Z176 Factory (76 One Member Company Limited), under the General Department of Defence Industry, is tasked with manufacturing and supplying diversionary equipment for the Military, and economic products for people’s living and export to contribute to strengthening the defence potentials and socio-economic development of the country.

To fulfill the tasks, the Factory Party Committee and the Board of Directors have developed several guidelines and solutions for proper and flexible leadership, management, and administration to promote the spirit of solidarity, innovation, enterprise, activeness, and creativeness. Accordingly, the Factory has always been the leading flag of the General Department in terms of export economic production, breakthrough in research and application of science and technology, development of new defence and economic products, and high growth and efficiency in production and business. During the 2016-2020 period, its average growth rate was 9.5%/year and revenue growth was 7.5%/year. Meanwhile, its added value increased by 8.0%/year, and average income growth rate was 5.0%/year. Particularly in 2020, export revenue reached 1,460 billion VND.  Cadres, employees, and workers’ jobs have been stabilised with constantly improved life and working environment. Over the past five years, the Factory has been awarded with two Emulation Flags by the Ministry of National Defence and three other ones by the General Department of Defence Industry. On the 55^th anniversary of its foundation, the Factory was awarded the Third-Class Independence Medal by the State.

Checking product quality for exporting

To achieve these results, first of all, the Factory has always grasped and properly and flexibly applied the Party's viewpoints on combining economy with defence, defence production, and economic development, especially Resolution No.06-NQ/TW issued on July 16^th, 2011 by the Politburo (the 11^th Tenure) on “Building and developing the Defence Industry to 2020 and the beyond” and Resolution No.520-NQ/QUTW issued on September 25^th, 2012 by the Central Military Commission on “Leading the tasks of production and economic construction in combination with defence of the Army to 2020”. Promoting the spirit of activeness and creativeness and under the proper direction, the Factory Board of Directors has closely followed the Army’s equipment needs, actively sought measures to overcome difficulties, actively exploited Group-II defence orders, and fulfilled defence production tasks to ensure the progress, product stability, and good quality and meet the requirements of modern combat, that has been highly appreciated by using units. At the same time, it has actively sought, expanded export markets, invested in modern equipment, expanded factory premises, developed new suppliers, markets, and customers, and promoted e-commerce and production optimisation schemes. The Factory's annual export turnover has increasingly grown, and it has always been in the lead of the General Department in term of export value. For years, the Factory has been ranked as the “Prestigious exporter” by the Ministry of Industry and Trade, “Preferred Supplier” by Ikea Group (Sweden), and Grade-A partner by Decathlon Corporation (France). Such achievements have affirmed that the Factory policy of combining defence with economy and economy with defence is appropriate.

As the quality of human resources plays a particularly important role in the development of businesses, along with increasing investment in modern equipment, the Factory has synchronously deployed several solutions for building and improving the quality of the workforce. To strictly observe the General Staff’s decision on the organisation, the Factory has reviewed and restructured a number of departments to make it more effective with requirements, tasks, and operation model. It has also focused on leading to improve the quality of the cadres in terms of quantity, quality, and structure. At the same time, it has well implemented the recruitment and selection of high-quality workers, supplemented, and transferred labourers among departments to meet the task requirements towards appropriate arrangement and use of the workforce. The Factory has regularly held training courses to improve professional skills and encouraged self-study to improve working capacity and professional qualifications. Importance has been attached to fostering professional capacity and skills, foreign languages, and self-awareness in compliance with regulations, labor disciplines, technological process, and safety rules in production. It has promulgated regulations on productivity and KPI-based salary payment, or monthly work evaluation in association with salary payment mechanism, etc. Therefore, the cadres, engineers, workers, and employees of the Factory always have good ethical qualities, professional expertise, scientific knowledge, technical skills, professional management methods, and high qualifications and workmanship to meet the requirements of production, business, and sustainable development of the Factory.

In recent years, the value of defence products of the Factory only accounts for 5% of its total revenue or nearly 10% of the capacity of its production lines. Therefore, to promote production capacity, create jobs for cadres, workers, and employees, and promote the duality of the its production lines, the Factory has facilitated market expansion, selected precisely, and invested deeply in export and product diversification. In implementing such policy, in defence production, the Factory has researched, designed, manufactured, and produced several new products with high technical content. Many defence products have been designed based on export demand that have been highly appreciated by using units and won prizes in competitions, including: Prize A at the All-Army Training Equipment Contest 2016 and the Creative Youth Second Prize 2018. Many other diversionary and ritual products tested in maneuvers have met the requirements of modern warfare. The defence products manufactured by the Factory have practical application and can prevent radar and infrared reconnaissance and keep military secrets, which has been recognised by the Ministry of Defence, the General Department of Defence Industry, and using units.

In economic production and export, with initiative, creative, and enterprising spirit, the Factory has focused on breakthroughs in production optimisation and rationalisation and development of new products, markets, and partners. In the past 5 years, the Factory has developed over 100 products of all kinds, many of which are highly scientific, aesthetic, durable, price-competitive, convenient, and environmentally friendly. Currently, the Factory's products have been exported to 31 countries, including fastidious markets, such as the EU, the U.S., etc., and highly appreciated by the customers. Actively expanding markets to sell its products, the Factory has developed more potential customers, including Decathlon Corporation (France), Bikezac (Denmark), Polyconcept, Triwin and Amazon ( America), ... to ensure annual average export revenue growth 17%/year. In 2020, due to the severe impact of the Covid-19 pandemic and difficulties in export markets, the Factory quickly shifted to manufacturing pandemic prevention  products to serve the domestic market and export and maintain jobs and income for workers.

In the context of open markets and fierce competition, the vital factor of an enterprise is to improve its competitiveness, especially product quality. Therefore, the Factory has paid attention to innovating management and operation methods and investing all resources in comprehensive development in both scale and potentials. In addition to exploiting existing equipment, the Factory has also focused on leadership, direction, and drastic implementation of different measures to maintain stability in production, invested in equipment suitable to industries and fields, applied new technologies in production, automation and mechanisation to ensure streamlining, scientific, and optimal arrangement and minimise production costs. Other measures such as promoting e-commerce, building brand logos, developing websites, and participating in electronic trading floors have contributed to bringing the Factory’s products and brand name to the world markets. The Factory has regularly reviewed, supplemented, and promulgated regulations and rules to improve the effectiveness and efficiency of business management and administration. At the same time, it has researched and applied modern corporate governance methods to eliminate waste and contribute to improving productivity and increasing labour efficiency by over 15% on average.

Being proud of the tradition of a Labour Hero Unit, Z176 Factory continues grasping and taking advantage of opportunities to overcome difficulties and challenges for solidarity, innovation, dynamism, and creativity and effectively implement the policy of dual-use of defence lines to strive to fulfill the tasks of defence production and export and maintain the pioneering position of brand for sustainable export, construction, and development.

Colonel, MA., PHAM ANH TUAN, Factory Director