Craftsmanship Builds Gears, Power Drives the Future
— Exclusive Interview with Sun Cheng, General Manager of Jiangsu Yiding Transmission Machinery Co., Ltd.
Since its founding in 2012, Jiangsu Yiding Transmission Machinery Co., Ltd. has forged a clear foothold in the high-end equipment manufacturing sector with pioneering courage and relentless craftsmanship. Centered on gear manufacturing and heat treatment technologies, the company has forged ahead at full steam along its core business track.
In just over a decade, the enterprise has achieved leapfrog growth. Evolving steadily from a fledgling newcomer to a key backbone player in its niche market, it has emerged as a standout innovative star within Changzhou’s high-end equipment industrial chain.
The company has delivered remarkable accomplishments in gear manufacturing processes and heat treatment technologies, continuously raising industry benchmarks across its specialized segment. Furthermore, it has deeply integrated into Changzhou’s "1028" industrial development blueprint. Fueling regional economic growth with its own robust "Yiding momentum", the firm lives up to its corporate responsibility to advance high-quality development of the local high-end equipment manufacturing industry.
Breaking New Ground for Growth: Braving Entrepreneurial Hurdles to Forge a Fresh Path of Development
Looking back on the development journey of Yiding Transmission, General Manager Sun Cheng is filled with profound emotions. The origin of this venture is rooted in the industrial foundation laid by his father. Back in 1988, Sun Cheng’s father Sun Zhiming founded Zhonghao Heat Treatment Co., Ltd. Adhering to the philosophy of "sticking to core business and pursuing steady progress", the enterprise dedicated itself to refining and upgrading core heat treatment technologies. It not only accumulated solid industrial expertise and stable customer resources, but also built a reputation for reliability and professionalism in the regional supporting sector for equipment manufacturing.
Nevertheless, unlike his father’s business mindset of "safeguarding the family enterprise and developing step by step", Sun Cheng refused to confine his development within the existing business scope. He keenly perceived the broad prospects of the high-end equipment manufacturing industry, especially the enormous potential of the niche track integrating gear manufacturing and heat treatment technologies.
As a second-generation entrepreneur, Sun Cheng initially proposed branching out into a new track and launching a brand-new business focused on high-end gear manufacturing, yet his father did not back his idea at first. "My father fully understood how arduous entrepreneurship could be. He worried that once I stepped out of the familiar heat treatment sector, I would be confronted with countless intractable obstacles in technological research and development, market expansion, supply chain construction and other areas," Sun Cheng recalled. "But I was brimming with passion and confidence in the industry’s future, knowing this shift aligned with the inevitable upgrading of the equipment manufacturing sector. To ease my father’s misgivings, I spent nearly half a year consulting industrial experts, investigating market demand, calculating costs and revenues, and compiling a nearly 100-page detailed business plan. The document elaborated thoroughly on the rationale for track selection, paths for technological breakthroughs and market expansion strategies, and I eventually convinced him, paving the way for the establishment of Yiding Transmission."
Unexpectedly, the company faced massive challenges at the early stage of startup due to wrong equipment selection. "Back then, I followed experts’ advice and purchased a batch of standard machinery and equipment, which failed to meet clients’ processing requirements for high-precision gear products," Sun Cheng recounted. "However, my father and wife never reproached me. Instead, they encouraged me not to lose heart. After thorough analysis, I resolved to fully leverage our strengths in heat treatment by partnering with enterprises based in Changzhou, Wuxi, Shanghai and other regions. We provided them with heat treatment services, and in turn fulfilled customer orders by tapping into their gear processing capabilities."
Relying on this complementary cooperation model, Yiding Transmission gradually gained customers’ trust and accumulated valuable capital and operational experience.
As business volume rebounded steadily, the company purchased internationally advanced gear hobbing and grinding machines in 2016, greatly boosting its independent production capacity, perfecting its production system and kicking off a period of rapid corporate expansion.
In 2020, China made a solemn commitment to the international community, putting forward the ambitious "30·60" dual carbon goals: peaking carbon dioxide emissions before 2030 and striving to achieve carbon neutrality before 2060. This strategically far-reaching decision brought unprecedented development opportunities to the new energy industry like a warm spring breeze.
