"Silent" Shanghai, the resumption of production is imminent
Text/Shanshan Xu
Shanghai, which has been silent for several days, has finally ushered in the notice of resumption of work. According to statistics, in the first batch of official "white list" of key enterprises to resume work, a total of 666 companies were listed, including 62 integrated circuit companies and 228 automobile-related enterprises.
During the epidemic, major chip manufacturers such as TSMC, SMIC and Huahong have not interrupted production, but they have been challenged by multiple challenges in terms of personnel placement and freight logistics. In the automotive field, if the supplier of supporting parts cannot ship in time, even if the SAIC Lingang plant adopts closed production, it has not been completely spared.
There is no doubt that Shanghai's attitude of promoting the resumption of work and production is firm and resolute, but considering that the inflection point of the epidemic in Shanghai has not yet appeared, it is still unknown whether the industrial "big move" can promote production from a positive perspective. As for when the full resumption of work and production can be achieved, there are actually many negative voices in the industry.
Capacity recovery is not scored
Some companies believe that now is not the time to be optimistic, while others have allegedly rejected requests to return to work.
The staff of an automotive interior company that was included in the "white list" of resuming work said that the number of people who met the conditions for work was less than 40% after the company's internal statistics. Another phenomenon worthy of attention is that for employees who can resume work, even if the company takes the "white list" red head document and the notice of resumption of work to the community to fish for people, the community property and the neighborhood committee do not recognize.
In fact, this phenomenon has been common since the outbreak of the epidemic. Just as it is clearly stipulated that epidemic prevention cannot be "one size fits all", but the policy is often conveyed to the following.
In addition, foreign-funded enterprises such as 3M, DuPont and BASF have explicitly rejected the Shanghai Municipal Government's request to resume work. However, BASF responded that the news was not true, and said that the company's plant in Shanghai has maintained closed-loop operations, although the production load during the lockdown period has been reduced, but the production activities have not been interrupted.
Whether it is closed-loop production or enterprises waiting to resume work, the recovery of production capacity is imminent. But the reality is that Shanghai is going through a difficult time. In the view of the above-mentioned people, by the end of this week, it is rare for factories to reach a 30% operating rate, and large-scale resumption of work may not wait until after May Day.
Taking auto parts as an example, there are not only international Tier1s such as Bosch, Aptiv, ZF, Continental, Valeo and Denso in Shanghai, but also Fuyao Glass and a number of small local suppliers.
The number of parts required for new energy vehicles is only 20% of that of traditional cars, but a shortage of parts will overwhelm a factory. Under the development trend of globalization and even nationalization, the silence of Shanghai's automotive industry affects the nerves of all parties.
Discontinued car companies that must resume work
Relatively speaking, car companies can't wait to resume production.
Last year, the total output of Shanghai's automotive industry was 2.8332 million units, accounting for 10.7% of the country's 26.528 million units; the total output value of the automobile industry reached 758.6 billion yuan in the same period, accounting for 17.5% of Shanghai's total GDP. The scale is also an important reason why the automobile industry occupies nearly 5 pages in the "white list" of Shanghai's resumption of production and work.
In this "white list", the reason for the resumption of work in Tesla's Shanghai factory is written as "the suspended enterprises that must resume work". Based on the production capacity of 2,000 vehicles per day, Tesla has stopped production since March 28, and it is expected to lose more than 30,000 vehicles, involving an amount of more than 1 million yuan. According to people familiar with the matter, Tesla is already preparing for the resumption of work this week.
The first batch of "white list" partial list of enterprises to resume work
Saic Motor also officially launched the stress test of resuming work and production today. It is reported that the participants in saic's test include not only the main vehicles, parts and logistics enterprises of SAIC Group, but also a large number of first-, second- and third-level core suppliers. As for the final result, there is still uncertainty.
The problem is how to promote the parallel implementation of the resumption of work and the "zero clearance" policy in Shanghai's automobile industry, once the epidemic spreads in the process of resuming work, or even the risk of spillover, it will undoubtedly cause a fatal blow to the entire industry. Enterprises need more detailed policies to return to work, and the epidemic in Shanghai must also be effectively controlled.
Moreover, the resumption of work is not the same as the resumption of production, and there are many preparatory work. In the case of FAW Group, from April 11 to April 15, FAW Hongqi only rolled off the production line of 160 cars in a single day. Although the government and enterprises continue to promote the resumption of work and production, it will take time for production to resume in the early stage.
The subsequent gradual increase in production capacity is not only based on the premise of the recovery of the supporting supply chain, but also depends on the logistics and transportation, and the arrival of employees.
Unsealing personnel is a big problem
The image is from a video screenshot
At this stage, the problem of personnel and logistics is still a problem to be solved in the industry. Quanta, which is a Tesla accessory and Apple's MacBook foundry, is also worried about this.
Quanta's factory in Songjiang, Shanghai, recently applied for resumption of work and production, and the factory area achieved closed-loop management, but as of now, the resumption rate is only 1/20. It is reported that Quanta Shanghai Manufacturing City has a total of 8 factories with more than 40,000 employees, of which F1 and F3 factories took the lead in resuming work, involving about 2,000 employees.
It is ridiculous to have 2,000 people to achieve the capacity that 40,000 employees can achieve. If the upstream industry cannot fully resume work and production, the downstream will inevitably suffer.
In addition to the problem of employee arrival, the challenges of logistics and transportation can be seen from the "difficulty of buying a duck cargo". According to a duck goods brand supplier, the trucks transporting duck goods from Hangzhou to Shanghai have to queue up at each checkpoint to do nucleic acid, and they are "stabbed" to the heart along the way.
Colonel: Behind every duck's neck are countless people who have been "stabbed"
Fortunately, today, the national video conference on ensuring the smooth flow of goods and promoting the stability of the industrial chain supply chain was held, focusing on the need to stabilize the industrial chain supply chain and establish a white list of key industries such as automobiles and integrated circuits and foreign trade enterprises.
Perhaps when the official documents are issued, the anxiety of the automobile and supporting industries about logistics and transportation can be put aside for the time being. However, more anxiety among automakers will accompany the industry until it moves towards normal development and production capacity returns to the past level, and the auto industry can be regarded as truly out of the haze.