A Class of Shandong Port Engineers Uses DingTalk and Qwen to Tackle the Ultimate Safety Production Challenge

At 8:55 a.m. on May 19, 2025, Li Haiqing, an employee of the Solid Machinery Team 3 at Qingdao Port Dongkuang Company, stood next to the conveyor belt, pulled out his phone, opened "DingTalk," and initiated a hot work safety process. He filled in the hot work unit, job description, and risk identification, took and uploaded watermarked photos of key control measures, including personnel status, hot work permits, and lockout/tagout procedures, then clicked "Submit," officially launching the operation into a digitally managed timeline.

At 8:56 a.m., Feng Wenfeng, the hot work approver, verified each photo submitted by Li Haiqing on the other end. After confirming everything was in order, he clicked "Approve" and simultaneously copied relevant managers. At 3:24 p.m., Li Haiqing completed a routine inspection and uploaded a site photo; at 4:14 p.m. and 4:28 p.m., he completed post-job acceptance, safe personnel departure, and a second post-completion inspection, respectively. At 6:16 p.m. and 6:18 p.m., process quality supervisors Liu Hao and Deputy Team Leader Feng Chengwei signed off online in sequence, with a special note emphasizing, "The timing of the second inspection must be standardized."

By this point, every step, action, and responsible party in this hot work operation had been fully "linked" into a clear digital chain.

The Zhixun System: Making Safety Regulations as Solid as a Nail

This digital chain is the "Zhixun Safety Risk Control System" developed by Shandong Port Technology Group. Every day, a large volume of high-risk operations—such as hot work, working at heights, ship loading and unloading, high- and low-voltage electrical work, and equipment maintenance—are systematically transformed into visual data sets and integrated into the platform. If anyone fails to follow the prescribed procedures, the system automatically blocks the next step, ensuring compliance.

The system's prototype dates back to 2019, when Li Zhengjun, then deputy general manager of Rizhao Port Lanshan Company, first introduced it in the conveyor belt team under the name "DingTalk Photo Recording Method." The technology is built on DingTalk, symbolizing that safety management must be as solid and reliable as "nailing something to a board."

After six years of practical refinement, both theory and application have matured. Shandong Port Group decided to promote the "Zhixun Safety Risk Control System" as a core brand, creating a co-creation model involving experience, technology, and organization. Frontline employees, through technological empowerment, break down regulations into executable data processes that are deeply embedded in the port's safety management system at the production site.

From June 1, 2019, to December 5, 2025, the Zhixun system has supported more than 2.07 million operations across Shandong Port Group, transforming previously experience-based high-risk processes into traceable, independent, yet interconnected online nodes. In November 2025 alone, the group monitored 170,000 risk-related operations on a monthly basis.

Technological Innovation Born from Frontline Pain Points

At its core, the Zhixun system addresses the challenge of how to precisely implement management systems in high-risk frontline operations. It pushes DingTalk beyond traditional shallow OA functions like attendance and leave requests, bringing it deep into the most critical and risky frontlines of the real economy. By anchoring safe production in the foundational role of national governance, the system uses new technology to solve longstanding problems.

Today, the system further integrates Alibaba's Qwen large language model, enabling AI-powered image recognition to assist in identifying potential risks, adding an intelligent "extra pair of eyes" to safety management.

The Originator's Reflections: From a Single Photo to an Entire Process

On December 5, 2025, we met Li Zhengjun—the founder of the Zhixun system—in Qingdao. He is the chief expert and a senior engineer at the professor level at Shandong Port Technology Group.

He explained the system's principles on a projector screen in his office, breaking down complex technical concepts into easily understandable terms, much like a vivid science article.

Li Zhengjun has worked on the port's frontlines for nearly three decades and has personally witnessed the warnings brought by multiple safety incidents. As an equipment management expert, he often emphasizes during training sessions the importance of "ensuring regulations are implemented," but he knows all too well that this phrase struggles to penetrate the "last mile" of execution blind spots.

The turning point came from his observations of team WeChat groups: Some outstanding team leaders required employees to take and upload photos before maintenance, documenting steps such as "power off, tag out, lock out" to ensure critical steps were properly executed. This practice inspired him: Why not expand a single photo into a "string of photos," linking the entire operation together like a string of candied hawthorns?

However, WeChat groups lack the ability to aggregate events, and photos scattered across chat logs make it impossible to review past operations. He realized what was needed was a structured process featuring a "timeline + event line."

At the time, Rizhao Port Lanshan Company was only using the free version of DingTalk sporadically for expense reports and leave requests. Li Zhengjun teamed up with young technicians to build a three-step process on DingTalk's OA platform: mutual photo check-in upon arrival (confirming personnel and PPE), photo documentation of lockout/tagout (controlling key risk points), and another mutual photo check-out upon departure (ensuring everyone has left). This became the "Zero Process."

Initially, there was some resistance, but team leaders quickly realized that with this process, it was immediately clear who had arrived, whether they were wearing safety helmets, and whether the power had been turned off. Subsequently, based on feedback, he continuously added nodes such as qualification verification, tool inspections, and central control room coordination, integrating all responsible parties into the same process chain to achieve full-process traceability and closed-loop accountability.

From Internal Innovation to Group-Wide Mandatory Implementation

The "Zero Process" quickly spread among multiple work teams at Rizhao Port, and sister units came to learn from it. The method gradually covered more than ten companies within Rizhao Port and was incorporated into formal documents by the Shandong Port Group's safety department.