Quick to seize this market trend, Yiding Transmission leveraged its proprietary technological and processing strengths to actively cooperate with leading enterprises including Envision Energy, AECC (Aero Engine Corporation of China) and China Wind Power Equipment, manufacturing products such as speed-increasing box gears for wind turbines.
"This partnership not only drove a sharp surge in our business volume but also elevated our enterprise to an entirely new level," stated Sun Cheng. "Collaborating with these industrial leaders has enabled us to continuously upgrade our technical proficiency and management capabilities, cementing our foothold in the marketplace."
Under Sun Cheng’s leadership, Yiding Transmission has recorded year-on-year rising operating performance. Starting with an annual sales volume of over 4 million yuan in 2012, the company is projected to hit 150 million yuan in sales revenue by 2025. Its Compound Annual Growth Rate (CAGR) stands at 23.8%, far outperforming the growth rates of the general equipment manufacturing industry (12%–15%) and leading new energy equipment manufacturers (18%–20%), which highlights the company’s strong competitive edge.
Innovation Empowerment: Forge Core Competitiveness Rooted in Unique Advantages
As a National High-tech Enterprise, Jiangsu Provincial SRDI (Specialized, Refined, Differential, Innovative) Enterprise and Provincial Gazelle Enterprise, Jiangsu Yiding has yielded abundant achievements in technological innovation.
General Manager Sun Cheng commented, “At present, the company owns 5 national invention patents for gears and shaft parts, as well as 21 utility model patents. These patented achievements stand as solid testimony to our technical strength and serve as the core driving force fueling product iteration and upgrading.”
Yiding Transmission keeps pursuing continuous innovation in gear manufacturing processes. By optimizing production workflows and deploying advanced processing equipment and technologies, the company has secured simultaneous improvements in production efficiency and product quality.
Sun Cheng stated, “We are committed to perfecting every working procedure, with strict control over all links ranging from raw material selection to finished product forming. For example, high-precision gear grinding technology is adopted in gear machining, which effectively boosts gear precision and surface quality, cuts down noise and vibration during equipment operation, and extends the service life of products.”
Heat treatment technology constitutes another major competitive strength of Yiding Transmission. Sun Cheng fully understands its critical role in enhancing product performance.
“With our self-developed heat treatment processes, we can precisely regulate key performance indicators such as gear hardness and toughness, enabling stable and reliable operation of products under various working conditions,” Sun Cheng explained. “Meanwhile, we keep researching new heat treatment technologies and materials to satisfy customers’ increasingly diversified demands.”
Yiding Transmission has also made tremendous efforts to elevate production efficiency. The enterprise has introduced automated production lines and intelligent management systems to realize digital monitoring and control over the whole production process.
“The deployment of automated production lines greatly raises productivity and mitigates quality defects caused by human factors,” Sun Cheng said. “Intelligent management systems further help us optimize production flows, allocate resources rationally and boost the company’s overall operational efficiency.”
Steadfast Pursuit & Pragmatic Action: Sailing Toward the Blue Ocean of Smart Manufacturing, Hoisting New Sails for Industrial Advancement
Changzhou is a city deeply rooted in industrial heritage. After decades of intensive cultivation in equipment manufacturing, it has built a complete industrial ecosystem covering segmented sectors including rail transit, construction machinery and smart grid equipment, emerging as a vital growth engine for equipment manufacturing in the Yangtze River Delta and across the whole country.
Against the backdrop of the in-depth advancement of the "Manufacturing Power" strategy and accelerated fostering of new quality productive forces, Changzhou is fully rolling out its "1028" industrial system. Collaborative win-win development represents not only an indispensable path for local equipment manufacturers to break through bottlenecks and march toward the high-end market, but also the core key to integrating resources and realizing the blueprint of "climbing new heights in smart manufacturing".
As a rising star in Changzhou’s high-end equipment manufacturing sector, Yiding Transmission consistently takes technological innovation and equipment upgrading as the core of its development, consolidating a solid foundation for industrial collaboration with robust core capabilities. The company adheres to its equipment investment principle of "minor investment every year, major investment every five years" and introduces world-leading production equipment. This has lifted its production efficiency and product quality to industry-leading standards, while strongly supporting its integration into Changzhou’s high-end equipment manufacturing industrial cluster.
