Founder Said | From a Tin-Roof Workshop to a Vertically Integrated Ultrafiltration Manufacturer

I still remember the year 1993, when I graduated from junior high school.

At that time, Shenzhen was a city full of energy and opportunity. Everything there seemed to be moving forward, and I was eager to go out and make something of myself.

To be honest, I knew nothing about life or work back then. I was just a young and inexperienced boy who no longer wanted to continue studying.

So I went to Kengzi, Shenzhen, where my older sister was working as a supervisor at a garment factory in Shatian.

I found a job there too.

After working hard for a year, the boss from Hong Kong noticed that I was quick-witted and hardworking, so he promoted me to team leader.

Looking back now, those were some of the happiest days of my life — simple, carefree, and pure.

Every time I received my salary, I handed it all over to my sister. She took care of everything for me: food, clothes, and all the small things in daily life. I never had to worry about money.

A few years later, my sister got married.

I cried.

I kept thinking, “What will I do now? Who will buy me clothes? Who will take care of me?”

Later, I realized I had been overthinking. My sister still loved me just as much and continued to look after me.

Seeing that I was making progress, my sister went out of her way to sign me up for an accounting course at Kengzi Adult School.

She told me, “You must study hard.”

I always listened to her.

Deep down, I knew that having only a junior high school education was far from enough, so I kept pushing myself and working harder.

I still remember scoring 95 points on the final exam and ranking first in the class. My sister was so happy, and so was I.

For the first time, I felt a real sense of confidence.

After that, I later continued my studies at an adult high school.

In 1997, my brother-in-law started a hardware processing factory and asked me to work with him.

That was when I formed an unbreakable bond with hardware manufacturing.

Even today, Chengrong Factory still has its own hardware mold department and stamping department.

At my brother-in-law’s factory, I took on many roles.

I was the purchaser, the accountant, and the delivery person. At the same time, I also worked as a mold technician, machine adjuster, and general worker.

I often repaired molds until 2 a.m., yet still showed up at work at 8 a.m. sharp the next morning.

Life was hard, but it was also incredibly fulfilling.

On the one hand, I was helping my own family. On the other hand, I was learning so many new skills.

Before I realized it, seven years had passed — seven of the most rewarding years of my life.

During that time, I got married, had children, learned to drive, and most importantly, mastered all kinds of hardware manufacturing skills.

But sooner or later, everyone has to grow up.

Even with the closest family members, there comes a time to part ways.

It felt as if fate had already arranged my path from the moment I was born.

And in 2005, my happy and fulfilling days as an employee came to an abrupt end.

That year, while I was still working at my brother-in-law’s factory, I met a good friend who invited me to start a business with him.

At first, I turned him down again and again.

I had never thought about starting my own business.

But eventually, I asked my sister and brother-in-law for advice. They told me that I might as well give it a try.

And that was how I began my first entrepreneurial journey.

Unfortunately, after only about a year, I had to give up.

I walked away with nothing and even owed more than 30,000 yuan in debt.

But I was not ready to give up.

I borrowed some money from my sister, bought two punch presses, and started my second business.

That business struggled along for more than a year.

Then, in 2007, another friend came to me with an offer: a large order worth around 300,000 yuan per month.

For me, that was an opportunity I could not refuse.

Since I had no capital, I asked a close friend to invest.

We rented a 1,000-square-meter tin-sheet workshop and bought equipment.

That was the early beginning of Chengrong Factory.

Even today, I often look back at photos from that time.

I can never let go of the hardships and memories from those early days.

What I remember most vividly is what happened right after the 2008 Spring Festival.

We had already rented the workshop and bought the equipment.

But suddenly, my friend’s client had no orders for us.

To make matters worse, the friend who had invested in the factory wanted to withdraw his capital because of problems in his own business.

It was like a bolt from the blue — a double blow.

I felt terrible guilt.

I was the one who had asked him to invest. Now the factory had no orders and no clear hope ahead.

I felt I had let him down.

At that time, I had only one thought:

I could not let my friend lose money.

