Ignoring assembly is a misunderstanding of China's manufacturing capacity, and it is also a blind eye to the value of the first chain.
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Contents**|This article is excerpted from CITIC Press.
* Chain Attack and Defense Battle
Written by Lin Xueping.
* The topic of chains has never been more important than it is today.
The transformation of the ** chain, which began to flourish at the end of the 20th century, is a key action of globalization. The products are split into small granularity and distributed to countries and regions around the world with high cost performance for production. These parts are reassembled and sold globally, significantly reducing product costs and increasing the profitability of multinational companies.
The combination of global production capacity transfer has re-established the role of various countries and regions in the global ** chain.
Today's ** chain with globalization 2With the arrival of 0, a series of significant changes have taken place. Topics such as "decoupling", "reshoring of manufacturing" and "second choice of security" are deeply affecting economies around the world, including China.
To this end, this article selects the "underestimated 'low-end manufacturing'" viewpoint in the book "**Chain Offensive and Defensive War" to get a glimpse of what profound changes have taken place in the ** chain in the past few yearsWhat role does China play in the global first-chain competition?
In the process of upgrading from a "manufacturing power" to a "manufacturing power", many people are full of prejudice against "low-end manufacturing".
In fact, if you look at it from the perspective of the first chain, "low-tech industry" and traditional manufacturing do not mean that the manufacturing industry cannot be strong. In fact, globalization has developed to this day, and almost all products have undergone continuous polishing of technology. The market has gone through rounds of baptism, and the industries and enterprises that can survive must have their uniqueness.
"Low-end industries" is a biased classification.
The competitiveness of lighters made in China is unmatched. As one of the three major appliance production bases in China, Cixi City, Zhejiang Province, is also a production base for lighters. Although the total export value is only a few billion yuan, behind the small business is a high-level organization and management. It not only needs high-precision machine tools, but also needs a well-developed first-class chain organization.
Making a lighter is not as simple as it seems. It is not easy to maintain low-cost manufacturing under the premise of rising prices of raw materials and manpower.
Lighter manufacturing involves materials, precision molds, electrical automation and other engineering technologies. It has more than 30 parts, such as inverted valve seats, large and small O-rings, gas springs, constant flow valves, windshields, etc., and there are five or six kinds of springs alone.
The production process is also complex, reaching more than 50 processes, including injection molding, punching, welding, gassing, flap assembly, inspection, etc. In the past 10 years, prices have been **, but the price of lighters has always remained at one dollar. For a company to be profitable, it must reduce costs through continuous improvement of plant equipment and processes.
In 2010, in Xinhai Company in Cixi City, Zhejiang, the labor cost of producing a lighter was 1 jiao 5 cents. After 10 years, the labor cost is only 3 cents.
Behind this is a huge improvement in manufacturing capacity. The labor cost of 3 cents builds a deep moat. What is underrated in low-end manufacturing is that it has a huge connection power. Its first-class chain system is not simple, and it is also supported by advanced organizational forms.
Xinhai has hundreds of leading companies, including materials, chemicals, machinery, precision molds, injection molding, welding, etc. All of them can quickly arrange capacity according to the order requirements.
These so-called "low-end manufacturing" have amazing efficiency, and only in this way can they take root in China. It can be seen that the first chain of deep cultivation is the key to determining whether an industry can take root.
American scholar Jared Diamond mentioned in his book "Guns, Germs and Steel" that guns represent not only technology, but also organizations. A well-trained group combination can create an overwhelming force for a loose combination.
The so-called "low-end manufacturing" requires a high-end organization that ensures that it operates at the highest organizational efficiency.
In the Pacific theater during World War II, the real competition between the two sides was manufacturing capacity and natural resources. Ford Motor and General Motors of the United States switched from the production of civilian vehicles to the production of military goods. Even Kohler Sanitary Ware, which is familiar to consumers, has begun to provide brass valve parts for the military industry.
Obviously, it is easy for some companies to make products that they are not familiar with before. The knowledge of a business is far greater than what it can express;The capabilities of a company are not limited to what it makes. What matters to a country is not only the manufacturing of products, but also the manufacturing capacity.
During the outbreak of the new crown pneumonia epidemic in 2020, there was a severe shortage of masks, and mask factories could not face a huge demand gap for a while. SAIC-GM-Wuling, located in Liuzhou City, Guangxi Province, started from scratch and began providing valuable masks that society urgently needed a week after the Chinese New Year. How did SAIC-GM-Wuling switch from making cars to producing masks?
Under normal circumstances, Changyuan, Henan Province is China's "hometown of masks". The raw material used in it, polypropylene, first came from Zhenhai Refining in Zhejiang, and then shipped to Shandong to be processed into an intermediate product, meltblown nonwovens, and then shipped back to Changyuan.
The mask machine equipment is from Dongguan, the indispensable ultrasonic pressure welding equipment is from Suzhou, and the automatic packaging equipment is from Shanghai. Nagaki also needed to import various parts from other cities, such as nose bridge strips, ear loops, and adhesives, to eventually make masks.
The mask seems to be a simple product, but its top suppliers come from all over the world, and span machinery, chemicals, electronics and other fields. The production of a single mask can involve hundreds of items and a logistics process that totals hundreds of thousands of kilometers.
