At present, many Rice noodles and vermicelli manufacturers are in a difficult situation of shrinking product sales, rising production costs and sharply declining profits. Faced with difficulties, if production enterprises do nothing, it is a passive and passive policy; If we seek a way out through innovation, it is a proactive and optimal strategy.
Innovation, first and foremost, is innovative thinking. Innovation in thinking is not just imagination, but understanding, researching, and following the development laws of things, valuing and relying on science and technology.
1、 Opening up sales channels through innovation
Innovative products are an effective way to expand the market and increase sales. Unfortunately, the product innovation awareness of many business leaders is still relatively weak. One enterprise leader who has been producing instant Rice noodles for a long time was very impressed by this. He wrote: "The product innovation is insufficient. Since the instant Rice noodles and fans have been around for nearly 20 years, the product quality and ingredients have not been improved or greatly changed..." He spoke about a real aspect of the industry.
In the face of difficulties, some production enterprises will shift from producing a single product to producing multiple products. The added products are already being produced by other companies and have no innovative components. This is a phenomenon that often occurs when the industry is in a low ebb: people outside the city want to rush in, while those inside the city want to escape. Production companies believe that even with an old product in the market, there may be a glimmer of hope, but competition between novices and veterans will be more difficult, encountering more difficulties, and the risk will not be small.
To innovate products, it is necessary to follow the evolution laws of the product market, investigate and study the needs and changes of consumption; There must be new breakthroughs in quality and taste. Give an example of a successful innovative product: not long ago, a new product called "bedding noodles" appeared in the market, which had good flexibility and taste, and suddenly became a well-known new product in the market. It is understood that the production equipment is refitted from the self ripening machine and the extrusion machine that were used to produce Crossing the bridge noodles. Its production process and equipment are completely different from traditional noodle products, giving the product a unique flavor and making it a truly innovative product.
As long as we can break free from the inertia resistance of traditional thinking, the innovation space of the product is very broad. For example, the formula of raw materials can vary greatly, and each change will affect the characteristics and taste of the product. In this regard, most domestic production enterprises tend to be conservative. A well-known Japanese Rice noodles manufacturer in Thailand added 30% potato starch or 50% cassava starch to the raw material formula of instant rice noodle and Zhitiao rice noodle; In Paris, France, there is a company that produces semi dry and wet river noodles, whose raw materials contain 25% potato starch. Changes in production processes can also alter the characteristics and taste of products. For example, in order to improve the rehydration performance of brewing and the softness and smoothness of noodles, Crossing the bridge noodles will not be re steamed after self cooking and extrusion. There was a production enterprise that added the re steaming process in order to reduce the pulp spitting rate of Crossing the bridge noodles. As a result, the rehydration property became poor and it was inconvenient to eat. Some fresh Rice noodles with high water content must undergo anti-aging treatment, otherwise the product quality will deteriorate with the increase of storage time. The degree of aging can be changed to alter the softness and hardness of the noodles. To obtain satisfactory innovative products, innovation can be made in both raw material formulation and process, and verified through practical experience.
2、 Innovate to reduce marketing and production costs
With innovative products, it is possible to increase sales. With sales, it is necessary to reduce costs, otherwise it is difficult to improve the declining economic benefits. In terms of cost management, there is significant room for changes in sales costs; Reducing production workers, improving product yield, and saving energy are the main directions for innovation in reducing production costs.
1) Innovate to reduce product sales costs
In management costs, the variable of sales cost is the largest. For many years, the larger Rice noodles and fans production enterprises are willing to hire a large number of promoters to compete for the market, supplemented by the encouragement of more sales and more rewards. This leads to high sales costs. A greater hidden danger is that the decision-making level of production enterprises and product promoters pursue different goals, and the two go against each other. The goal pursued by the corporate leadership is to expand sales, increase profits, and further catch up with competitors in the same industry; In order to expand sales performance, salespeople can propose many reasons and use the leadership's eagerness to occupy the market to force products to be promoted at low prices, resulting in a disguised increase in sales costs and squeezing out the company's profit space. In order to win heavy rewards, salespeople even piled up a large number of products in stock and falsely reported sales (making excuses to return them after the incident). Encouraged by these false information, the leadership of production enterprises will seize the opportunity to increase investment in order to expand production as soon as possible and meet market demand. As a result, production enterprises will suffer huge losses, and some may even close down. There are many real examples of this kind. The most typical example occurred in the period when the market of Guoqiao Rice noodles was in a false high. Many production enterprises were affected by false information, blindly expanded production, and carried out irrational sales promotion. As a result, they suffered heavy losses, making the whole industry decline and still in a low ebb.
