In the early 21st century, Shougang entered a new stage of development to relocate and  adjustment in the spirit of "dedication to the Olympic Games, fulfillment of commitments, scientific development and pioneering great undertakings". Shougang staff who dared to innovate seized the opportunity and once again opened the pursuit of several generations of Shougang staff's plate dream. The Group focused on the all-around production and R&D of sheet metals.

——Qiangang Company adopted advanced technology and equipment of blast furnace, such as bell-less top equipment of blast furnace with independent intellectual property rights, and advanced blast furnace technology and equipment, such as gas all-dry bag dust removal; independently developed complete set of automatic steelmaking technology of 210 ton converter; independently integrated 2,160mm hot strip mill of world advanced level; established the recycling system of waste heat, residual pressure, residual gas, waste water, iron containing substances and solid waste in the production process, basically realized zero discharge of waste water and solid waste, and achieved the level-one cleaner production standard.

——In accordance with the circular economy concept, Jingtang Company has built a complete process of leading international level. Among them, the independent and integrated innovation of the overall process technology of 5,500 cubic meter super large blast furnace, the technology of hot metal transportation from one tank to the bottom, the production technology platform of all three clean steels, and the large seawater desalination technology have been adopted for the first time in China.

In order to improve work efficiency, adapt to the production pattern of “one industry and many places” and to the market demand, Shougang Group revamped the department interface and created a new scientific and technological innovation system.

—— It pulled together brains and resources to create an open, cooperative, and innovative system with foreign scientific research institutes. In 2005, together with University of Science and Technology Beijing, Northeastern University and Central Iron and Steel Research Institute, Shougang established three joint R&D centers for automobile plate, wide and thick plate and electrical steel. Through cooperative initiatives, 40 basic frontier research technologies, 47 new product development projects, and 15 user technology research projects have been carried out. Among them were 14 national, provincial, municipal, and industrial science and technology projects provided support for the improvement of comprehensive competitiveness of Shougang.

——It adhered to the market orientation and created a production, marketing and research cooperation system of technical marketing type. Under the leadership of the technology system and in accordance with the mode of “soft organization and hard task”, the “sales technology department” was established jointly with the departments of production, sales and finance to realize the collaborative linkage of production, sales and research from product development, process control to market promotion.

——It deepened basic research, established first-class scientific research and test conditions, and supported product development and process research in multiple regions. With an investment of nearly 500 million yuan, an international first-class scientific research base to support product development and process research in multiple regions was built, and complemented each other with laboratories established by each base to meet the requirements of production and inspection. In succession, 85 functional laboratories and 19 pilot laboratories have been built, forming functional laboratories for product research and development, user use technology, process technology research, basic testing, etc. The analysis and detection capacity has been expanded from result detection to process detection, the microanalysis capacity of steel chemical composition has reached ppm level, and the microanalysis scale has reached 0.14nm, meeting the needs of pipeline steel, automobile steel, home appliance board and other high-grade steel detection, ensuring the reproducibility of research results, shortening the research and development time, reducing the research and development cost, and improving the response speed of the product market.

——It strengthened the mechanism for the introduction and training of innovative scientific research personnel. The innovation mechanism of introducing and training talents has formed the innovation culture and soil with Shougang characteristics. Since 2010, more than 100 high-end talents and special talents urgently needed for product development by users from famous universities at home and abroad have been introduced, and more than 10 people have been sent to University of Birmingham in the UK, RWTH Aachen University in Germany, University of Tokyo in Japan, Royal Institute of Technology in Sweden and other foreign universities for further study. A large number of excellent scientific and technological management talents have been sent to the base.

Only in 2018, Shougang iron and steel industry completed the acceptance of 108 scientific and technological achievements and obtained 11 science and technology awards from the superior. Just to mention, the “development and application of packaged technology of key materials of metal structure for super large hydropower station” won the second prize of national science and technology progress, the “research and application of sinter material surface blowing steam” won the first prize of metallurgical science and technology, and the “high efficient preparation technology and application of high strength, toughness and thick specification marine engineering steel” project won the first prize of Beijing science and technology. 950 patent applications have been completed, including 460 invention patents and 41 international patents; more than 410 patents have been authorized, including more than 170 invention patents and 2 international patents; a preparation method of magnesia containing titanium pellets has initially won the Chinese patent excellence award. 16 national standards and 1 industrial standard have been formulated and revised, including 6 ones being presided over; 2 international standards have been approved. It has been recognized as the “Pilot Unit of Intellectual Property Operations in Beijing”. In that year, the research results of the patent innovation index of China's iron and steel enterprises jointly published by China Metallurgical Information and Standardization Institute and the Think Tank of Intellectual Property Publishing House showed that Shougang and other four iron and steel enterprises scored more than 80 points in a comprehensive way, becoming the most innovative enterprises with patent vitality. On December 10, 2018, at the "China and Global Steel Demand Forecast Research Results and Steel Enterprise Competitiveness Rating Conference" held by China Metallurgical Industry Planning and Research Institute, Shougang was awarded the highest rating of “A plus” with strong comprehensive competitiveness of steel enterprises and listed in the “top ten excellent steel enterprises” brand list and “leading brands of Beijing, Tianjin, Hebei steel plants” list assessed by CISA and the Chinese Society for Metals.

