"Many of us are wearing cotton clothes into the factory", when asked how to evaluate their more than 20 days of factory life, Zhang Qiang paused for 3 or 4 seconds, and then gave a very surprising answer, the high temperature in Shanghai in recent days has become the biggest "enemy" of Zhang Qiang and many colleagues stationed in the factory.
"Suddenly stationed in the factory for so long, it really exceeded everyone's expectations, although there are preparations, but most people only prepared 2 or 3 sets of clothes to change, plus when I first entered the factory, the temperature in Shanghai was still relatively low, and now I feel that it is directly into the summer, so the lack of summer clothing has become a headache for us at present." In Zhang Qiang's summary, this time the life of the factory is not difficult. The problem of lack of summer clothing factory leaders has been coordinated to solve, in addition to the overall quality of life is acceptable, good diet, rest time is relatively sufficient, regular need to do nucleic acid, there is no other hard requirements in life.
Of course, the background of Zhang Qiang's relatively high evaluation of the life in the factory must be introduced, and the salary has doubled. "Everyone overcame difficulties to keep the progress of the project, the company's leaders did not stingy, during the factory period, everyone can basically get double the salary." Zhang Qiang said this to Gestapo.
Production line workers, image source: Gaz Motors
Resident factory guarantee
Zhang Qiang, an engineer of an electronics company in Shanghai. According to its introduction, the company's main business is to support the electronic devices in the on-board camera, and customers include vehicle companies and Tier 1 suppliers. Although the scale of this company is not large, but because in recent years, China has ushered in the outlet period of automobile intelligence, and the demand for related electronic and electrical devices is huge, so Zhang Qiang's business has also been in a state of "bursting" for a long time. Before the outbreak of this epidemic, the rush to the progress was already a normal working state, and it was obviously difficult to accept if the work and production were stopped for a long time because of the epidemic.
"In the early days of the outbreak in Shanghai, the company (the factory in Jiading District, Shanghai) actually had a plan, and before Pudong began to seal and control, a group of colleagues entered the factory," Zhang Qiang told Gaz Automobile, if you want to calculate the accurate time of staying in the factory, your company should start from March 30. On the same day, the company officially issued a notice and began to urgently arrange low-risk community employees to work in the factory. Zhang Qiang said that in the event of the epidemic, the operational pressure of local enterprises will increase, especially after the city carries out sealing and control management, ensuring supply has become a top priority. Staying in the factory to ensure production should be the most appropriate way to deal with it in the current environment.
Similar to Zhang Qiang's situation, Wang Hui is an engineer of an interior supplier company, according to which before the start of sealing in Shanghai, the company arranged for the relevant access certificates, and the company's employees could enter and exit with the access permit. After Shanghai announced the sealing and control management information, there were no positive employees in the community, and the company began to arrange for the factory to be stationed.
"I am used to it, last year's winter test caught up with the local epidemic sealing, directly closed for several months," said Chen Yang, an engineer in charge of the brake plate of a head parts company. At that time, you could choose to travel between the two places, but according to the epidemic prevention policy, in both cities need to be centralized isolation, this time in Shanghai I am working from home, at least accompanied by my family. At the end of March, the engineers at the R&D end of Chen Yang's company can choose whether to enter the R&D center every day, the shuttle bus will open normally, or you can directly choose to stay in the factory, and the resident employees will have subsidies.
Since the end of March, Chen Yang has rarely entered the company, mainly because his department does not need to run data on the sample car offline, and can brush the software online. Chen Yang gave the group number of people to compare the data, you can roughly analyze the number of people who worked normally in the company at the end of March. When Chen Yang needed to go to work several times, the shuttle was only himself, and usually this shuttle would carry about twenty people (others either worked from home or were stationed in the factory).
Automobile production line, image source: enterprise official map
Logistics is a barrier
For production enterprises, the presence of employees is only one of the necessary conditions, just as parts companies should try to ensure the supply of accessories to vehicle companies, parts companies also need more upstream supporting companies to "guarantee" raw materials. A new problem has emerged, and logistics are tight. In cities where the epidemic is more serious, cross-city logistics has basically been suspended, and for many parts and components companies, they are also facing the problem of tight supply.
The relevant staff of a head wire harness company told Gaz Automobile that as of now, the company's various lines are basically steadily advancing. The local factory in Shanghai, on the 24th and 25th, began to arrange closed-loop management of employees stationed in the factory, and there will be cash subsidies for the resident employees every day. With the joint efforts of everyone and relying on inventory preparation, this wire harness company has basically maintained about 80% of the production capacity before the epidemic, but the preparation situation is currently tight, and it should only be able to stick to it for a few more weeks.
