelerates the deployment of technological innovation projects. Fuse, the main defence product of the factory, has a complex structure with very high mechanical accuracy. For the fuse to work reliably in all weather conditions, ensuring safe, accurate, powerful shots, there needs to apply high technology, strict quality control process in the production. Fully aware of that, on the one hand, the factory upgrades and exploits the existing equipment; receives, tests and accepts new equipment to improve production capacity; implements synchronously many technological solutions to improve the quality of defence products. On the other hand, it leverages the opportunity to participate in projects under the Action Program of Resolution No. 06-NQ/TW dated July 16, 2011 of the Politburo on building and developing defence industry until 2020 and the beyond, to innovate and develop technology, notably: Project “Artillery Fuse” and Project “I”. These are projects with high technical and technological complexity in three areas, namely: precision engineering, electronics, and explosives. Therefore, to meet the objectives of the projects, the Factory built Resolution No. 100-NQ/ĐU, dated June 22, 2016, "On the leadership over the implementation of the Artillery Fuse Project" and Resolution No. 123 -NQ/ĐU, dated August 25, 2016, "On the leadership over the implementation of Project I".

Inaugurating new workshop on the occasion of the Factory's Party Congress (2020 - 2025 tenure)

In order to speed up the implementation of the two projects, the Factory actively coordinated with contractors to pre-execute a number of items; drastically negotiated and selected partners to supply production lines and transfer technology according to the set objectives; deployed synchronously many solutions to speed up construction progress, installed new equipment, trained and received new technology, etc. Up to now, the factory has basically completed the construction of facilities and technical infrastructure; purchased and repaired the equipment for improving the capacity of the existing lines; received the new, synchronous and modern line of production from foreign partners, meeting the requirements of detailed manufacturing, assembly, and testing of fuses. At the same time, it has actively mobilised resources to invest in a number of new generation machinery and equipment with high accuracy, eliminating the bottlenecks of the production process and ensuring safety for workers in processing, assemblying, and accepting products; increased investment, improved technological equipment in the direction of mechanization, automation, increase accuracy to gradually limit manual labor, reduce workers' exposure to dangerous and toxic factors; repaired and upgraded its facilities; perfected the system of regulations and plans for safety, fire and explosion prevention and control, hence improving productivity, diversifying and reducing products costs and ensuring safety in production. Since 2015, the factory has actively invested and acquired new equipment for production with a total cost of over 52 billion VND.

Together with technological innovation, the factory focuses on developing human resources. Facing the changes in its leading staff, the inadequacy and inappropriate structure of executive personnel, in the implementation of the projects, in addition to strengthening staff, the factory has focused on recruiting local personnel, prioritizing the highly qualified staff with basic training; invited teachers and experts to open basic and advanced English training classes as a basis for selecting staff to study and receive technology transfer abroad; Coordinated with functional agencies to organize training courses in bidding and construction quality management; security protection and military foreign affairs; project management skills, etc., for staff involved in the projects. In addition to organizing specialized seminars, the Factory also invites experts from schools and research institutes in combination with its highly qualified technical staff to hold training on new technology of manufacturing fuses; programming for technology machines; product quality checking, etc. In particular, the factory focuses on combining training and retraining for staff participating in the projects right in the process of installing technological equipment through domestic and foreign experts; take advantage of the time to test the machine and settle the problems arising in the process of operating the system. Currently, the factory has 09 members being trained in Russia and 40 comrades being trained in rocket launcher assembly technology at the factory. This is the basic human resource to implement the projects and master the new production technology of the factory.

Speeding up capital recovery, creating new products with high competitiveness; improving productivity, product quality, ensuring safety in production,…from the invested technology resources is the cross-cutting and urgent goal of each project. With that awareness, the factory promotes scientific research and development of auxiliary technologies in order to effectively exploit new technological lines; regularly coordinates with the Institute of Technology and the Institute of Weapons to organize many scientific seminars to evaluate plans and choose solutions to invest and develop technology in a synchronous and modern direction, and improve technological potential; focus on researching the application of transferred technologies to build and perfect scientific and technological research potentials, ensuring the manufacture of modern and advanced fuses in the future and qualified products for export. Along with that, the factory focuses on research, development and put into production a number of new products, such as: the fuses of TM-62M mines; the fuses of M79 training rounds 548T1; CX-30 fuses; PK16-VN-1 timer fuse; FMV-B1 fuse; PD-M557 fuse, ... meeting the requirements of military training and combat. In the movement to promote technical innovation and initiative, many research topics have been applied with high economic value. In order to support and accelerate the project, the factory actively implemented and well implemented many technical topics and tasks; researched and manufactured 694 types of specialized tools for the manufacture of fuses and 644 types of specialized tools for the manufacture of rocket launchers. Since 2015 to date, the factory has reviewed and modified design documents for 22 products; completed 27 types of detailed and general assembly technology processes; completed 35 sets of economic and technical norms, material quality norms; chaired and coordinated the implementation of 41 scientific research topics at all levels; 322 initiatives were honoured with economic value of over three billion.

In addition to the above solutions, the factory focuses on improving production management and corporate governance capacity. The factory has both implemented key projects associated with production and business, and implemented technical topics and tasks, researching and testing defence products with high requirements on quality and progress. Therefore, in order to well fulfill the tasks, the factory focuses on researching and building production plans close to reality in terms of manpower and equipment of each workshop and enterprise; increasing the application of ISO, Kaizen, 5S standards; re-arranging technological bases, machinery and equipment to improve productivity, product quality, and reduce waste. Besides, the Factory builds production and business strategies in accordance with existing strengths and resources; restructures its organization; streamlines its management; reduces the rate of indirect and supplement labor, to improve its organizational structure and ensure dynamism and high competitiveness. At the same time, it improves its working environment and payment mechanism, promotes emulation; encourages scientific research, ...to make its employees more motivated, creative and enthusiastic with their work and scientific research, hence raising its productivity and competitiveness in the marketplace.

With strong political determination and positive and synchronous solutions, up to now, the factory has been able to manufacture and repair over 70 types of fuses of all kinds; participate in diversified economic production in the fields of casting, forging, stamping, rolling, pressing, powder refining, processing, metal coating, mechanical processing, product packaging; wooden; afforestation and logging, ... and hundreds of high-quality economic products (metal structures; metal barrels, tanks, storage tools; electric lighting and household electrical appliances; accessories for vehicles, machines, etc.). In 2019, the value of production and business of the factory reached over 567 billion VND; its employee's average income is nearly 11 million dong/person/month. This is the foundation for its steady development and integration.

Colonel, Master. PHAN DUONG MINH, Director of the factory