About Lao Qiaoyi:

She is a Business Management junior-college student at the Open University of China (OUC), class of 2018, and also leader of the Product R & D Technology Department of Beautiful Nonwoven Ltd., a producer of protective materials for healthcare workers, located in Foshan City. She also works as assistant director of typesetting and craftsmanship, the technical backbone of the company.

In order to speed up production of protective clothing for Wuhan, Lao Qiaoyi sacrificed the Spring Festival vacation she would have ordinarily spent with her family. She worked extra shifts starting the first day of the lunar new year, and day in and day out led the R & D department to support production, and keep it on schedule despite the need for several rounds of disinfection. At work, she often went without water or bathroom breaks, and despite stress and exhaustion kept up this routine with her colleagues throughout the epidemic.

From the beginning of the outbreak, most factory workers were quarantined at home and prevented from coming to work. Efficiency was compromised by the fact that many of those who could work were inexperienced. News of tight supplies in Wuhan, and its reliance on donations, worried her. Her workshop included three semi-automatic machines, each of which could complete a half-finished mask in about 6 seconds, and then send it. Each machine required an operator and an inspector, and the wait time involved in inspection slowed production, and made Lao Qiaoyi very anxious. Through experimentation, she discovered that having one fewer inspector allowed production to be increased by 1000 masks a day, an improvement that was praised by the leadership, and enhanced the safety of front-line medical staff in Wuhan.

In addition to her own work, Lao Qiaoyi was active in taking information and temperatures, verifying the personal information of new employees, and providing other forms of practical support to the struggle against Covid-19. All the factory production lines operated around the clock, even on weekends. Despite the heavy work load and tight schedules, Lao Qiaoyi felt neither tired nor afraid. On the contrary, she took pride and satisfaction in being able to support the country in its time of need.

By OUC News Network