In the new era that everyone imagines, how should the car be defined? Some people say that the car should be defined in software; some people say that the car should return to the essence of manufacturing; others say that the car is to find the two closest points on two parallel lines of high quality and low price...
Some Western scholars have said that the automobile is an industry within an industry. This means that the car, like everything in the Internet age, is called the attribute of the Internet, but the final name is its definition. Industrial cars, for more than a hundred years we've been thinking about how to make, to make a better, faster car. But we should not lose sight of the nature of manufacturing.
In the process of automobile manufacturing, automobile production has gone through the manual era, the assembly line era, and TPS. In the last four years, the most talked about car manufacturing has become TNGA. Since 2017, under the TNGA platform architecture, Toyota has launched dozens of models and sold millions of vehicles, which is enough to verify TNGA's technical strength globally.
How did this technology come about? Why did Toyota create TNGA in the hands of Akio Toyoda in the course of decades of development? In the eyes of the outside world, is TNGA an effective continuation of Toyota's decades of cost reduction? Or is it a purely efficient production? How should the relationship between these two be understood? In the future, what support can TNGA provide for Toyota's technological prospects for intelligent electric vehicles? What exactly does TNGA mean for Toyota? What was Akio Toyoda thinking? This series of questions is the one we need to answer when we reread TNGA four years later.
On October 15th, at the salon with the theme of "TNGA, Make future cars more 'charming'" hosted by Huanqiu Automobile Group, Wang Xin, CEO of Huanqiu Automobile Group and founder of AutoMotive Prophet, as a media person who participated in the discussion in the early days of TNGA's introduction to China, talked about what he saw as the impact of TNGA on the automotive industry.
Fast forward to 2008, the year that was the beginning of the US subprime mortgage crisis and the global financial crisis, but it was a good thing for China, and the Olympic Games opened up a beautiful future for China.
For Toyota, 2008 was also an unforgettable year, a year in which Toyota lost a lot of 437 billion yen. Looking at this number alone, there may be no concept. For example, it is equivalent to one and a half Huang Guangyu, two Robin Li, less than three Ma Huateng, less than four Wang Chuanfu, and five Wang Jianlin in 2008, and also breaks the business myth that Toyota has not lost money for 71 years.
At this critical moment, the baton leading Toyota was handed over to Akio Toyoda. From professional managers to family heirs, for a long time, our concept of Toyota was to wring out the last drop of water on the towel, believing that cost is king, the market share is the world's largest and other keywords. But in the hands of Akio Toyoda, what we have heard the most in the past 12 years is to reinvent Toyota's glory. What is the concept of this brilliance? I would like to start with a meeting, that is, several board meetings after Akio Toyoda took office, everyone discussed whether Toyota's future is "taking medicine" or "blood transfusion", based on this concept, all participants have four views:
First, realize that Toyota does have serious business problems and should change. Second, everyone believes that Toyota's performance fluctuations are an accidental phenomenon under the influence of the financial crisis, and Toyota's existing mechanism is still very good. Third, it is believed that Toyota only needs small internal adjustments, and taking a medicine should be able to cure the disease. Fourth, as a large-scale global enterprise, the maturity and continuation of the mechanism have been deeply imprinted in the heart, and it should not be changed. This is how companies should change from the institutional mechanism just mentioned, but Toyota did not talk about change. At the end of the meeting, all the participants came to the conclusion that Toyota should take medicine. However, Akio Toyoda decided to start a second business, completely overturned the original system structure, and prepared to perform a major operation on his own company.
Here, I will tell another story. This story is a story that is often consulted by a very multimedia teacher writing articles, and it is also a story that Akio Toyoda often tells on the board. It's a story about dentists, there are three dentists, the first dentist, who says he's the best dentist in the world, the second dentist who says he's the best doctor in France, and the third who says he's the best doctor in the city. Akio Toyoda asked, who is the most trusted dentist? Everyone may have different choices, Toyota Akio launched toyota motor sustainable development strategy, not to compete for the world's first, nor to compete for Japan's first, but to become the best local company. What does this sentence mean? I want to see this picture.
Unlike all the professional managers seen in the past in automobile companies, Akio Toyoda is the heir of this family, in my opinion, the CEO or chairman of a company, he pays attention to data, short-term KPIs, and even ten years of development. But in Akio Toyoda's eyes, he sees what his predecessor left behind for the company. Toyoda Sakichi developed Toyota, Toyoda Kiichiro started Toyota Motor, to Toyota Akio, he himself is very pragmatic, we are all thinking about what we can pass on for future generations, Toyoda Akio is also thinking about such a problem.