In early 2024, the group's Party committee made a decisive decision: to mandate the system's rollout across all 120 subsidiary companies within two years. The Zhixun system entered a period of rapid growth.

In 2024, the system was successfully implemented across the four major port groups—Qingdao Port, Rizhao Port, Yantai Port, and Bohai Bay Port.

In 2025, projects in eight non-port industry segments—including port construction, equipment manufacturing, logistics, and healthcare—were successfully completed.

Driving Platform Evolution in Reverse

As the Zhixun system's demand for DingTalk OA templates exceeded the 2,000-template limit, it drew the attention of DingTalk headquarters in Hangzhou. Why does a port need so many processes?

The DingTalk team proactively reached out to Li Zhengjun and increased the template quota to 2,500. To improve the approval experience, the "Reject" button was moved to a secondary menu, and the "Return for Revision" option was optimized to a more convenient location.

In August 2025, DingTalk helped integrate Alibaba's Qwen large language model, enabling AI-driven pre-approval: the system automatically compares images with form information, flags logical inconsistencies, generates red alerts, and assists human reviewers in making decisions.

The AI not only boosts efficiency but also reduces interpersonal friction. When deviations occur in execution, the AI acts as a "judge," guiding all parties to focus on the issue itself rather than blaming one another.

AI approval prompts

Breaking Out of the Port: The First Major External Contract

The commercialization of the Zhixun system did not begin with grand narratives but with a low-key visit.

In early 2024, Li Zhengjun approached a large steel plant near Qingdao. Initially, the plant was skeptical, believing its own management system was robust and that its risks far exceeded those of a port, casting doubt on the feasibility of a cross-industry solution.

Li Zhengjun offered a no-cost pilot program without much explanation, selecting the ironmaking plant—the area with the highest risk and the most complex operations. He led his team to the site, relearning new scenarios such as hot work in blast furnaces, confined spaces in gas areas, and slag ditch lifting, breaking down the entire hot work permit into standardized process nodes.

They solved the steel plant's long-standing "proxy signing" problem: regulations required the vice plant manager to confirm on-site, but in practice, someone else often signed on their behalf. The Zhixun system ties "on-site confirmation" to the process; without a photo of the vice plant manager on site, the process cannot advance, completely eliminating formalism.

Although there was initial resistance, after a period of operation, management found that risk controllability had significantly improved, and responsibilities were no longer left hanging. At the project's conclusion, the general manager observed the process on-site and immediately decided, "Implement this system across all ten plants in the company, with a deadline for completion."

In August 2025, the steel company gave high praise: "The 'DingTalk Photo Recording Method' has truly enabled us to keep risk operations under control—exactly the safety goal we've been pursuing."

Some companies report that in the past, safety regulators could always find issues during inspections, but after using Zhixun, no violations could be detected.

The real challenge in scaling the system lies not in the technology itself but in breaking ingrained habits. Li Zhengjun adopted a "local pilot to drive broader adoption" strategy, starting with a pilot project at the ironmaking plant and then gradually expanding the rollout.

In response to customer inquiries about "whether the system can integrate with existing OA systems," Li Zhengjun's team evaluated the situation and clearly replied that existing systems lack core capabilities such as watermarking, process control, and mobile support, making DingTalk Professional Edition essential. For the steel company, the primary reason for purchasing DingTalk was to run the Zhixun system.

This marked the first truly meaningful commercial order Zhixun received after moving beyond the port environment.

Industry-Specific Replication: More Case Studies Validate the Value

Following its success with the large steel company, a certain port and shipping enterprise in Anhui became another key case study.

Although the company already had an OA system and was not using DingTalk, an assessment determined that switching to DingTalk Professional Edition was necessary to support Zhixun's operation. The company ultimately concluded that the investment was worthwhile to achieve full-process control and traceability for high-risk operations.

In his presentations, Li Zhengjun typically condenses his message into six to ten minutes, moving from lessons learned from accidents to process restructuring, from a single photo to the implementation of regulations, and ultimately focusing on one fact: all companies that have genuinely implemented the Zhixun system have achieved zero accidents and zero injuries.

In response to questions about "how much accident rates have decreased," his answer has always been consistent: "The best outcome for any safety tool is zero. We can't calculate how many injuries or fatalities have been prevented, but we know that every company using this system has maintained a zero-accident record to date."

One customer commented, "The Zhixun system is widely welcomed, actively embraced by frontline workers, and truly solves the fundamental problems of safety management. It breaks through the superficial constraints of traditional digital transformation, deeply integrating industry norms, safety standards, and intelligent technology to reshape the underlying logic of operations."

In the first half of 2025, DingTalk and Shandong Port Technology Group signed a strategic cooperation agreement, with the Zhixun project serving as a core component.

Li Zhengjun likens the collaboration to this: "DingTalk provides the foundation, and we help customers build a 'safety building' on top of it."

A Co-Creation Model: Experience × Tools × Organization

This collaboration represents a triangular co-creation model of "Experience–Tools–Organization":

On one side are technical leaders like Li Zhengjun, who leverage thirty years of frontline experience to precisely define problem boundaries;

On the other side is a general-purpose digital platform like DingTalk, providing modular capabilities such as process engines, mobile terminals, and AI;

On the third side are grassroots engineers and team leaders, who break down experience into nodes, conditions, and visuals, embedding these tools into the actual organizational workflows.

Looking Ahead to a Broader Future