"Digital intelligence" helps the whole automotive industry chain to "restart" against the trend

Reporters Yin Limei and Tong Haihua reported from Beijing

The high-speed production line, the orderly intelligent robots, and the orderly and busy workers on the production line are the first scene of faw's liberation Changchun base to resume production. Recently, the reporter of China Business Daily learned in an interview that after two weeks of in-depth research and repeated deductions, scientific and orderly production capacity training was carried out, and on May 2, as most of the employees of FAW Liberation began to commute "point-to-point", the Changchun base started construction in its entirety and achieved a comprehensive resumption of production.

Shanghai, Guangdong and Jilin are the core areas of the mainland automobile industry. According to guosen securities statistics, at the level of listed companies, there are about 23 independent parts and components companies in the epidemic-affected areas, including 17 in Shanghai, 4 in Changchun and 2 in Guangzhou. There are 21 foreign-funded parts companies in the epidemic-affected areas, including Bosch, Denso, ZF, Faurecia, Magna, etc., and supporting customers include Volkswagen, GM, Ford, SAIC, FAW, Toyota, Mercedes-Benz, BMW, etc. The products of the above-mentioned parts and components enterprises cover almost the entire industrial chain of the automobile and radiate the national automotive industry.

Since March this year, affected by the epidemic in Jilin, Shanghai, Guangdong and other places, logistics have been seriously blocked, the domestic automobile supply chain has been seriously impacted, and the production of products of many automobile companies has been difficult or even entered a stagnant stage, and the entire automotive industry chain has been anxious. Entering the middle of April, as the epidemic is gradually under control, the domestic automobile industry is struggling to recover and "restart".

"The challenges posed by this year's epidemic to the entire automotive industry are unprecedented. The instability of the supply chain has made the automotive industry suffer in these past few days. Within car companies and parts companies, from front-line employees to executives, anxiety has become the norm. However, as the epidemic is gradually under control, the most difficult time has passed, and the resumption of work and production will become the main theme of the automobile industry in the next few months. Employees of a large automobile group told reporters.

Relevant data show that at 24:00 on April 13, Changchun achieved zero social clearance. Since then, FAW Jiefang has carried out a step-by-step resumption of work and production: since April 15, personnel with the conditions for resuming production have successively returned to work and work in the factory, strictly implemented various regulations related to epidemic prevention, and implemented closed management; on April 17, FAW Jiefang completed production commissioning and started production, making sufficient preparations for the full resumption of production. On May 2, FAW Jiefang Changchun Base started construction in its entirety and achieved a comprehensive resumption of production.

Understanding, scientific, efficient, accurate, orderly resumption of production site, is the result of the help of "digital intelligence". At the beginning of the epidemic, FAW Jiefang quickly responded to build a remote login VPN system, which solved the demands of the majority of employees to work from home to access intranet resources; developed more than 10 digital function systems on the line, improving the accuracy of epidemic data filling; increasing the number of online platform points, so that the concurrent capacity can be increased and expanded, providing protection for online meetings and greatly improving office efficiency during the epidemic.

After the resumption of production, in order to achieve "less contact" for office personnel and "digitalization" of trajectory management, FAW Jiefang has successively launched applications such as point-to-point commuting, online catering, accommodation management, and nucleic acid testing. At the same time, the grid punch card and epidemic map applications are further upgraded, expanding functions such as area management, trajectory abnormal reminder, commuting location setting, commuting time abnormal reminder, etc., and docking a card and face recognition data to form a full-scene trajectory record, realizing the whole process control from trajectory recording to trajectory analysis. As of May 3, the grid has accumulated more than 500,000 punches.

In the important town of East China Automobile, on May 6, SAIC Motor disclosed that under the premise of maintaining a stable supply chain and logistics, SAIC Motor's vehicle enterprises are expected to gradually resume normal production in late May, and production and sales will strive to reach the same period last year. In 2022, SAIC Motor will strive to sell more than 6 million vehicles in the whole year, an increase of more than 10% year-on-year.

