My Story

I’m Zhuang Beikan, a post-70s entrepreneur from a small village in the Chaoshan region.

I'm also the founder of Shenzhen Chengrong Ultrafiltration Factory. 

What began as a small workshop with just a few people, has now grown into one of the top 3 factories for ultrafiltration membranes and complete ultrafiltration water purification equipment. 

Today, there have been several domestic and international first-tier brands, relying on Chengrong factory for OEM production. 

And over the past decade, we’ve been growing hand in hand with our partners, sharing every step of our journey. 

One thing I’m truly proud of? 

We have 15 dedicated shareholders who embody the values of Chengrong factory, each leading key areas of our business. Some are technical experts mastering every production process, some are frontline marketing specialists, and still more excel in functional departments. 

We also own a fully in-house supply chain, which is a rarity in our industry, with no outsourcing. 

What sets us even further apart is our leadership in ultrafiltration membrane technology and quality. In 2023, we successfully developed an ultrafiltration membrane that removes residual chlorine. To my knowledge, no other factory in the world has achieved this yet.

18 years of entrepreneurship have been filled with challenges, but also countless achievements. 

Looking back, I couldn’t be more grateful for how far we’ve come.

I still remember when I graduated from junior high in 1993. 

Back then, Shenzhen was a city buzzing with energy, so full of drive that I was eager to go out and make my mark on the world. 

Truth be told, I didn’t know a thing about life or work at that time, as I was just a young, reckless kid who didn’t want to study anymore. So I headed to Kengzi in Shenzhen, where my older sister was working as a supervisor at a garment factory in Shatian. 

I got a job there too.

After having worked really hard for a year, the Hong Kong boss noticed I was quick-witted and no less diligent than the others, so he promoted me to team leader.

Looking back now, those were my happiest days, carefree and simple. 

Every time I got my salary, I handed it all over to my sister. She took care of everything for me, food, clothes, all the little things. I never worried about money. A few years later, my sister got married, then 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’d been overthinking it, my sister still loved me just as much and kept looking out for me.

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

She told me, “You must study hard.” I always listened to her. Deep down, I knew just a junior high diploma wasn’t anything to be proud of, so I kept pushing myself, working harder and harder. I still remember getting 95 points in the final exam, ranking first in the class. My sister was so happy, and I was too. 

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

After that, I even went on to study at an adult senior high school.

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

That’s when I formed an unbreakable bond with hardware, and to this day, Chengrong factory still has a hardware mold department and a stamping department. 

At my brother-in-law’s factory, I wore many hats. 

I was the purchaser, accountant, and delivery person, while also working as a mold technician, machine adjuster, and general worker. I often fixed molds until 2 a.m., yet still showed up for work at 8 a.m. sharp the next morning.

Life there was tough, but incredibly fulfilling. 

For one thing, I was helping my own family, for another, I got to learn 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 and had kids, learned to drive, and most importantly, mastered all kinds of hardware manufacturing skills.

But sooner or later, we all have to grow up. Even with the closest family, there comes a time to part ways. 

It feels like fate had a plan for us from the moment we’re born, and my happy, fulfilling days as an employee came to an abrupt end in 2005.

That year, while working at my brother-in-law’s factory, I met a good friend who invited me to start a business together. I turned him down repeatedly, I’d never even thought about running my own business. 

But in the end, I still turned to my sister and brother-in-law for advice, and they said I might as well give it a try. 

That’s how I embarked on my first entrepreneurial journey...

Unfortunately, after only about a year, I had to throw in the towel. I walked away with nothing and even owed over 30,000 yuan in debt. But I wasn’t ready to give up. I borrowed some money from my sister, bought two punch presses, and started my second business. It trundled along for over a year, until 2007, when another friend found me with an offer, a big order worth around 300,000 yuan per month. 

For me, that was an offer I couldn’t 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, and that was the early form of Chengrong Factory. 

I still often look at photos from back then.

I can never let go of the hardships and memories of that startup journey.

What I remember most vividly is that, right after the 2008 Spring Festival, we’d already rented the workshop and bought equipment, but then, my friend’s client suddenly had no orders for us. 

To make matters worse, the friend who’d invested in the factory wanted to pull out his capital because of troubles with his own business. It was like a bolt from the blue, a double blow. 

I felt terrible guilt too, I’d been the one who asked him to invest, and now the factory had no orders, no hope in sight. I felt I’d let him down.

My only thought back then was that, I couldn’t let this friend lose money. 

So I took on all his investment myself, treating it as a loan I’d pay back within three years. He agreed. But my family was dead set against it. They said I had no money and no orders, that taking over the factory was a dead end.

But I was determined. 

Even if I couldn’t keep the factory going, I told myself I’d pay him back by working odd jobs, I’d never be able to live with myself otherwise.

My parents and wife saw how resolute I was, they finally respected my decision. 

I even sold the house my parents had built back in our hometown. Those were the darkest days, when my son had to drop out of kindergarten because I couldn’t afford the fees. 

Once, when the landlord came to collect rent for our apartment, I searched every pocket and was still three yuan short. I rummaged through drawers and cabinets, but I just couldn’t find it. For the workshop rent, I had to borrow money from one of the landlord’s company shareholders, and I eventually got the loan because the local factory manager stepped in to guarantee it. 

That’s when I truly understood the agony of having not a single cent to my name...

As if things couldn’t get worse, the strongest typhoon in years hit Shenzhen in 2008. How could that tin-sheet workshop stand against it? The office, the warehouse, the rolling shutters, all were badly damaged. 

