A few days ago, the National Industrial and Information Work Conference emphasized that the independent and controllable ability of key industrial chains should be improved. Focusing on the key industrial chain of the manufacturing industry, identify the weak links of the "stuck neck" of key core technologies and components, promote the strong chain to supplement the chain and stabilize the chain with "one chain and one policy", strengthen the upstream and downstream of the industrial chain, large and small enterprises to coordinate research, and promote the development of the entire industrial chain.
Over the past three years, under the influence of multiple factors such as the shutdown of production and logistics caused by the new crown pneumonia epidemic, as well as the shortage of chips, rising raw material prices, and the continuous conflict between Russia and Ukraine, supply chain problems have plagued the automotive industry in various ways, and many car companies have been mired in a deep quagmire. Miao Wei, deputy director of the Economic Committee of the National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference, said bluntly in public: the supply chain is unstable, and the automobile industry is rising tall on the beach.
Now, the "New Ten" has landed, recovery has begun, and the auto industry is accelerating its recovery. In the new stage, will the supply chain problems that once caused the automotive industry to suffer be solved? How to do the independent and controllable supply chain risks?
01The supply chain crisis is not related to the epidemic
A new crown pneumonia epidemic has tested the anti-risk ability of the automotive industry chain and exposed the shortcomings of automotive companies in production management, cash flow management and supply chain management.
Zhang Zuqiu, President of Baolong Technology, said that looking back on the past three years, the automotive supply chain has indeed suffered an unprecedented impact. From a domestic point of view, the shutdown of production caused by epidemic prevention and control, logistics obstacles, and from a global perspective, the labor loss caused by the peak of epidemic infection all affect the safety of the automotive supply chain. But among them, the biggest impact and longest duration is the chip shortage.
Of course, the pandemic is only one of the threatening factors, and there are weak links in the automotive supply chain itself.
For example, the integrated die-casting process, which has recently attracted much attention due to Tesla's popularity, is highly regarded by new automakers for greatly improving vehicle productivity, reducing costs, and greatly shortening the model development cycle. However, Li Bin, founder, chairman and CEO of NIO, publicly stated last year that due to insufficient supply of die-casting parts and less than expected production yields, integrated die-casting has unexpectedly become an important factor restricting production capacity.
It is understood that due to the immaturity of the integrated die-casting process, the delivery of hot-selling models of brands such as NIO and Li in 2022 has been affected to a certain extent.
Overall, poor zero relations have always been a concern for the automotive industry. The experience of the past three years has shown that the accuracy of information is very important. Because the automotive industry chain is quite long, if the car company's forecast of sales and demand is inaccurate, it will lead to the distortion of information transmitted to suppliers, resulting in the so-called "bullwhip effect", which in turn affects the marketing, logistics, production and other fields of the enterprise.
"This does not pose a problem in times of economic stability, but it will be infinitely amplified when the economic environment is poor, and sharp fluctuations in demand combined with changes in the market will bring great pressure to car companies and parts companies." Zhang Zuqiu said that the lean production model that the automotive industry has been pursuing has relatively high requirements for the stability of the business environment.
02 Global crisis, no eggs under the nest
For automotive companies, strengthening the capacity building of supply chain anti-risk will become a key part of shaping long-term core competitiveness. In the face of the supply chain crisis, in the past three years, many car companies have made positive responses and achieved remarkable results.
In an interview with the reporter of China Automotive News, the relevant person in charge of Leapmotor introduced that since the establishment of the brand, Leap has established a short-term difficult and long-term correct global self-research route, and strives to build the underlying core competitiveness of enterprises with technological innovation, which also greatly enhances the ability of enterprises to resist external risks under uncertainties such as the epidemic.
At the same time, in order to cope with the uncertainty of the supply chain, Zerorun advanced layout, realized the mechanism of multi-supply enterprises and multi-regional planning, and greatly improved the ability of the supply chain to resist risks. Taking batteries as an example, Zerorun has more than one cell, and there are multiple battery suppliers to solve the problem of supply difficulties. A number of suppliers provide more than one standard battery cell, which is suitable for all models of Zerosport, which can well balance all production capacity and increase the ability of enterprises to resist risks.
Zhang Zuqiu pointed out that in the face of the unprecedented supply chain crisis, car companies, as leaders in the automotive value chain, realized that they could no longer adopt the previous control methods, but should form partnerships with suppliers. It can be seen that car companies have begun to purchase chips directly. However, one difficulty is that the direct procurement of car companies may easily cause duplication of orders with first-tier suppliers, amplifying the demand for chips, and further aggravating the dilemma of chip shortage.
Wang Peng, chief consultant of Zoomlion's supply chain, also believes that many car companies are actively exploring in difficult situations. Taking chips as an example, everyone is trying to shorten the supply chain, that is, reduce the link from the production end to the use end, and the car company directly connects with the secondary supplier to enhance business initiative; At the same time, car companies establish "safety stock" by increasing the number of orders, so that although the cost of inventory will rise and the cost of the whole vehicle will rise, the risk of car companies is relatively controllable when they are relatively stopped and supply is cut off, and the selection of key components to stock up on goods makes car companies relatively controllable.
While increasing the reserve of core components, car companies are also actively looking for a second source, choosing the "1+1" strategy, developing multiple suppliers, and improving supply chain flexibility to avoid supply interruptions. However, when the whole industry is short of cores, the above strategies appear stretched and have little effect.