So I took over all of his investment myself and treated it as a loan that I would repay within three years.

He agreed.

But my family was strongly against it.

They said I had no money and no orders, and that taking over the factory was a dead end.

But I was determined.

Even if I could not keep the factory alive, I told myself that I would work odd jobs to pay him back.

Otherwise, I would never be able to live with myself.

Seeing how determined I was, my parents and my wife finally respected my decision.

I even sold the house my parents had built in our hometown.

Those were the darkest days of my life.

My son had to drop out of kindergarten because I could not afford the tuition.

Once, when the landlord came to collect rent for our apartment, I searched every pocket I had and was still three yuan short.

I rummaged through drawers and cabinets, but I still could not find it.

For the workshop rent, I had to borrow money from one of the shareholders of the landlord’s company. I eventually got the loan only because the local factory manager stepped in to guarantee it for me.

That was when I truly understood the pain of having not a single cent to my name.

As if things could not get any worse, the strongest typhoon in years hit Shenzhen in 2008.

How could a tin-sheet workshop withstand such a storm?

The office, the warehouse, and the rolling shutters were all badly damaged.

I stood outside, with rain and tears mixing on my face, shouting silently in my heart:

“Why are you doing this to me, God? If this is going to happen, then let the storm be even fiercer!”

That was the only time I cried during my 19 years of entrepreneurship.

Because we had so little business at that time, we took on any stamping work we could find, including stamping parts for pipeline ultrafiltration water purifiers.

It was through this order that I met Mr. Yuan, who later became a shareholder of Chengrong Factory.

He made hardware molds, and I did hardware stamping. Our businesses complemented each other perfectly.

He was also an easygoing person, and we got along very well.

In 2009, I invited him to join Chengrong Factory as a co-founder.

His arrival marked a turning point.

From that moment on, our business made a qualitative leap forward.

Just as the factory finally started to improve and I could breathe a little easier, disaster struck again.

The day before the 2011 Spring Festival, my father was suddenly involved in a traffic accident.

That moment made me deeply realize one thing:

The greatest happiness in life is having a safe, healthy, and harmonious family.

That afternoon, my father was hit by a car while crossing the road.

By the time he was taken to the hospital, he was completely paralyzed, and we immediately received a critical condition notice.

On New Year’s Eve, I went home to get some daily necessities.

My mother asked why my eyes were red.

I lied and said it was because of the wind.

But my wife knew I had been crying.

When I saw the table at home full of dishes, with not a single bite touched, tears poured out of my eyes, and I could not hold them back anymore.

My father stayed in the hospital for nearly two months.

During that time, Mr. Yuan took care of all the factory’s affairs.

Thankfully, my father recovered well.

When he was discharged, he only had numbness in his hands. The medical assessment said it did not qualify as a disability because hand numbness is common among elderly people.

So we received no compensation. The insurance company only covered the hospital bills.

But I did not dwell on it.

Maybe because of the accident, my mother insisted on moving back to our hometown, no matter how much we tried to persuade her otherwise.

With the help of my classmates back home, I borrowed money to build a house for my parents.

By the end of 2012, they moved back.

From that time on, I made it a rule to return to the countryside every weekend and spend two days with them.

I believe that if something needs to be done, I should do my best to do it.

Also in 2011, one of our clients, who manufactured pipeline ultrafiltration products, mentioned that he wanted to sell his factory.

We immediately decided to buy it.

Although we had no money at the time, I somehow had the confidence and courage to go for it.

But when Mr. Yuan went to discuss the purchase, the client had already sold the factory to someone else.

The factory was gone, but we still wanted the team.

It took us half a year of discussions to persuade that client to join us as a partner.

From then on, we began producing complete outer casings for pipeline ultrafiltration water purifiers.

Mr. Yuan, who had always been a technical expert, made key improvements.

He replaced manual welding with automatic welding, improved the stamping process, and even customized certain equipment specifically for our production needs.

At that time, our competitive advantage was huge.