The sales concept of high cost irrational promotion that violates market rules has been hindering the sales innovation thinking of many food production enterprise leaders and decision-makers for many years. More than a decade ago, there was a large and well-known food production enterprise in the north that introduced the relatively advanced Japanese udon noodle production equipment at that time. We produce a large amount of Wudong noodles with grand and high standard factories and advanced production equipment. Production was halted shortly after due to the lack of sales for the product. When some inspectors asked about the reason for the shutdown, the person in charge of the company analyzed that the main reason was the insufficient promotion of the product. If one or two billion yuan could be spent on advertising, sales would not be a problem. This misconception that products that are not suitable for market needs can still rely on excessively high sales and promotional expenses to open up the market is not isolated. Later, the closure of the Wugu Rice Farm was similar. Therefore, it is necessary to break away from the common misconceptions in the food industry and follow market laws with new thinking. Firstly, it is necessary to investigate and study the actual requirements of the market for products, and produce products that are as close as possible to the preferences of the majority of consumers. On this basis, promoting products can achieve twice the result with half the effort, greatly saving sales expenses and reducing sales costs.
The key to a new sales mindset is to establish a sales mechanism that aligns the goals pursued by the enterprise with those pursued by the salesperson and operates in the same direction. This mechanism can improve sales efficiency and reduce sales costs. Traditional sales methods are facing the challenge of Internet sales mode. Sufficient attention should be paid to new things and careful research should be conducted based on the specific situation of the enterprise. In theory, online sales can save advertising and traditional marketing costs. The convenience of online shopping and low product prices can attract more consumers, making it an effective means of promoting products on a broader level. On the other hand, a characteristic of online shopping is that the selling price of goods will be significantly lower than the traditional market price, forcing production enterprises to engage in price reduction promotions, indirectly increasing sales costs. Furthermore, it is inevitable that there will be ultra-low price competition among similar counterfeit and inferior products in online sales, resulting in a dilemma of dilemma. How to choose depends on the comparison of gains and losses; It depends on whether a win-win mechanism can be formed where the goals pursued by the enterprise and the goals pursued by e-commerce can basically move in the same direction.
2) Innovating to reduce production costs and improve the economic benefits of enterprises is an important aspect of reducing production costs. The main measures that can effectively reduce production costs are to increase labor productivity, increase product yield, and reduce energy consumption.
In fact, for a long time, most production enterprises have made unremitting efforts in these three aspects and generally feel that it is difficult to move forward. This indicates that we have entered a deep water zone where it is difficult to reduce production costs. If we don't break free from traditional inertia thinking, it is indeed difficult to achieve anything; If changed to a positive and innovative mindset, there will be great potential.
To improve labor productivity, the first thing that production enterprises think of is to improve the mechanization and automation level of production equipment, in order to reduce production personnel and save labor costs. But most production enterprise decision-makers will feel that it is difficult to move any further forward. In fact, this is mainly constrained by traditional inertia thinking. Many experienced professionals and teachers who have been engaged in production practice for a long time tend to hold onto old thinking and experience, denying the possibility of innovation. For example, in the production of Rice noodles, there is generally a process of mixing the main ingredients, auxiliary ingredients and secondary ingredients with water at normal temperature, or mixing the main ingredients with water and steam at high temperature. For a long time, all domestic production enterprises have adopted intermittent production equipment operated manually. Its disadvantages are high labor intensity, difficult to clean, inability to automate production integration with the front and back processes, consuming more labor, and unstable mixing quality. There is a large rice flour production enterprise in Guangzhou that has been using this outdated equipment for over 20 years. About 10 years ago, someone proposed to the main leaders of the company to replace outdated equipment with high-temperature mixing equipment for automatic and continuous production, but it was unanimously rejected. About three years ago, the main leaders of the company were forced by the constantly rising labor production costs to break free from the constraints of traditional inertia thinking and determined to innovate and find their way. In the process of innovation, there is a lack of recognition from experienced masters and experts, as well as a lack of cooperation from scientific research forces, resulting in a detour. After spending over a million yuan and undergoing more than a year of repeated experimentation and improvement, we have finally developed an advanced automated continuous high-temperature mixing equipment for rice flour production in China. Since its production, the effect has been good, and a batch of labor has been saved due to the automation connection between the upper and lower processes. Due to the automatic control of mixing time and temperature, good and stable mixing quality can be maintained. This is a very successful example of innovation in deep water areas.
The production of straight Rice noodles is a labor-intensive industry. The three most labor-intensive processes (excluding packaging) are intermittent stirring, intermittent powder steaming, and manual loosening. In recent years, a company has made breakthroughs in these three areas, saving a lot of labor. It should be said that the positive effects of successful innovation are the main; On the other hand, like any new thing, there will be certain shortcomings and shortcomings. But this is a problem that needs to be improved and perfected in production, and we cannot stand still, lose the courage to innovate, and see no way out.
