During the term of the Eighth Central Committee of the Workers' Party of Korea, the Chollima Tile Factory expanded its production scale over two times and developed its capacity to manufacture a complete set of most of equipment needed for tile production along with the great golden age of construction.

"The key to the success made by our factory in the past five years is that it persistently implemented its readjustment and reinforcement strategy by pursuing it as the lifeline for its development," said Ri Hong Rim, manager of the factory.

Back in 2021, the first year of the five-year plan set forth at the Eighth Party Congress, the construction of 10 000 flats in the capital city and other gigantic construction projects were under way across the country and therefore tiles were in big demand everywhere. But the production capacity of the factory failed to meet such demand at that time.

The limited production capacity was a problem, but more serious problems were that import was its only means of obtaining glaze and some other materials and equipment parts and the then world public health crisis made the production conditions more difficult.

Therefore, the factory came to the conclusion that it should readjust and reinforce its overall production process strictly on the principle of self-reliance.

Accordingly, it buckled down above all to setting up a glaze production process relying on domestic raw materials.

While studying literature, the factory officials tried to find substitute raw materials and visited technicians of the factory and different scientific research units to learn the knacks of glaze production one by one.

The factory built equipment for glaze production by its own efforts and made glaze in the first year.

It remodelled the production process of the floor tile workshop into the one capable of producing tiles for exterior and interior walls and ceramic roofing tiles, thus sufficiently producing and supplying tiles needed for housing construction.

Consequently, the factory attained a record high in output that year since its operation beyond many people's expectations, and was selected as one of the top 10 enterprises in 2023.

Another remarkable thing in the changes made by the factory in the past five years is that it strengthened its talent forces and solved problems arising in the factory by relying entirely on them.

The factory pursues an ideal and ambition to become a leading building materials production base fully supplying the domestic needs for tiles and a comprehensive and advanced enterprise producing and supplying all the equipment needed for tile production.

The factory found the way to fully realize the ambition in attaching importance to talents and science and technology.

It built up its talent forces with promising personnel selected as managerial, technological and functional talents.

Thanks to their active role, a 2 800-ton hydraulic press was restored to its original state to ensure normal operation, though many people had thought it was impossible to do so, and three fluidized-bed hot-blast stove, each of which is as large as a low-storey house, could be made in a matter of some months.

The factory has now scores of technological, functional and managerial talents who rendered meritorious service in the past five years in several aspects such as work, production and invention and introduction of new technologies.

"The factory has established the system of designing production processes and the technology for manufacturing equipment necessary for rapidly developing the tile industry and laid the foundation for tile production. Its present reality tells us the immutable truth that nothing is impossible if we adhere to the principle of self-reliance and enlist the wisdom of talents," said Manager Ri Hong Rim.