At present, its client portfolio features well-known domestic and international enterprises such as CRRC, China Transmission, Caterpillar, XCMG and Envision Energy. The company has grown stronger through serving industrial leaders, while injecting vitality into local industrial clusters. In technological research and development, Yiding Transmission firmly rejects isolated, closed-door R&D. It adopts an open mindset to learn advanced techniques and deepen industry exchanges.
"We must embrace new ideas and technologies boldly. Cooperation with peers can boost our innovation capacity and deliver win-win, multi-win outcomes," stressed Sun Cheng. Guided by this philosophy, the company not only digs deep into core fields of gear manufacturing and heat treatment technology, but also strives to drive the overall technological progress of the industry through industry-university-research cooperation and participation in formulating industrial standards, shifting from single-point technological breakthroughs to empowering the entire sector.
In Changzhou’s drive to build a high-end equipment manufacturing industrial cluster, Yiding Transmission takes dual drivers of "industrial chain coordination and peer collaboration" to break down barriers and integrate resources, practicing its development philosophy of "long-term growth through collaboration".
To strengthen closer cooperation with upstream and downstream enterprises along the industrial chain, Yiding Transmission is advancing two key initiatives. On one hand, it plans to construct automated production lines and robotic operation systems to meet downstream clients’ demands with higher efficiency and superior quality. On the other hand, it expands its business scope into gearboxes, extending its industrial layout from core components to integrated finished products. By reinforcing and supplementing the industrial chain, it forms a mutually beneficial and symbiotic ecosystem with upstream and downstream partners.
When it comes to peer cooperation, Yiding Transmission holds the logic that "industry peers are not merely competitors, but also partners". According to Sun Cheng, the company is ready to share technical experience with counterparts and jointly explore development trends. Through resource sharing and complementary strengths, the industry can tackle common technical challenges, avoid cutthroat homogeneous competition, and collectively propel Changzhou’s high-end equipment manufacturing toward higher-quality development and broader market reach.
Faced with a volatile and complex market landscape, Yiding Transmission advances internal management reforms simultaneously, strengthening internal capabilities to guarantee stable external collaboration and business expansion. Internally, the enterprise continuously optimizes management workflows, establishes scientific and reasonable performance appraisal systems to fully mobilize employees’ enthusiasm and creativity, and ramps up staff training to cultivate a high-caliber talent team.
In terms of operational mechanisms, it always upholds the work philosophy: prioritize quality, guarantee on-time delivery, cut costs, break conventional constraints, and boost output. "Quality is the lifeblood of an enterprise, and on-time delivery shapes its reputation. We win customers’ trust by rigorous quality control and punctual delivery. Meanwhile, we streamline production processes and lower costs to sharpen our market competitiveness," Sun Cheng explained.
Guided by this development strategy, Yiding Transmission is marching toward loftier goals. This year, it has secured a site for a new production base in Daitou Industrial Park, to be built in two phases. The first phase involves an investment of 200 million yuan for automated production lines and robotic operation systems, projected to triple production capacity and generate roughly 500 million yuan in annual sales revenue, laying a more solid groundwork for the company’s long-term growth.
Looking ahead, Sun Cheng is brimming with confidence: "Sustainable corporate growth hinges on constant innovation. We will carry forward our predecessors’ spirit of hard work and integrity-based operation, keep pace with the times, and fuel corporate progress with new concepts and technologies."
Over the past decade, Yiding Transmission has carved out a remarkable niche in high-end equipment manufacturing through relentless pursuit of technological innovation, sharp insight into market opportunities, and continuous optimization of management. Now positioned on the track of high-quality development in the new era, Yiding Transmission will build further on its inherent strengths. It will refine its products with the dedication of a specialized, sophisticated enterprise and explore markets with a pragmatic mindset. Upholding both the drive for technological breakthroughs and the original aspiration to serve upstream and downstream industrial partners, the company will expand its scale steadily, contribute to the advancement of "Changzhou Smart Manufacturing", and write a more brilliant chapter for the high-quality development of China’s manufacturing industry.
August 25, 2025
