The aftermath of the "problem cable" incident of Xi'an Metro Line 3 continues, exposing the problems of the whole wire and cable industry. "Nowadays, there are many reasons why bad money drives good money in the wire and cable industry, but the main reason is the lack of good faith business environment in the wire and cable industry. Many enterprises regard the inspection report as an 'amulet'. However, behind the 'amulet' is a true portrayal of the 'qualified' of 'unqualified' products." Bai Guangsen, Secretary General of cable price branch of China Price Association, said in an interview with reporters.

The inspection report is not an "amulet"

Bo Guangsen told reporters that the general products of wires and cables are heavy and light, and the process is simple. As long as the enterprise "has a conscience" and "assembles" with qualified raw materials, it is sometimes difficult to produce unqualified products.

On the other hand, "unqualified" products are "qualified", and the process is also simple. As long as the enterprise is "willing to bleed", it can basically be done. For example, selective inspection application for inspection items, selective supply for sampling, subcontracting and sample delivery, and even directly tackling key inspection institutions. Many inspection institutions are half-hearted and are only responsible for the incoming samples, and do not ask for anything else.
 

"Qualified" means that the "unqualified" wire and cable products finally obtain the "qualified" inspection report with legal effect issued by the inspection organization. A paper report of the inspection organization has become the Amulet of "unqualified" products.

Then, with this "amulet", can the quality control departments such as the project owner, the supervisor and the construction party give the green light all the way and let these "problem cables" run amok in the market?

The cable door of Xi'an Metro is the epitome of the industry and the true portrayal of "unqualified" products. Xi'an Metro seems to attach great importance to the quality of cable products. It specially entrusts the national authoritative department to test and inspect the cables taken from the project construction site, and specially records the sampling inspection and submission for inspection in detail for future reference; The national wire and cable quality supervision and Inspection Center issued an authoritative inspection report for the sample delivery test, and passed on that all the cables of Xi'an Metro Line 3 supplied by "Aokai problem cable" were qualified. Finally, the "unqualified" cable was "qualified", and the subway project was successfully accepted and put into operation.

It is believed that the problem of "qualified" cable of Xi'an Metro Line 3 will be difficult, or even never be uncovered, if it is not for the whistleblower to find the right "March 15" outlet, if it is not for the uproar of public opinion, and if it is not for the high-profile intervention of the government. In fact, various phenomena show that the problem cable is by no means an individual phenomenon.

It is understood that on March 24, Shanxi Provincial Bureau of quality and technical supervision reported the results of special supervision and spot check on the quality of products related to power grid transformation. The unqualified detection rate of wire and cable products was 21.7%. The general public will not notice that this is only the inspection result before cable aging. If the performance after aging is tested at the same time, it is a high probability event that the detection rate of unqualified products exceeds 70%.

It is the key to eliminate shoddy goods and improve the inspection procedure

It is indisputable to spend the least money to buy the best things, which is the professional quality of the purchaser. However, as the saying goes, "what you buy will never sell well", which requires the purchaser to continuously improve the level of quality control and have the wisdom of "one foot higher than the devil and one foot higher than the Tao".

Bai Guangsen said that in the practice of bidding procurement, the technical specifications of many users' project bidding documents put forward incomplete and unclear procurement needs, unclear agreement on the rights and obligations of the contract, even contradictory and full of errors, leaving many "drillable" gaps. Moreover, some users found that the bidder's quotation was too low and did not start the price identification procedure. After winning the bid, they did not strengthen the product quality supervision, which directly led to the desperate situation of enterprises such as "Aokai cable", first exchanging low prices for the market, and then making profits through such despicable means as shoddy work and shoddy materials, shoddy goods and so on.

Taking the State Grid Corporation of China, the largest cable purchaser in China, as an example, 395 unqualified cable products were found in sampling inspection in 2016, involving 171 enterprises. Compared with 2015, the number of unqualified cable products in random inspection increased by 35.27%, and the number of unqualified enterprises increased by 23.91%.

In addition, according to the cable purchase price evaluation and early warning tips of State Grid Corporation of China compiled by China cable online, a total of 793 cable enterprises participated in the bidding organized by them in 2016, and 421 (pre) bid winners were selected. The bid price of (pre) bid winners was about 59.328 billion yuan, the average range of relative production cost was about - 0.82%, the average gross profit margin of (pre) bid winners was about 8.20%, and the average net profit margin was about - 2.04%.

In other words, when doing cable business with the State Grid Corporation of China and producing in strict accordance with the national standard, most enterprises do not make money or even lose money. It is a helpless choice to make money, replace inferior products with good ones, degrade quality and increase efficiency. Therefore, it is not difficult to understand that the number of unqualified enterprises and unqualified batches of products remain high and surge in the sampling inspection of cable arrival of the State Grid Corporation of China.

So, how to clarify whether the bidder wins the bid at a low price, and how to strengthen the arrival acceptance and quality supervision? As a professional technical and price consulting service organization in the wire and cable industry, China cable online has innovated the "network red price" and "general product library" systems, in which it provides users with "conductor cost", "raw material cost", "full cost (industry average cost)" and "market monitoring price" of wires and cables online in real time, which is helpful to help users understand the executive standards, process and technical specifications of wires and cables Production costs and market prices play a supporting role, which is known as the "mirror" in the industry.

