The Most Romantic Engineers at Yili: for High-quality Milk Powder, a Thousand Times Over
Women’s Day: The most romantic women of Yili dedicated themselves to making high-quality milk powder
Editor: From the female athletes at the Beijing Winter Olympic Games to the “half of the sky” at the Two Sessions, from glamorous stages to ordinary posts, women are shining with their distinctive characters. At Yili, a group of women is also shining with their commitment to quality, health, and growth. Determined and enterprising, they are realizing self-values as they devote themselves to working along the industrial chain of milk powder in China. Moving forward with Yili towards mountains and sea, they are committed to making people’s lives better.
Yili people demonstrate their sense of responsibility with their compassion. They are shining as they chase their dreams. As we celebrate Women’s Day, we salute everyone who is marching forward with us.
【Women’s Day, She Says 1】
Li Yuezhen, product development engineer: “I overcame myself in thousands of trials of developing milk powder formula.”
Moving forward with Yili towards mountains and sea.
Li Yuezhen, senior engineer of product development
Analyze thousands of sets of data to break down technological barriers
She wants to overcome herself to develop a formula for high-quality milk powder
Proprietary formula from China to extend mother’s care
Even though three years have passed, Li Yuzhen can still recall the thrill of the day when she successfully made the formula. Back then, as a new product development engineer, Li, with a track record in the industry, got involved in a project on developing milk powder formulas for infants and toddlers. As a project ahead of the whole industry, relevant technologies, data samples, and equipment were all in their infancy. It was both an opportunity for career advancement and the first major challenge facing her career.
After countless days and nights at the lab, Li and her team finally started to see the light at the end of the tunnel. After breaking the last technological barrier and combining it with Jinlingguan, Yili’s proprietary brand, they started a round of experiments and succeeded this time.
Li and her colleagues, in retrospect on that project, the night they spent on experiments, and the highlights of success, are still brimming with compassion. “I overcame myself in thousands of trials of developing milk powder formula.”
“Exclusive memory” about quality control
Li, starting her work at Yili in 2019, is now a senior engineer in the department of technology research and development for milk powder. “Yili means the best quality” has been etched into her heart as she conducted experiments time and again and demonstrated in every formula design.
Li has her “exclusive memory” about “quality”. Three years ago, she was on a research project on milk powder for infants and toddlers. They were working on a goat milk powder to make its nutrition more digestible for babies.
Existing products shared a common problem: it was hard to get rid of the stinky smell of goat milk. Li’s team was floored by it as there was no precedent to follow in removing the stinky smell. When she was asked “ what keeps you moving on?”, her answer was simple, “as long as you walk into the lab, you forget all of the troubles. All we think about is that our research can free moms from breastfeeding and make babies' diets more healthy and nutritious. We must carry it on.”
Since there was no precedent, they tried their best to look into papers, analyze their designs, and refine and verify them again and again. They collected and read a large volume of research. Starting from tracing the origin of the smell, they identified the main components of smell and then focused on finding effective factors that can cover and break them.
With persistent efforts, Li’s team overcame a series of challenges, including techniques, and the stability and taste of the formula. The first-generation product developed by the team beat competitive products in sensory indicators, especially in taste and smell. At the end of the year, Li and her team received a special new-year present——the first prize of the product innovation award of the milk powder business department of Yili Group. They were so proud of their team at that moment.
At Yili, they are countless employees who are just like Li Yuzhen, strengthening the foundation of the company’s independent research on Chinese breast milk and making Jinlingguan better and better with scientific breakthroughs. So far, Jinlinguan boasts five core proprietary formulas and 14 intellectual property rights at home and abroad. These proprietaries have been successfully applied to Jinlingguan products, providing Chinese babies with specialized formulas.
Researchers, instead of being close-minded, should be more open to customers’ opinions.
Li was involved in many projects that dovetail customers’ demands at Yili.
During one field research, Li found that many moms complained that “strong” shaking while making formula can result in an excess of bubbles, and they worry that too many bubbles may make their baby vomit and feel bloated.
To ease their concern and protect the baby’s delicate stomach, Li started to apply a more forward-looking research method and find a more accurate reach instrument.
She dived into a constellation of research papers and finally found a method used in measuring the bubbles in petrol. The “stoppered measuring cylinder”, a scientific measurement tool that can ensure sealing and easy reading, is suitable for experiments on Jinlingguan products.