Akio Toyoda always said that he was looking in the mirror, and this year he was looking in the mirror for the 12th time, and I summarized how he thought about doing Toyota, and this is the premise of his doing TNGA.
The first phase was from April 2005 to March 2008, when Akio Toyoda served as Toyota's global vice president, and he saw Toyota's business model around global market share that led to Toyota's extensive development. Compared with the data of those years at that time, it was found that due to the gradual increase in Toyota's sales volume, it became the world's first, but the hidden danger behind it was a sharp increase in fixed costs, the revenue structure had a certain impact, and the quality of products appeared in many places.
The second phase was from 2008 to 2009, the year of the financial crisis. Toyota's over-reliance on regional markets and its failure to foresee major external impacts such as the financial crisis in time led to Toyota's first loss in 71 years. We will find that in fact, it is the logic of conventional professional managers, that the external shock is not large, that we can challenge or avoid accidental factors, and do not see long-term development. Blind focus on KPIs has led to an inventory backlog in the single market, with spending slightly higher than earnings. From April 2009, when Akio Toyoda took office to March 2013, he conducted a lot of research and study. In this time period, Toyota is facing a large-scale recall of the financial crisis, the East Japan earthquake, the floods in Thailand, etc., and he found that Toyota can no longer use the same model to be a large-scale first enterprise in the world, but should do it according to local conditions. At this stage, he compressed the cost and proposed that companies must strengthen the structure and re-exercise the muscles, rather than blindly losing weight. So this is also a core background for the birth of TNGA.
The third stage is from April 2013 to the present, toyota began to do TNGA, Toyota Akio adopted a deliberate suspension of the way, breaking the internal "Toyota is already very good" inherent understanding, in order to cope with the unknown era of intelligence and electrification, adjust the management, change the execution and organizational structure, external cooperation alliance, from the pursuit of the past to the pursuit of the future. Akio Toyoda's 12-year plan is also his background and thinking about TNGA.
We all know that TNGA is the latest production method, from hand-built to assembly line, to Toyota's lean production, how does TNGA do it? What exactly is the relationship with these few? Many people will ask, up to now, Toyota TNGA has been talking for so many years, why has no other company launched a similar concept? I think anything is a legacy, innovation in the inheritance.
The first point is the TPS Toyota lean production that we talked about. There are actually our Asian way of thinking, our car is not like the European car, a car is multi-purpose, we are multi-scene, which leads to the process must play the subjective initiative of people, the machine and people together, so Toyota's TPS lean production model allows Toyota's engineers to combine subjective initiative and mechanical assembly. In the assembly line production process, he is good at finding problems from the assembly line. Second, he adapted to the product needs of different regions of the world, laying the foundation for Toyota to become a global model and be able to understand the needs of different markets. Third, he exerted human subjective initiative and constantly optimized machine performance. For example, we see that in the TNGA process, many Toyota workers are constantly creating, and the current assembly line is only one person screwing a screw, but Toyota people solve how to screw five or even ten screws at a time, and they will strengthen efficiency in their own jobs, which is the labor released by TPS to the whole person. Fourth, we often talk about the reason why many companies are good at using TPS is to eliminate waste, reduce redundant costs such as inventory in upstream and downstream supply links, and improve Toyota's output efficiency. This is also an important reason why Toyota's round of chip shortage can smoothly survive the past. TPS has laid a good foundation for Toyota to calculate the materials we need in the future without backlogging inventory and costs.
At the same time as TPS, the engineer system was born. Each Toyota product is designed and developed by focusing on the main engineer, and the product output is realized through TPS. As a central link to communicate with multiple departments, it means a team of engineers per model, so many of Toyota's products have produced star models, including highlanders and crowns, which is the basis for personalized products and products that meet consumer needs.
Anything that reaches a certain stage of development will have a stage of problems. Although the CE system can quickly solve all the problems that occur in vehicles, all research and development work under the CE system has become very fragmented on the basis of tens of millions of vehicles. Toyota's layout of 10 million vehicles in the global market, more than 1,000 different production platforms in more than 70 factories around the world, and more than 800 engines equipped with different models have reduced Toyota's market response, R&D and design efficiency, and supply chain waste. Therefore, Akio Toyoda proposed a concept that Toyota should enter an era of building a new business model.