The manual weight setting forming and box feeding of Rice noodles and vermicelli are the most labor consuming processes in the production of ready to eat Rice noodles and vermicelli. The technology of automatic weighing and automatic packaging has made progress in products such as fresh-keeping powder, and needs to be improved and perfected. There is a possibility in technical theory for automatic weighing and packaging of steamed dry products, but due to the involvement of multiple previous processes, the integrity of the powder flakes is affected, making it difficult to achieve. Currently, there is no feasible equipment for production, and continuous innovation and efforts are needed in the future. The difficulty of achieving automatic weight shaping and automatic box insertion is greatest for aged and washed dry products. About 20 years ago, Japan had an automatic weighing device, which used a suction cup to suck Rice noodles and noodles soaked in water as volumetric quantification. Due to the use of a cup knife for cutting, many shredded noodles are produced, and the product is soaked in water for different times, resulting in significant differences in moisture content. This quantitative equipment that sacrifices product quality is difficult for production enterprises to accept. There have been many false propaganda of equipment manufacturing enterprises in China, which promised to supply any Rice noodles fans with automatic weighing, shaping and box dropping equipment, which has made many manufacturing enterprises credulous and suffered economic losses. Therefore, when entering the deep waters of innovation, it is necessary to respect objective laws and attach importance to scientific analysis and identification. For innovative projects that are difficult to solve technically at the moment, do not force them to be implemented. Instead, explore new ideas for step-by-step implementation, which will be more effective. For example, there is a large production enterprise in the north that produces ready to eat potato vermicelli. After struggling to solve the problems of automatic weight setting, forming, and automatic box dropping, it broke out of the framework of binding weight setting and box dropping, and first innovated and automated the technically easy to achieve automatic box dropping. Although manual weight setting and forming were still retained, it also saved some operators and achieved the effect of reducing labor costs.
3、 Innovation and Energy Conservation
1. Innovation in extrusion technology reduces energy consumption
In order to improve the sanitary level of production of Rice noodles and vermicelli, the materials used for manufacturing extrusion equipment have been changed from carbon steel and cast iron to stainless steel. But stainless steel has a very high adhesive resistance to the material, so that most of the material rotates with the stainless steel screw, and the actual extruded material only accounts for 10-20% of the theoretical calculated extrusion amount. Most of the energy is used for kneading and pressing the powder. In addition, the stainless steel vermicelli forming template has a high resistance to the material, which significantly increases the extrusion pressure. If edible grade plastic is used instead of extrusion spiral (calculated to withstand extrusion pressure), and PTFE embedded molds are used, the extrusion efficiency can be improved, the extrusion power can be significantly reduced, energy can be saved, and the surface quality of noodles can be improved. Large wire extruders, with a power of 12kw~36kw, are major energy consumers in the equipment. Preliminary estimates suggest that innovation can save one-third to two-thirds of electricity and reduce energy costs.
2. Get rid of inertia thinking and replace equipment that consumes too much energy
There are two different processes for rice pre-treatment: wet method and dry method (strictly speaking, it is a semi dry method, as the rice is crushed after soaking). Due to the increased loss of 1% to 2% of rice raw materials and the large amount of sewage treatment required by wet methods, more and more production enterprises are adopting dry process technology, which requires the addition of sewage treatment equipment. In order to obtain the smallest possible rice starch particles in dry production, micro crushers are commonly used. But the micro crusher that produces 3 tons of rice, along with supporting fans, feeders, and air stoppers, has a total power of about 70 kilowatts. The power consumption for crushing each ton of rice is about 180 kilowatt hours, which is about four times that of wet production. In fact, before the appearance of micro crusher, rice crusher with non micro crushing structure has been used in dry production. The power of this rice crusher is small, which can significantly reduce energy consumption. In fact, most straight powder production enterprises do not use micro crushers.
3. Emphasize theoretical research and innovative drying technologies to reduce energy consumption
At present, many production enterprises still use traditional positive pressure drying equipment, which significantly increases energy consumption. The so-called positive pressure drying refers to the amount of room temperature air input into the drying equipment, which is much greater than the amount of moisture discharged. A positive pressure is formed inside the drying equipment, causing a large amount of hot air with still high drying potential to run out. On the one hand, it increases energy consumption, and on the other hand, it raises the temperature of the production workshop, reducing the comfort of the production environment. Therefore, it is necessary to innovate drying technology, correct pressure drying to negative pressure drying, and achieve both energy-saving and improved production environment.
4、 Innovate and optimize the supply of production raw materials
The raw material for noodle production is not wheat but wheat flour, which is an important advantage of noodle production over Rice noodles production. If the production of Rice noodles starts not from rice but from large Rice noodles, it will bring great benefits to Rice noodles production enterprises. Production enterprises do not need to search everywhere for rice with rigid requirements for linear starch, thereby reducing the cost of raw material procurement; No need for rice pretreatment and dehydration processes, saving production land; Reduce investment in corresponding equipment; There are no sewage treatment problems caused by soaking rice, grinding pulp, and dehydration, saving a significant amount of investment and land in sewage treatment equipment; The quality requirements for raw materials are more guaranteed. Therefore, some large Rice noodles production enterprises should be expedited to produce various large Rice noodles with different amylose content. Due to the large demand, the price of rice will be slightly lower than that of Rice noodles manufacturers, reaching a certain level