Test workers, image source: Gaz Cars
What happens after I run out of inventory? The above-mentioned staff said that they can only look forward to the follow-up logistics.
After communicating with the assistant general manager of a domestic logistics company (the business includes automobile logistics), Gaz Automobile learned that at present, in addition to epidemic prevention and daily necessities, other areas in Shanghai have been cancelled, and automobile production will definitely be affected.
Cui Dongshu, secretary general of the Association, has previously said, "At present, the impact of the epidemic in Shanghai is only a few enterprises in Jiangsu and Zhejiang, and if it continues, it may bring more uncertain impacts to the whole country, and we believe that it may bring 15%-20% of the production capacity loss." ”
The response of car companies
The result of tight logistics is that raw materials cannot come in, products cannot go out, and for vehicle companies, production and sales are under pressure. Taking Shanghai as an example, as an important town in the domestic automobile industry, Shanghai has concentrated a large number of vehicle enterprises. Among them, SAIC Volkswagen has a production capacity of 970,000 units in Shanghai, SAIC-GM also has a vehicle production capacity of 480,000 units in Shanghai's Pudong District, Tesla has a production capacity of 480,000 units at the Shanghai Lingang plant supplying the world, and SAIC Passenger Vehicles has a production capacity of up to 300,000 units in Shanghai.
Under the influence of the epidemic, it is obviously difficult to ensure the normal operation of such a large-scale industry.
According to the information previously released by Zhiji Automobile, before the city started the sealing, there were employees living around Shanghai who began to camp in the company and persisted for more than 20 days under difficult road test conditions. There are also employees living in Shanghai, and as soon as the community is unsealed, they rush back to the company and devote themselves to the road test task.
For what is very simple, to ensure the project progress of the first model Zhiji L7. Although the launch of the new car in March has been postponed, and the plan to start delivery in April should also be affected, for Zhiji Automobile, the listing and delivery of Zhiji L7 as soon as possible is still the most important development node for enterprises.
Zhiji Automobile's factory is currently closed management, production conditions will inevitably be limited, foreign materials need to be manually handled, parts must be passed without contact, and new challenges have emerged in many links. Zhiji officially said that in order to ensure the punctual delivery of parts, the relevant departments will hold two regular meetings of production and supply guarantee every day, and at the same time, enterprises are also continuing to study how to improve the production efficiency and quality assurance capabilities of the factory during the sealing period.
Automobile is an industry with a long industrial chain, which fundamentally determines that the epidemic in Shanghai and other places will certainly affect more than local car companies.
Great Wall Motor officially introduced the current production situation to Gaz Motor, affected by the epidemic in Shanghai, Jiangsu, Jilin and other places, many suppliers have stopped work and operation, and the reserve of factory parts has continued to decline. Great Wall Motor has already begun to evaluate its existing reserve materials to re-establish its scheduling plan. In the sales process, due to the slowdown in scheduling, the delivery time of some models will also be extended, and at the same time, due to the greater impact of the epidemic by logistics, the arrival time in some areas will also be extended. How do you deal with it? Great Wall Motors said that it will continue to pay attention to the national epidemic situation, actively communicate with relevant departments, and actively seek solutions with supply chain partners under the premise of complying with local epidemic prevention regulations.
Image source: Gaz Cars
Summary: The repeated epidemics have had a big impact on all walks of life. According to the sales data released by the Association of Passenger Vehicles, retail sales in the domestic passenger car market in March 2022 were 1.579 million units, down 10.5% year-on-year. In response to the decline in sales in March, the Association said that the spread of the new crown epidemic across the country in March was the main reason. After entering April, the new confirmed cases in the local area are still in the rising stage, and the pressure on the production and sales of the automobile market is still increasing, and the retail sales volume of the domestic automobile market in April will be significantly lower than that in March.
However, it should be pointed out that although the fact of the outbreak is irreversible, the impact of the epidemic can be gradually eliminated. Under the influence of the epidemic, vehicle companies, supply chain enterprises and even logistics and other supporting enterprises are actively responding, although small project nodes will be delayed, but in the communication with many enterprises, Gaz Automobile can clearly feel that everyone is still very confident in promoting the overall progress of the project, and the pace of research and development and production is basically in accordance with soop.
(In response to the needs of the interviewees, the interviewees in the article use pseudonyms)