After the emergency start of the mask production line, the reorganization of the ** chain order was started in another way.
Masks are generally composed of double-layer non-woven fabric and single-layer meltblown fabric, and are made of polypropylene raw materials. As a soundproof cotton for automobile interiors, the raw material used is also polypropylene, which is not much different from the material of meltblown cloth and non-woven fabric. At this point, SAIC-GM-Wuling can quickly track down the leading suppliers of mask raw materials.
Looking further, masks are actually realized on the assembly line. It requires three layers of cloth to be placed in a mold and cut and pressed, and after hot melting, the finished product is formed. This process requires a clean environment, and automotive workshops often have cleanliness requirements as well. It is easy to convert a workshop for the production of cars into a workshop for the production of masks. SAIC-GM-Wuling renovated the 100,000-level dust-free workshop to form a clean room, and at the same time began to transform the stamping equipment, adjusting from cutting steel plates to cutting meltblown cloth.
Unable to purchase enough mask machines, SAIC-GM-Wuling took another step upstream and decided to produce mask machines.
A mask machine requires about more than 170 drawings, including 43 types of electronic control, pneumatic, and mechanical, involving the selection of more than 800 kinds of components. SAIC-GM-Wuling's purchasing department began to seek the supply of various components from various cities across the country, and the 4S store channels distributed in various places have also become a base for reverse procurement.
In order for a set of ** chain to play a role, it is necessary to mobilize multiple resources such as equipment, parts, modules, raw materials and users.
It took only 6 days for the "Wuling" fully automated mask machine to be officially shipped. SAIC-GM-Wuling has become the main force in the manufacture of masks from a layman, and has established a full set of ** chains.
The Liuzhou plant's production capacity soon reached 1 million masks per day, effectively alleviating emergency needs. At that time, the world was rushing for masks, and 3M, the largest mask manufacturer, was the only mask production plant in the United States, which could not be matched even if it was large.
An automobile plant "suddenly" has the ability to produce strategic materials and manufacture strategic equipment that it has never had before, which makes people realize that behind the production of products, there is a stronger manufacturing capacity. However, this manufacturing capacity itself also needs the support of high-end ** chain.
It allows a well-trained team to have the ability to produce brand new products.
In people's minds, "foundry" is a derogatory term that conjures up images of crowded workers on the shop floor busily screwing screws, assembling cables, and flooding back to the dormitories after work.
What many people don't expect is that an efficient foundry can also mean the pinnacle of top-tier manufacturing. It requires a lot of capabilities to support, including machinery manufacturing capacity, material scheduling, and the deployment of the labor force. The flow of information and the organization of processes in the factory are the key guarantees of industrialization.
In 2007, Apple's first-generation mobile phone appeared. It uses a touch screen and a minimalist design, and its appearance full of design aesthetics attracts a lot of consumers.
The manufacturing technology behind this much-talked-about look was once a headache for engineers.
First of all, Apple abandoned the way of mold making. The reason for this is simple, the shape of the smartphone case is simple, but the inner structure of the case is much more complex, requiring a lot of tiny support frames and welding various capacitors and resistors. These different forms of structures make it extremely difficult to mold the mold.
The bigger challenge is the hardness of the phone case. Apple's first generation of iPhone is the first touchscreen mobile phone produced by Apple, touch screen technology was not a mature technology at that time, switching from buttons to touch screen, to be hard, light, and beautiful, it is determined that the mobile phone shell can not be made of plastic, but can only use stainless steel.
For factories, only by pushing their manufacturing capacity to the limit can they meet the needs of every revolutionary product of Apple's mobile phone.
In order to process stainless steel metal housings and to create a smooth finish, high-speed machining machines with high precision are required. What's more, with thousands of machines on site, expensive Japanese, Swiss or German machines are unacceptable.
Foxconn has set its sights on Japan's processing technology in the aerospace field. Toshiba Machinery used to apply nanoscale processing technology to the aviation industry, but the processing speed was slow and could not be applied in batches.
Foxconn and Japan's Fanuc machine tools have transformed this aviation homologous machining technology. The accuracy of mobile phones does not need to be at the nanometer level, but only at the micron level to achieve large-scale machining. Under the technical feedback and joint development of Foxconn, Fana Research has developed high-speed stainless steel processing drilling and tapping technology, and has become the world's largest drilling and tapping machine tool manufacturer in one fell swoop.
Ignoring assembly is a misunderstanding of China's manufacturing capacity, and it is also a blind eye to the value of the first chain.
The spillover effect of the foundry giant is reflected in the cultivation of the entire ** chain, which has incubated a large number of enterprising local manufacturers. The prosperity of Suzhou's mold industry is directly related to Foxconn's factory in Suzhou. Shenzhen Lixun Precision, which has climbed rapidly in the Apple ** chain, was founded by former employees of Foxconn.
It can be said that Foxconn started almost from scratch, and together with Apple's high-end design and manufacturing, it has promoted China's electronics manufacturing and mold industry. All kinds of first-class businessmen absorb nutrients and grow in this soil, and the once strongest Japanese mold industry is left behind the electronics industry. In this not a long period of time, the ability of the first chain between the manufacturing countries has been reduced by one another.
The clues of the great power game have been quietly hidden in it. [*Chain Paradigm].