The company in the past

Fibers

examples of fiber in wires

colourful ones

Three process before the threading

Fiber not thicker than our

hair

coating process

three shareholder

ground rules...

outside of the company

The visit to the Yangtze Optical Fiber and Cable was a meaningful one. We were greeted by a very big company name at the main door of the exhibition hall. There was a sign placed outside telling us that we are not suppose to take any pictures inside. When we went in, the person in-charge told us facts about the factories and the ground rules when we were inside. The very first thing we were told was no photography allowed. Mr. Qian told us that we are only going to be touring the fiber factory as the cable factory is not open to the public.
The Yangtze Optical Fiber and Cable Company Ltd have three major shareholders and one of them is the China communication. It is the first in China in terms of productivity and the second in the whole world. The first is a America country.
We were explained about the process of fiber making. Gases were being put into the glass and some chemical effect will happen and would form a coating along the wall of the glass rod. This will continue till the inner coating of the glass rod is very thick. This might look like a simple process but it takes up to four hours. The second process is collapse. The rod that had been coated will be compress to a thinner rod but without empty spaces inside. This process takes two hours. The next part is the Fiber. The glass rod will be placed inside a very hot furnace and heated up to 2200 degree Celsius till it starts to melt and soften. When it softens, it will drip down. As glass is “sticky”, a thread like thing will be produce once the dripping starts. This dripping thread is kept at a certain diameter not thicker than our hair. While dripping, it will go through two kinds of coating which will serve as protective layers for the Fiber. At the same time, it will go through two ultra-violet rays to ensure that the thickness is kept the same throughout. It will then be coiled up just like the thread in sewing. The machine for this whole process is 30meters high and the corridor we were walking on is just at the bottom of the machine. After being rolled up, it is send to another room where there will be more machines to test the quality of these fiber. It will then be recoiled up to 50km per roll. If the fiber snaps during the quality test for the first 50km, the whole fiber being coiled up before will be thrown away. If it snaps after the 50km, it is consider as an ok one. This is how strict they are with their product, quality control. The rods have to go through a second test where workers will place a emitter at one end of the fiber and an receiver at the other end. If the receiver can detect the emitter, it is ready to be sold or being used for their own cable company. Those that cannot be detected will be sending for test to check for the quality. According to the rule, the first 25 years for the fiber is the warranty period. Any problem after that will not be under their responsibility.
I can say that the fiber and cable company is a more modern one as compared to the steel factory. They keep their company secret very closely and are a rather big company. With the help of all these high technology machines, the job of producing fiber is much easier now as compared to using manpower. This too increases the rate of production and brings the county’s economics to a great height.
The fiber and cable company is very similar to the company in Singapore in terms of their process secrets. They would only allow visitors to be looking at one area only or some might even be totally out of bound for all outsiders. In terms of taking pictures, it is the same as Singapore. Although the industries in Singapore is not that big, we were still able to run our economics.