After countless times of experiments, Li gradually came up with a set of procedures. To ensure accuracy, she found all the mainstream 32 kinds of formula back then and conducted experiments on each one of them to record the height of bubbles, and then identify those with relatively fewer bubbles.
In the end, Li’s team fine-tuned their formula and effectively reduced the number of bubbles generated from shaking. It was not an easy task, but Li believed that “researchers should not be confined to the lab; instead, they should go to customers and listen to them.”
After years of experiments, trials, and research and development, Jinlingguan products have continued to be improved and updated. Take its trump card, Jinlingguan Zhenhu, as an example, researchers developed a “six-dimension digestible system” based on their proprietaries to make the product of higher quality, better nutrition, and more healthy for babies.
From “museum” to “new national standards”, romance exclusive to Yili people
In the past three years working at Yili, Li came to understand the romance of the lab, bringing her a greater sense of belonging. She walked to the Yili Pasture and Milk Culture Museum located in the company yard now and then. Sometimes after work, she took a picture of the beautiful sunset, with its glow spilling over flowers and grass. She said, “there is a subtle feeling while walking in the park. It is like you have established a connection with everything here.”
“I am happiest when my formula is recognized.” As a senior engineer of product development, Li said her dream is to make formula bear more and more resemblance to the source of the milk to give babies the best nutrition, health, and care. To this end, she is seeking breakthroughs in ingredients, formula, and other aspects.
Jinlingguan has led the way in upgrading its products, becoming one of the first Chinese formulas meeting the new national standards. The success of the upgrading owes itself to the brand’s two-decade-long commitment to breast milk research, its leading scientific and innovation capacities, rigorous production procedures and quality control, and its exclusive milk sources, all of which have laid a solid foundation for the upgrading. We are confident that, with the concerted efforts of Li and her colleagues, a new series of formulas for infants and toddlers spearheaded by Jinlingguan will soon be unveiled.
Along the journey of Jinlingguan’s innovation, every “Li Yuzhen”, with their compassion and based their connection with moms, contributes “she strength” to products of higher quality and better nutrition for Chinese babies.
*Chinese proprietary formula refers to the Chinese invention patent obtained by Jinlingguan Zhenhu family. Patent number: ZL201680013841.3 Invention name: Nucleotide Composition and Its Application in Food
**”Nucleotide Composition and Its Application in Food” Chinese patent for invention, patent number: ZL201510290842.X; Chinese patent for invention, patent number: ZL201510291739.7; Chinese patent for invention, patent number: ZL201510300587.2; Chinese patent for invention, patent number: ZL201680013841.3; European patent for invention, patent number: EP3266310; Australian patent for invention, patent number: AU2016228670; New Zealand patent for invention, patent number: 735399.
【Women’s Day, She Says 2】
Lin Tingjuan, the gatekeeper of Yili’s quality: “ The stage for the realization of my value will always be the next experiment.”
【Women’s Day Reports 2】.jpg
At Yili’s milk powder testing room, a bunch of people was anxiously waiting for the result. You could hear the pin drop there.
“We got the result! Our data are 100% up to standards. We did it!”At that moment, the frozen atmosphere was instantly alive, and the "inspectors" who had been fighting for days congratulated each other and cheered each other on.
Lin, the manager of quality control, has lost count of how many times she had gone through such a situation.
“I was also really testy before we got the result. And I was relieved when I knew we fulfilled the requirements. No matter how many times you have been through it, it is all the same.” Lin is outspoken about her feelings. As the manager of quality control, the backbone of the group, she knows full well that what wait for them are more tough battles and they should refuse to be affected by any successes or failures and remain in the right mind of the state. Because for inspectors, their best performance is always the next one.
Gatekeeper of quality, who works with high efficiency
Yili’s milk powder testing system team carries the major task of quality control. Team members’ decade-long commitment guarantees the accuracy of testing data.
In 2011, Li came to Yili after graduating from college. At the department of quality control, she worked as a testing instrument analyst, and testing engineer, and now is a manager, responsible for every aspect of quality control work. In her life, she is an outgoing person. But at work, she is rigorous and works with high efficiency.