I stood outside, rain mixing with tears on my face, screaming inside: 

Why are you doing this to me, God? If this is going to happen, let the storm be even fiercer! That was the only time I cried in my 18 years of entrepreneurship.

Since we had so little business, we took on any stamping work we could, 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; I did hardware stamping, our businesses complemented each other. 

And he was such an easygoing person that we got along really well. 

In 2009, I invited him to join Chengrong factory as a co-founder. His arrival marked a turning point, our business took a qualitative leap forward.

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

The day before the 2011 Spring Festival, my father was in a sudden traffic accident. That moment made me realize something deeply, the greatest happiness in life is having my family safe, secure, and in harmony.

That afternoon, my father was hit by a car while crossing the road. By the time he was taken to the hospital, completely paralyzed, and we immediately received a critical condition notice. 

On New Year’s Eve, I went home to get some daily necessities. My mom asked why my eyes were red. I lied and said it was from the wind. My wife knew I’d been crying. 

When I saw the table at home full of dishes, none of which anyone had touched, not even a bite, tears poured out, and I couldn’t 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, and the medical assessment said it didn’t qualify for any disability rating, since hand numbness is common in the elderly. 

So we got no compensation, the insurance company only covered the hospital bills. 

However, I didn’t dwell on it.

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

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 go back to the countryside every weekend to 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 made pipeline ultrafiltration products, mentioned he wanted to sell his factory. 

We decided right away to buy it. 

Even though we had no money at the time, I somehow had the confidence and courage to just 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 talking to convince that client to join us as a partner. 

From then on, we started making the complete outer casings for pipeline ultrafiltration water purifiers. 

Mr. Yuan, who had always been in technology, made key improvements. He replaced manual welding with automatic welding, revamped the stamping process, and even had some equipment custom-made specifically for our needs.

Back then, our competitive edge was huge, orders skyrocketed, and we made a big impact on the industry. 

We’ve kept that innovative spirit 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 the target of industry imitation. Ever since then, we’ve been copied, from our business model to our company culture.

As our clients’ needs grew, we expanded to a new workshop and added a new assembly line to produce complete ultrafiltration pipelines water purifiers. 

But soon, we noticed a problem, the quality of ultrafiltration membranes from our suppliers was extremely unstable. So we made a bold decision, we’d 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 just one requirement: Prioritize quality, no matter the cost. After a year of hard work, the membrane factory’s quality improvement shocked me, both the stability of the membrane fibers, and their performance indicators surpassed all our previous suppliers.

I never expected it, but fate has always sent me good people.

People who’ve helped me along the way. 

It feels like it was all meant to be.

Competition in the ultrafiltration purification industry is incredibly fierce.

But I’ve always stuck to one principle, our quality must rank among the top 1% in the industry. 

It is our bottom line. 

The reason Chengrong factory has achieved what it has today, is entirely thanks to quality guaranteeing our development.

Along the way, there’s been talk among the peers in our industry: “They spend too much on management, it’s a waste, and they won’t last long.”

But facts have proven that 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 clients and the market. 

Today, several first-tier brands at domestic and international already rely on Chengrong factory for OEM production, and we’ve also partnered with Shenzhen University to research and develop ultrafiltration membranes.

The hardest challenge to overcome with ultrafiltration membranes is attenuation (a drop in performance over time). 

One first-tier brand set us a strict requirement. After filtering 200 tons of water, the membrane’s attenuation rate must not exceed 30% to 40%. 

The result we delivered? 

Only 7% to 40%. 

The client couldn’t believe it, so they tested it themselves, and got the exact same results. 

They asked us, “How did you do this?”

The answer lies in our unwavering commitment to R&D. We’ve kept investing in ultrafiltration membrane research, brought in top-tier talents, and optimized and upgraded our raw material formulas countless times, something few in the industry are willing to do. 

Today, compared to domestic competitors’ ultrafiltration membranes, Chengrong’s membranes have 40% greater toughness, 40% higher water flow rate, and no strange odors. 

And in 2023, we successfully developed an ultrafiltration membrane that can remove residual chlorine. 

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

As the factory grew, we expanded beyond household water purification equipment to add 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 a single step. When it comes to the “invisible details” (the ones customers can’t easily see), we never cut corners or take shortcuts. 

We truly live up to our name: “Chengrong” (which means “honor through integrity”).

In terms of ultrafiltration water treatment plant equipment, we’ve also accumulated extensive experience and developed a mature, unique solution, one that no other manufacturer can match.

The average tenure of Chengrong’s management team is 8 years, while 80% of our employees have been with us for over 6 years (and many for more than 10). 

In the stainless steel pipeline ultrafiltration sector, when it comes to product quality, full supply chain control, and management system development, we’ve secured a spot among the top 3 manufacturers of ultrafiltration membranes and complete ultrafiltration water purification systems.

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 over 3 million yuan in R&D to upgrade our processes, product structures, and performance. 

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

I think very few, if any.

It was a stroke of fate that led me into the ultrafiltration industry, but the longer I persist, the more I realize.

Sticking to one thing and doing it well for a lifetime is no easy feat. You have to resist temptations and endure loneliness. 

In moments of confusion or anxiety, I always hold fast to this belief. if I stay focused, work diligently, and do my best with the task at hand, what’s meant to come will come, and what I deserve will eventually be mine.

Chengrong Ultrafiltration, No worries for customers ever.

10 years rust-free,

10 years leak-free,

10 years of after-sales support.

Chengrong Era Water Purifiers, never compromise on quality.