Orders increased rapidly, and we made a major impact on the industry.

We have kept that spirit of innovation alive to this day.

In fact, “Innovation as the Core” is now written into our company values.

Our production technology completely transformed the manufacturing process for water purifier casings, making us a target for imitation in the industry.

Since then, we have been copied again and again — from our business model to our company culture.

As our clients’ needs continued to grow, we moved into a new workshop and added a new assembly line to produce complete pipeline ultrafiltration water purifiers.

But soon, we noticed a serious problem:

The quality of ultrafiltration membranes from our suppliers was extremely unstable.

So we made a bold decision.

We would build our own ultrafiltration membrane production line.

We invested in an underperforming ultrafiltration membrane factory and sent Mr. Song to manage it on our behalf.

I gave him only one requirement:

Prioritize quality, no matter the cost.

After a year of hard work, the quality improvement at the membrane factory shocked me.

Both the stability of the membrane fibers and their performance indicators surpassed those of all our previous suppliers.

I never expected it.

But fate has always brought good people into my life.

People who have helped me along the way.

Sometimes, it feels as if everything was meant to be.

Competition in the ultrafiltration water purification industry is extremely fierce.

But I have always held on to one principle:

Our quality must rank among the top 1% in the industry.

This is our bottom line.

The reason Chengrong Factory has achieved what it has today is that quality has always protected and supported our development.

Along the way, people in the industry have said:

“They spend too much on management. It is a waste of money. They will not last long.”

But the facts have proven otherwise.

As long as we stay true to our values, make good products, maintain top quality, and serve our clients well, we will definitely gain recognition from both customers and the market.

Today, several leading domestic and international brands already rely on Chengrong Factory for OEM production.

We have also partnered with Shenzhen University to research and develop ultrafiltration membranes.

One of the hardest challenges in ultrafiltration membrane technology is attenuation — the drop in performance over time.

One leading brand gave us a very strict requirement:

After filtering 200 tons of water, the attenuation rate of the membrane must not exceed 30% to 40%.

The result we delivered?

Only 7% to 12%.

The client could not believe it, so they tested it themselves.

They got the exact same results.

Then they asked us:

“How did you do this?”

The answer lies in our unwavering commitment to R&D.

We have continued to invest in ultrafiltration membrane research, introduced top-level talent, and optimized and upgraded our raw material formulas countless times.

Very few companies in the industry are willing to do this.

Today, compared with other domestic ultrafiltration membranes, Chengrong’s membranes offer 40% greater toughness, 40% higher water flow, and no unpleasant odor.

In 2023, we successfully developed an ultrafiltration membrane capable of removing residual chlorine.

To the best of my knowledge, no other factory in the world has achieved this yet.

As the factory continued to grow, we expanded beyond household water purification equipment and added a workshop for engineering water treatment equipment.

This allowed us to cover the entire process, from design and manufacturing to complete system assembly, without outsourcing any key step.

When it comes to the invisible details — the ones customers cannot easily see — we never cut corners or take shortcuts.

We truly live up to the name “Chengrong,” which means gaining honor through integrity.

In the field of engineering ultrafiltration water treatment equipment, we have also accumulated extensive experience and developed a mature and unique solution that is difficult for other manufacturers to match.

The average tenure of Chengrong’s management team is 8 years.

Eighty percent of our employees have been with us for more than 6 years, and many have stayed for more than 10 years.

In the stainless steel pipeline ultrafiltration sector, Chengrong has secured a place among the top three manufacturers of ultrafiltration membranes and complete ultrafiltration water purification systems in terms of product quality, full supply chain control, and management system development.

We are a full-industry-chain factory, covering R&D and production, mold and hardware manufacturing, and complete water purification equipment.

Our technical credentials speak for themselves:

3 invention patents, 8 software copyrights, 53 utility model patents, and 25 design patents.

Every year, we invest more than 3 million yuan in R&D to upgrade our processes, product structures, and product performance.

How many companies in this industry are willing to commit to this level of investment?

I believe very few are.