Lin feels that being the gatekeeper of quality means being serious and meticulous about testing. This was the first lesson she got from her mentor. Back then, as a newbie, Lin was tasked with running the same test under at least three different circumstances. She had to work overtime to finish it.
She couldn’t help asking: “Isn’t it enough to ensure the accuracy of results under the prescribed condition? Is it necessary to run the additional tests?”
Her mentor’s answer was pithy. “Yili means quality, which means we must exhaust all the testing methods and keep refining them. We can’t afford to slacken in our efforts. You might think you have made it accurate enough, but what we need is to make it more accurate.”
The “first lesson on quality” offers Lin much inspiration, pushing her to never stop at “good” and always aim for “better”. She also keeps in mind an "iron rule": for quality control, accuracy is the main yardstick. Every accurate set of testing data offers the factory more guidance on standardized operation to ensure product quality. She said, for babies’ health, quality control starts with testing on trace elements.
In 2021, Lin started to work as a manager and took over testing management work. “The burden on my shoulder gets heavier”. Lin still recalls vividly the first few days of her new post. You can imagine the pressure she faced as a new manager who lacked experience and had to settle in quickly.
She learned from “veteran inspectors” when she was not busy and got to know the capability and strength of her team members. With the cooperation of her colleagues, she successfully reshuffled the lab and built up a contingent of inspectors boasting cohesion and capability.
At the same time, she got herself updated with the latest development trends in inspection equipment technology and combined them with their inspection work. They managed to apply rapid testing equipment on 11 projects, materializing the concept of rapid testing. For example, the time for testing trace elements has been shortened from two and a half days to two hours, with markedly increased accuracy. In 2021, she and her team excelled in capacity building for risk projects and found seven new testing methods and 90 new indicators.
“Treat it as a life-long pursuit.”
As Lin led her team in enhancing their capacities, a glorious yet arduous task was presented to her——a blind testing examination.
They needed to run tests on about a dozen or so items within 48 hours. Preparations involved complicated analysis and calculation with high accuracy. No mistake was allowed.
Although Lin and her team had prepared for it for a long time and had all it took to accomplish the task, they were very nervous when the examination finally came.
Lin cheered her colleagues up even though she was really worried. “I am the manager. If I am flustered, the whole team will lose morale. Too much pressure will hamper an inspector’s performance.”
In the end, Lin’s team passed the examination with a 100% result, winning great approval from the expert panel. After that, her lab won the title of “the most beautiful team at Yili”. It was a fruitful year for them with two successes.
Some people may say “ she is so lucky”. But only those who have been through it know that there is no shortcut to success for an inspector. “Inspection is the bottom line of quality. We carry the trust and expectation of hundreds of millions of parents. Every set of data matters and tolerates no mistake”, said Lin.
“I don’t think inspection just as work, but also a life-long pursuit.” At work, Lin is still leading her team in conducting technological research, refining procedures, and verifying inspection capability. They keep advancing with the times.
She said that her lab’s performance at capacity testing, be it at Yili, in China, or on the international stage, all won a 100% satisfaction rate. She is leading the lab in researching quality control and testing techniques to find more rapid and accurate testing methods, contributing their efforts to the work.
Lin coordinates the work of her lab with that of others. This is her stage——by formulating standardized procedures and presenting testing standards and operation details and precautions in the form of text and graphs, she offers guidance on operation for other labs and fine-tunes procedures based on national and sectoral standards.
Over the year, Yili people represented by Lin Tingjuan put great emphasis on the development of a testing system. Yili’s laboratory of the infant formula production plant has all passed CNAS accreditation. Based on the strict implementation of national standards, strict quality internal control management standards have been developed in line with the EU and other standards, making the standards for international leading milk powder the bottom line of Yili quality.
In addition to continuous innovation, persistence is the “coolest” footnote to inspectors. Since 2003, Yili has been pioneering self-reliant research on nutrition for mothers and infants. Through the efforts of over ten thousand Yili people and breast milk samples collected by them, Yili became the first Chinese company equipped with a breast milk research database which offers data on breast milk nutrition.
To Lin’s excitement, the first batch of formula for infants and toddlers meeting national standards has been unveiled. Yili’s Jinlingguan which has led the way in upgrading is shortlisted. It is countless people like Lin that has ushered in the era of high-quality domestic milk powder.
Editor-in-charge：ZB