The National Research Institute of Mechanical Engineering (NARIME), at first glance, may sound like a purely research unit, spending all day writing and drawing, with people often wearing glasses, being thoughtful, taciturn, and scholarly, whose products might be thick sets of documents that few people read, and even if read, are rarely understood. But upon deeper exploration, one is truly surprised by what one sees and hears. I would venture to mention two issues:

1- Internal Strength of NARIME:

After an initial period of establishment and operation, the work was limited to researching a few areas of mechanical engineering, including results such as manufacturing plows, then water pumps, but the application outcomes were not extensive. Staff worked passively, doing only assigned tasks. At year-end summaries, evaluations and criticisms were moderate; everyone felt they had contributed, but achievements remained modest.

Since Professor Dr.Sc. Han Duc Kim researched and proposed the "self-reliance mechanism" to higher authorities, the staff became noticeably more dynamic and creative. They proactively sought research topics and applications to support certain production units.

The next generation created a quantum leap in organization, restructuring the Institute's units, maximizing each individual's capacity, and forging close cooperation with mechanical engineering facilities to form collaborative support units. After research, design, and model construction, they moved to sequential trial manufacturing. Not everything required new investment; they knew how to leverage partner capabilities to coordinate, producing the best and most economical products with mutual benefits.

I inquired about the person who created this comprehensive leap in spirit, material, responsibility, and creativity for every individual in the Institute, a name often mentioned with admiration: Associate Professor Dr. Nguyen Chi Sang. He has bright, confident eyes, likely from deep thinking to find the best direction for the unit, which may be why his hair turned white very early. Although retired, his passion for mechanical engineering continues; he still serves as Vice President of the Vietnam Mechanical Engineering Association.

Today, the Institute is developing strongly and dynamically, daring to venture into many new fields. From the Director down to each engineer, they are simultaneously researchers, designers, and manufacturers. On construction sites, they act as construction workers or supervisors for installation, training, and technology transfer. They work enthusiastically, day and night, until tasks are completed. Such energetic working styles are hard to find among foreign EPC contractors. The Institute's units have the autonomy to organize work, to procure various materials for tasks, and ultimately, the most important thing is achieving high efficiency, with responsibility always linked to benefits. This is an excellent formula for workers. This is precisely the internal strength of NARIME.

2 - Domestic Internal Strength:

Based on the Government's policy on mechanical engineering development, and the close direction and facilitation of the Ministry of Industry and Trade for the Institutes to operate.

With keen insight, NARIME has advanced into researching and manufacturing products in many fields that I never expected.

In the energy sector, the Institute has directly researched, manufactured, and supplied hydraulic mechanical equipment for 18 hydropower plants, including the Son La and Lai Chau hydropower plants, which have been operating very stably for over 10 years. They manufactured and installed pressure pipelines for the expanded Da Nhim hydropower plant, with a design head of 938.2m and pressure of 79.9 kg/cm². This is an extremely high pressure, rare for such high-pressure pipelines in the world, requiring thick steel pipes, highly skilled and experienced welders, robust pipeline and foundation structures to withstand shear forces and strong impact loads during water opening/closing, and high long-term material strength to ensure quality and maximum safety.

Keeping pace with the booming trend of renewable energy, the Institute has invested in a factory producing floats for mounting panels on water surfaces and equipment for solar power plants, earning customer trust.

In coordination with Japanese and Russian partners, they researched and manufactured electrostatic precipitators meeting European standards, manufactured coal supply equipment, ash and slag conveying belt systems for thermal power plants, and electrical control cabinets and equipment—items previously requiring foreign currency expenditure from abroad.

They successfully researched and manufactured equipment and conveyors over 5km long for the Tan Rai and Nhan Co bauxite plants under the EPCM model, saving significant foreign currency for the country.

They successfully researched and put into use cargo sorting equipment in the logistics industry, greatly reducing labor requirements.

They researched and manufactured various spare parts for motorcycles and automobiles, along with many other valuable products.

Today, NARIME is a reliable partner of Honda, Toyota, Doosan, EVN, TKV, Vingroup…

In recent years, despite suffering heavy consequences from COVID-19, with many enterprises struggling or even going bankrupt, NARIME, with its strong resilience, has continuously expanded cooperation, diversified research fields, and undertaken many projects of high economic value. With an average annual revenue of over a thousand billion VND, this is a tremendous effort for an entity like NARIME.

In conversations with Dr. Phan Dang Phong, the Director, though young, he possesses the mindset of someone always striving upward, constantly preoccupied with finding new topics and projects to expand NARIME's capabilities. He always aspires, together with other units, to elevate Vietnam's mechanical engineering industry to new heights. He noted that the Government has issued a Decree on developing Vietnam's mechanical engineering sector, and the Ministry of Industry and Trade is very attentive in creating favorable conditions, thus providing a clear path. In recent years, Vietnamese enterprises have resolutely separated packages that can be manufactured domestically from EPC projects, as EVN and TKV have done, to assign them to domestic units. This reduces costs (by calculation, imported goods cost 4 USD/kg, while domestic production costs 1.5 USD/kg; for large projects where domestic fabrication amounts to several thousand tons, this saves millions of USD).

This is a good approach, beneficial to the country. For most projects, except for modern, critical equipment that Vietnam cannot yet produce (which must be imported), the remaining steel structures, non-standard equipment, and all construction work can and should be done by domestic units. This method was proven by the largest and most modern Son La hydropower project, which was a complete success (EVN assigned its consultancy unit for survey and design, hired foreign consultants for review, assigned the hydraulic mechanical portion to domestic units, and naturally, all construction work was excellently handled by the Vietnamese contractor consortium).

I believe that projects such as oil and gas pipelines, drilling rigs, cement plants, chemical plants, steel plants, airport terminals, seaports, etc., should allocate more items to the domestic mechanical engineering industry to succeed. I sincerely hope that higher authorities will direct the implementation of the above approach, enabling Vietnamese contractors—who previously acted as subcontractors—to quickly become main contractors.

The achievements that NARIME has obtained are thanks to a favorable mechanism. I vaguely see the shadow of the "Khoan 10" (Contract 10) policy of Mr. Kim Ngoc from years ago, applied to rice, cassava, and sweet potatoes, now spreading into the field of mechanical engineering research and manufacturing, becoming a powerful driving force within NARIME.

Source: Article posted on Facebook by former Chairman of EVN's Member Council

Link:  https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=10001101175685