It is understood that since the launch of the stress test in mid-April, SAIC Motor, under the guidance and support of government departments, has gone all out to overcome the impact of unfavorable factors such as supply chain and logistics, and at present, more than 40,000 employees in Shanghai affiliated enterprises have been stationed in the factory to carry out closed-loop operation and production, and major vehicle manufacturers have achieved stable mass production of complete vehicles.

The "restart" of the automotive industry is not an easy task. The automobile industry chain is long, in addition to vehicle manufacturing, it can be extended upwards to other basic industries related to auto parts manufacturing and parts manufacturing; downwards can be extended to the field of service trade, including automobile sales, maintenance, finance and other services. The shortage of any tiny parts will lead to the inability of vehicle companies to produce normally and stably, "pulling the whole body", and the stability of the supply chain has extremely high requirements. How the resumption of work and production of auto parts companies standing behind the "back" of vehicle companies has become the focus of public attention.

The reporter learned that at present, SKF, Aptiv, Bosch, ZF, the main supplier of new energy vehicle chips, Shanghai Jita Semiconductor and other parts manufacturers have resumed work. Chen Haotian, deputy general manager of Shanghai ZF Transmission Co., Ltd., recently told reporters that the overall production and operation situation is relatively stable, the logistics channel has been opened, and the automotive industry chain is slowly recovering.

For the automotive industry, the smooth flow of logistics and supply chains is crucial to production and operation. In order to alleviate the problems of supply chain logistics in the automotive industry chain caused by the epidemic, as early as April 11, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology launched the "Automotive Industry Chain Supply Chain Smooth Coordination Platform" to help automotive industry chain supply chain enterprises timely feedback and solve practical difficulties. At present, in terms of alleviating logistics and transportation problems, in view of the transportation and supply of raw materials and parts of enterprises, the relevant departments in Shanghai have applied for vehicle passes and other measures to help enterprises open up transportation and logistics inside and outside the city.

It is reported that in order to solve the supply chain problems and accelerate the promotion of production capacity, SAIC Motor has surveyed nearly 400 suppliers and conducted a comprehensive survey of supplier capacity, inventory, raw materials, etc. SAIC Motor said that it will pay close attention to the personnel dynamics and production situation of subordinate suppliers, and assist and support subordinate suppliers to speed up the process and prevent epidemics and resume production as much as possible.

The automotive industry has a long supply chain and close upstream and downstream, and its overall recovery will take longer. It is understood that as the first batch of enterprises to get the notice of resumption of work and production, Huayu Automobile Body Parts (Shanghai) Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as "Huayu Automobile") has started to resume work and production, and according to the surging news report on May 5, affected by the epidemic, although the workshop of Huayu Automobile has been busy, only one workshop in the entire production plant area has resumed production. Moreover, due to the impact of epidemic prevention and control and supply chain transportation, personnel cannot arrive, raw materials cannot be supplied in time, and there are not many orders from Huayu Auto customers at present. According to the information on the official website, huayu automobile's core business is automotive body structural parts and outer cover parts, and it is a strategic cooperation supplier of SAIC-GM and SAIC VOLKSWAGEN.

In the view of Cui Yan, chief analyst of the automotive industry at Huaxi Securities, with the effective control of the epidemic, the supply chain, logistics and production of the entire automotive industry will gradually recover, and it is expected that the production capacity of car companies will usher in recovery growth in May. She suggested that after the epidemic is effectively controlled, each car company should consider establishing its own alternative supplier system, including more small and medium-sized suppliers in the alternative, and providing multiple insurances for their own supply guarantee. Powerful enterprises may reduce their dependence on a single supplier and reduce the concentration of parts supply to reduce the impact of external uncontrollable factors on the production of enterprises and improve their ability to resist risks.

(Editor: Zhang Shuo Proofreader: Yan Jingning)