According to Gartner's prediction, half of the world's top ten car companies will design their own chips by 2025, and these measures will strengthen the control of car companies over their product roadmaps and supply chains. TSMC, Samsung and other semiconductor chip foundries can provide cutting-edge manufacturing processes, and other semiconductor suppliers can also provide intellectual property rights externally, which will greatly reduce the difficulty of chip custom design. "We'll see!" Wang Peng said.
03Building strategic partnerships is the biggest experience
Unstable, uncertain and uncontrollable is the new normal of the automotive industry chain in the context of repeated global epidemics and steep geopolitical complexity. Therefore, the experience of the past three years is worthy of deep reflection and warning for the global automotive industry.
Wang Peng believes that after this disaster, the automotive industry should realize that the supply chain is a chain of division of labor and cooperation, and a single point of vulnerability will lead to the paralysis of the entire automotive supply chain, whether it is logistics interruptions or high costs caused by inflation, which has aggravated the risks of the automotive supply chain.
In the medium and long term, first, it is necessary to increase the control of core enterprises in the automotive supply chain, improve the ability to resist risks, and reduce single-point vulnerability; The second is to seize the opportunity to actively promote the localization of the automotive supply chain, shorten the length of the logistics chain, and increase the rapid response capability; At the same time, it avoids the risk of automotive supply chain cracking caused by the unstable international political and economic situation.
In the new stage of the epidemic, to restore the resilience of the automotive supply chain, Zhang Zuqiu believes that the most important thing is to deeply understand the importance of supply chain stability, and automotive companies and suppliers should form strategic partnerships, and the higher the mutual trust, the more coordinated and synergistic forces.
"For example, we know the number of vehicles that OEMs roll off the assembly line every day, which is very important for suppliers; Car companies also have a deep understanding of us, know the utilization of our production capacity and quality data. This transparency is based on partnerships, and only transparent information and truthful delivery can make the entire supply chain more efficient. Zhang Zuqiu said.
Ren Ji, an outstanding expert in human resource management and a professor at Beijing Institute of Materials and Materials who has made outstanding achievements in the research of automotive companies and supply chains, also believes that transparency is an important foundation for improving the efficiency of supply chain operations. The automotive industry has a particularly wide and long industrial chain, involving many areas, and how these complex and dynamic information can be conveyed to the enterprises on the chain in a timely, punctual manner, automatically and accurately determines the operational efficiency of the entire system.
Ren Ji pointed out that the way to improve is digitalization. It allows enterprises to simulate the physical production process into a virtual form by implementing digital twins on the production process and production process, so that enterprises can more directly observe the production status and improve it.
04 Independent and controllable, giving opportunities to local suppliers
Every time the environment changes into a different "new normal", car companies need to rethink the supply chain model. As the pandemic enters a new phase, the chip shortage has eased, and past constraints seem to have improved, but in fact supply chain challenges are still obvious.
Zhang Zuqiu believes that in 2022, BYD will rapidly increase its volume, while some car companies that were originally optimistic will fall behind, which is enough to show that the market structure is far from stable. In 2023, the overall economic environment in recovery is not optimistic, under the fierce competition of many Chinese car companies, the market pattern laid in the early stage is likely to continue to be broken, and the fluctuation of demand will still be highlighted, which will also test the resilience of car companies.
It can be said that the best response is to create an independent and controllable supply chain. Ren Ji also believes that the balance of the original global division of labor in the automotive industry has been broken, and the supply chain system has been repeatedly impacted. The traditional pyramidal multi-level supply chain system is transforming into a flat multi-subject collaboration model due to the development of global digitalization and intelligent technology. In the past, the international division of labor system and industrial chain layout have seen a new trend of regionalization and diversification. The next key is how the Chinese auto market can build independent and controllable core supply chains such as intelligence and electrification on the basis of maintaining its current advantages.
At present, it seems that to break through the situation that the core parts of the car are stuck in the neck, it is necessary to give local parts companies development opportunities. For the core parts of automobiles, Ren Ji suggested: First, the state should focus on supporting industrial infrastructure investment; Second, the state must increase support, give an appropriate proportion of procurement to independent products, and give enterprises a chance to develop, so that enterprises can continue to develop and core technologies can hope to make breakthroughs.
Wang Peng pointed out that automobiles are a global industry, and the independent controllability of the automotive industry chain and open collaboration are not contradictory, on the contrary, under the premise of independent and controllable, there is more capital to develop global open collaboration, and local suppliers can truly have the strength to go global.
He believes that the autonomous and controllable automotive industry chain should mainly consider hard power and soft power.
Hard power means mastering core technologies, such as three electricity, chips and software, etc., and only by making breakthroughs in key technologies can we have the opportunity to participate in international competition and international division of labor at a higher level, thereby ensuring the security of the domestic supply chain; Soft power is to improve the management and collaboration capabilities of the automotive industry chain, improve the visibility of the automotive supply chain, help enterprises monitor risks in real time and respond to risks in a timely manner, and optimize upstream and downstream collaboration in the supply chain. In the future, the digitalization of the automotive supply chain will be an effective means to improve the visibility of the upstream and downstream of the supply chain.
Text: Hao Wenli Editor: Xue Yapei Format: Wang Kun
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