Shougang’s product innovation accumulated steadily and spread in all fields. A number of key projects at home and abroad were firmly stamped with Shougang’s mark.

——Automobile plate: From 2010 when it could only provide aluminum killed steel and IF steel, it has expanded to full series of products such as aluminum killed steel, IF steel, high strength IF, bake hardening steel, low alloy high strength steel, dual phase steel and transformation induced plastic steel, with strength covering all grades of 1,000MPa and below. Market share was among the top three in China. It has cooperated with 54 automobile manufacturers and supporting factories to realize the commercial supply to German, American, French, Italian, Japanese, Korean and famous automobile enterprises such as Great Wall, Geely and BYD. It has become the first supplier of BMW, Geely, BAIC and Great Wall, and has been elected as “2017 green benchmarking enterprise of China automotive materials (Xiqing)”. It was rated as “3A class enterprise of excellent automobile plate manufacturer of national steel industry chain” by Custeel.

——Electrical steel: "It takes five years to sharpen a sword". The market share of non oriented electrical steel was the first in China and that of oriented electrical steel was the second in China. Among them, non oriented electrical steel achieved 47% of the market share of variable frequency air conditioning compressors, and 1.2 of every 3 variable frequency air conditioners in China were made of Shougang electrical steel; oriented electrical steel ranked among the first echelon of variable pressure material suppliers in the world, with the capacity of mass supply of ultra-high voltage device materials, and thin gauge and high magnetic induction oriented electrical steel was successfully applied to the world's first large capacity, energy-saving and environmental friendly coil core transformer, and installed in the first set of intelligent substation of China's high-speed railway. In 2018, the production capacity and high-end breakthrough of electrical steel was realized again. With 35swg 1,700 as the representative of ultra-high magnetic induction, 25sw 1,250h as the representative of high-strength low core loss, 30sw 1,600 as the representative of low loss high-end non oriented series products, the main performance was in line with the world-class enterprises; focused on the development of new energy market and channel expansion, to achieve domestic market coverage and user coverage “side-by-side”. The proportion of high-end and thin gauge of oriented electrical steel reached 33% and 83%, respectively, which contributed to stable price support, profit support and competitiveness support; while maintaining the leading domestic market share in the supply of transformer materials, it increased the development of overseas market and realized the total export volume of more than 20,000 tons, and the proportion of thin gauge reached 100%, forming a new situation in which domestic and international markets kept abreast.

——Tinplate: It started from scratch, improved rapidly, realized full coverage of domestic high-end customers and replacement of some imported materials and market share reached 10%; adapted to lightweight market requirements and the proportion of thickness less than 0.20 mm reached 50%. It realized the stable supply and batch production capacity of 0.16mm primary material and 0.14mm secondary material, leading in product performance and dimension accuracy in China. It strengthened the development of market segments and strengthened marketing channels. The market supply of Red Bull iron, DR materials and milk powder cans increased significantly, and the brand influence entered the "first echelon".

——Pipeline steel: Through the integration of original technology, it became the main supplier of “West-East Gas Pipeline” Project (second and third lines), which changed the situation that the first line mainly relied on imports. The output has ranked first in the domestic market share for five consecutive years, achieving a series of coverage of X120 level and below, and successively exporting to Central Asia, Russia, the Middle East, Turkey, Greece, South America and other countries. In 2013, Shougang, as the first drafting unit, formulated the national standard of "Hot Rolled Wide Steel Strip for Oil and Gas Pipeline", whose technological innovation had a strong and lasting radiation effect on China's pipeline steel industry.

——Today's Shougang is speeding up its transformation to intelligent manufacturing, led by high-quality manufacturing. The cold rolling silicon steel intelligent chemical plant project of Shougang Co. Ltd., the wharf intelligent logistics warehouse project of Jingtang Company, the intelligent pellet unmanned operation project, and the 1580 hot rolling production line automatic control system project. Shougang intelligent manufacturing is becoming the focus of a new round of innovation in Shougang and a new engine of high-quality development in Shougang for one hundred years.

It is a hundred years old, but it's still the right time for it to struggle. In the new journey of high-quality development, Shougang has been moving forward with high spirit and head forward.