As the saying goes, the plan of the year lies in the spring, and this is also the time node for mobile phone manufacturers to concentrate on launching new machines. However, many friends who pay attention to the mobile phone industry may have found that a number of mainstream manufacturers have postponed the late release time of some of their new machines this spring and spring, and the reasons are also strikingly similar, affected by the epidemic.
In the past two years, the epidemic has made the entire mobile phone supply chain extremely challenging, almost every three to five minutes there will be an outbreak in a certain area, resulting in factories forced to stop production, and even Apple, which is known for its excellent supply chain management, has been affected to a certain extent. In this case, in order to improve the fragile supply chain, the "first brother" Samsung in the mobile phone circle decided to take action.
According to a recent report from South Korea's ETNews, Samsung Electronics issued a requirement to smartphone partner companies to develop high-compatibility universal components, changing the previous practice of completely separating high-end products from low-end models. It is reported that this is a plan to overcome the instability of the global parts supply chain caused by the epidemic and improve production flexibility.
Yes, the epidemic has changed not only everyone's lives, but also the rhythm of industrial production. Before the epidemic, the practice adopted by mobile phone manufacturers when facing supply chain problems was usually to use just-in-time to manage the entire supply chain through a computer system, monitor the inventory of sales channels, and reduce inventory pressure through high-frequency and low-volume production. The timely production system emphasizes the flexibility of the supply chain to achieve cost reduction and efficiency increase and shorten the delivery cycle, a typical example of which is Apple's Global Demand Visibility system, which also makes its product inventory cycle significantly compressed.
However, the arrival of the epidemic has changed almost everything, and the disadvantages of flexible supply chains have also been highlighted. This supply chain system is extremely resilient, once affected by the epidemic, it will not only lead to the interruption of the entire chain, and even after the suspension of production, it is often difficult to quickly restore production capacity, and the final result is that almost all manufacturers' strategies are constantly disrupted because of various black swans.
After Eli Whitney proposed the concept of "replaceable parts" and "standardized production", standardized industrial production has become the cornerstone of modern industry, and the "standardization of parts" proposed by Samsung this time is a solution to solve the lack of supply chain resilience. Seeing that some friends here may ask, aren't the parts of smartphones standardized now? But the answer is that the parts for one or more product lines are indeed standardized, but that's all.
If you look at the entire industry, mobile phone parts are actually still very customized. Basically, in addition to the high versatility of ODM products, the compatibility between OEM models is almost non-existent, such as the motherboard of the iPhone 13, the Samsung Galaxy S22 will certainly not be used, and the camera module of Xiaomi Mi 12 and oppo Find X5 will certainly not be used.
The "standardization of parts" in Samsung's mouth is to formulate a common standard for compliance through the structural elements, dimensions, material properties, design methods, and drafting requirements of the parts. With a unified standard, the same type of products manufactured by different suppliers have a high degree of compatibility, and even if there is an accident in one part of the supply chain, other suppliers will quickly fill it to reduce dependence on a single source of supply and enhance risk resilience.
In a sense, Samsung's "parts standardization" is actually the same thing as the "modular platform" of the automotive industry. If the "parts standardization" of mobile phones can be realized, then the future of Samsung's Galaxy S series, A series, M series will use unified specifications of parts, which will undoubtedly greatly reduce design costs, and make the future mobile phone design more like building blocks, quite some of the meaning of The Google Project Ara project.
But why is Samsung proposing "parts standardization"? The reason is that Samsung is the only manufacturer in the mobile phone industry with the ability of the whole industry chain. From the design and oem of SoC, display panels, camera CMOS, high-performance processors, DRAM memory chips, NAND chips and other key components, Samsung has an extremely critical position, and they are also the world's largest mobile phone manufacturers, occupying 19% of the market share. As both the "one brother" of the mobile phone circle and the advantages of the whole industry chain, this is undoubtedly the confidence of Samsung.
As the saying goes, first-class enterprises do standards, and Samsung does "parts standardization" obviously has the "selfishness" to establish a higher industry influence. Don't look at Samsung itself has the only whole industry chain in the industry, but also the big financier of the mobile phone industry, but there are other supply chain companies in the mobile phone circle, and they may not be happy to establish standards, because this will lead to multiple parts suppliers producing similar parts at the same time, and reduce the irreplaceability of supply chain enterprises.
If several different suppliers produce similar parts at the same time, mobile phone manufacturers can naturally choose suppliers according to production volume and cost, and the former will almost inevitably be inevitable in order to get more orders. What's more, how Apple originally treated a number of former "fruit chain enterprises" such as Taiwan Chenhong/Shenghua, Jite Advanced, OFILM, GTAT, etc., the supply chain manufacturers must have seen it in their eyes. If the mobile phone industry really realizes the standardization of parts, the first batch of "unlucky" may be the bargaining power of supply chain manufacturers, especially small and medium-sized supply chain enterprises, which will be further weakened.
However, even if other supply chain companies may not want to see large-scale standardization of mobile phone parts, the trend of standardization is obviously difficult to reverse. The reason is actually very simple, because the mobile phone manufacturers and consumers who pay for it want to change the status quo, they are not willing to be forced to postpone their products due to various accidents, and hope that the supply chain will become more resilient. There is a way who pays who has the right to speak, holding the order of the mobile phone manufacturers to change the current linear supply chain structure is extremely urgent, when the opinions of mobile phone manufacturers are unprecedentedly unified, supply chain companies may be difficult to twist their arms over the thighs.
More importantly, the trend of mobile phone parts becoming more and more standardized and generalized has already been foreshadowed. A typical example is that mixed components are already very common in today's smartphones, and the basis for the implementation of this fact is that the APIs and interfaces of components have been basically compatible.
Finally, for consumers, the standardization of mobile phone parts is actually a good thing. After all, after the realization of standardization, mobile phone manufacturers can make mobile phones like building blocks, and can more easily arrange and combine functions such as SoC, screen, camera, battery, etc., to create more products for market segments, in a sense, so that products can achieve "thousands of faces" to meet the needs of different consumers.