For engineering projects suspected of low price bidding, strengthen users' awareness of quality and safety, actively guide users to strengthen arrival acceptance and quality supervision, give full play to the professionalism of industry arrival acceptance and quality supervision service institutions, and promote third-party inspection and key product supervision.

In fact, as early as 2011, the guiding opinions on promoting the quality improvement of wire and cable products (gzjjl [2011] No. 585) jointly issued by six departments including the General Administration of quality supervision, inspection and quarantine, the Ministry of industry and information technology and the China Electric Power Enterprise Federation has pointed out the direction. As we all know, without qualified raw materials, we can't make qualified cables. Qualified cables are not detected by inspection (the inspection is only for known items, and is always limited by inspection methods, instruments and inspection means). They are "assembled" by qualified high-quality raw materials. In the current bidding, most bidders have been required to provide "main raw material sources", but most units have not assessed and supervised this in the process of bid evaluation and contract performance.

If the contract is strictly implemented, the main raw material sources of the bid winner are confirmed on site, the third-party factory witness and production supervision are seriously implemented, and the whole supply chain quality management is implemented, the quality will be controlled from the source and the bad behaviors such as Jerry building and shoddy goods will be fundamentally prevented.

Industry supervision is imminent

Bai Guangsen believes that the "unqualified" cable "is qualified" through the following three channels: avoiding the important and taking the light in the test items and minimizing the inspection as much as possible, transferring the test samples to qualified products and then sending them for inspection, and bribing the inspection and testing institutions to cheat. In the cable door of Xi'an metro, the "unqualified" cable is "qualified", which is nothing more than the latter two cases. Now, the national wire and cable quality supervision and inspection center, which issued a "qualified" report and "endorsed" Aokai problematic cable, has issued a public statement that "after verification, this test is legal and compliant, and there are no violations"; Meanwhile, the approver of the inspection report stressed that the inspection report has stated that "this inspection report is only responsible for the incoming samples", so the conclusion of the inspection report is only for the samples entrusted for inspection, and it cannot be inferred that the conclusion of the inspection report is applicable to all cables produced by Aokai company.

Due to the different sources and batches of samples submitted by the entrusting party for inspection, there is indeed the possibility of different test results, and the confirmation of sample sources is not the authority of the inspection institution.

Thus, it can be seen whether the "unqualified" inspection samples are transferred to "qualified" inspection samples and then sent for inspection, which is the "qualified" path of the cable this time.

This inspection is entrusted by Xi'an Underground Railway Co., Ltd. the sampling person is Shang Jianliang (Post Certificate No.: c14366), the submitting person is Xin Yanping, and the witness of sample taking and submitting is Liu Yuejin (Post Certificate No.: 20113973).

If there is no problem in the sample delivery process after review, the public security organ is also requested to seal the cable of the original sampling section immediately according to the original sampling records (Xi'an Metro has announced that all the problematic cables will be replaced), intercept the sample again and send it for inspection to see who is lying, the informant and Aokai cable Wang Zhiwei? What kind of person is it? Or quality inspection organization?

The problem will gradually come to the bottom

A teacher who never forgets the past and never forgets the future. Only by finding out the "qualified" channel of Aokai problem cable and making full use of the warning effect of hot events, can we have a definite goal, strictly prevent the "qualified" channel of products in the links of inspection items, sampling and sample delivery, effectively cut off the "qualified" channel of products, force the quality integrity of enterprises with a paper Inspection Report endorsed for quality, effectively promote the supply side reform and effectively promote the quality improvement of wire and cable industry.

Courage comes after shame. Bo Guangsen believes that the key to effectively prevent products from being "qualified" is to do three things well.

First of all, reasonable inspection items should be determined according to the characteristics of the project. For example, in view of the toxic and harmful gases generated when ordinary cables are on fire, low smoke halogen-free cables are generally required for densely populated subway projects. Therefore, the low smoke halogen-free characteristics of cables should be tested and verified.

Secondly, adhere to on-site sampling and sending samples for inspection after blind sample processing. At the same time, do a good job in sample sealing and evidence collection, so as to prevent sample transfer and collusion and cheating between the supplier and the quality inspection organization.

Finally, the selection of sample delivery and inspection organization can select the national authoritative inspection organization without dishonesty record for inspection. According to the needs, three sections of samples of the same product can be taken at the same time. After all blind samples are processed, the two sections are sent to different inspection organizations for inspection, and the other section of samples are retained. If the test results of the first two samples are different, the third blind sample can be started for re inspection.

Bai Guangsen finally called for a long-term plan for the quality of the project and the safety of production is vital. Since the "law revision" can not save the "fake and shoddy" near fire, it is better to solve the fundamental problem of "qualified" products as soon as possible. Only in this way can counterfeiters have nowhere to hide, and "Xi'an subway cable door" will not repeat itself.