So what exactly is TNGA? Should we be called TNGA? Or should it be called the TNGA architecture? Or a TNGA module? Now there are actually a lot of names in China, I will first unify the English name with the Chinese name. The next thing I want to make clear is that TNGA is a Toyota architecture, not a specific platform, but a completely new architecture, and its goal is to make better cars with high efficiency and high quality. The three points of straightforward introduction are a consumer perception of things and a thing of enterprise efficiency, as well as strategic innovation.
The first point is perceived by the consumer. Now consumers must buy a car to see if there is a TNGA, with TNGA, they think TNGA is very good. This improves the basic performance of basic performance, driving, steering and parking, and it really improves that. The second point is to improve the strength of the product. The texture and configuration of the product are greatly improved. For example, the German Volkswagen and Toyota products of the same level of models, 2013 and 2018 two models of the same class, in the configuration price does produce a huge difference, and sales and market reflection are also proportional. This proves that consumer perception has succeeded in TNGA. Through cluster development, the assembly industrial control is flexibly realized. From the enterprise management understanding, that is, how Toyota has turned a manufacturing enterprise with a scale of ten million into a flat management, how to effectively reflect some market problems, to accept market problems, and to meet the needs of the market. The third point is the thoroughness of TNGA's efficiency reform. The automobile is actually an industry within the industry, which is not just to solve our own problems, now all companies think that it is procurement integration. Through the integrated form, it seems that everything can be done. But now, it may be that the change in process will lead to the collapse of the entire industry, and in the TNGA process, Toyota has just solved a reform problem. This is also the reason why there has been no phenomenon and reason for the emergence of a similar TNGA concept manufacturing reform in the outside world.
First of all, from the perspective of flat enterprise management, we have now turned more than 1,000 CE into a very flat management system, which should be the organizational structure in 2017, and now Toyota has made a series of reforms around electrification and intelligence.
First, TNGA has turned more than a thousand CE and production platforms around the world into six or seven platforms for easy management. Second, it turns the workflow into a circle. Third, the concept of changing the car to the second and upper cars allows consumers and engineers to quickly meet the market demand.
For the change of management system, in the past, the car was built in the hope of condensing this 80%, but it may be said that the engine is not good, so the control also needs to give up 20%, and the final car can only be 60% to 80% of the car, which is regrettable. But in the whole traditional industrial manufacturing system, we have no way to solve, so we will find a lot of cars, but there are always regrets when choosing, which is the original production model.
So what is the management system of the TNGA platform architecture? It is to make a basic adjustment to the original decentralized CE system, everyone sits together to discuss, such as to make a hundred percent engine, how the engine department provides a hundred percent chassis, who provides one hundred percent of the exterior interior, and finally combined, may not be one hundred percent perfect car, but avoids a series of problems in the linear programming linear production process, so that this product presents a more perfect car through a flat system.
TNGA is through flat management, first give you the best things, through cooperation and coordination, the parts of the general, power performance, fuel economy, design personalization, body structure, chassis center of gravity, and cost control of the seven product cores for centralized changes.
Is TNGA still popular or not? Four years later, everyone will say that the product is basically popularized, in the face of the new situation, is it still our current era of software and hardware? I think so. For one of the core understandings of TNGA, I think it is to spend the same money, do higher efficiency, the same man-hours, but the product power produced is different, and its efficiency is always 20% or even higher than that of other automobile manufacturers.
In the entire automotive hardware system, the car is ultimately the carrier of a person's mobile travel, and it is a carrier that must be comfortable. Electric cars want to do linear acceleration, but if the acceleration reaches 500 kilometers per hour from 100 kilometers, the car goes out and the driver is not comfortable. So the TNGA no longer starts with the entire space and body, but with the driver as an adjustment. Therefore, its body steel, suspension chassis is to completely solve the contradiction in the case of comfort and control.
On the issue of efficiency and quality, borrowing a concept, the picture on the right is a partner, that is, Toyota's supply chain, which shortens the production line. For example, Toyota's veteran supplier Tokai Rika and Toyota collaborated to develop a third-generation AT shift lever based on TNGA. At the same time, the two parties jointly improved the corresponding production line, shortening the total length of the 10.6-meter production line to 2.7 meters, reducing the online work of 3 employees, reducing assembly man-hours by 42%, and reducing equipment costs by 50%. In addition to the product, TNGA has also achieved a lot of things that we can't perceive, which is a very big step forward.
TPS is a foundation for the birth of TNGA, and anything is standing on the shoulders of predecessors, which is my personal feeling. The enlightenment brought by TPS is that the scene-based demand for automotive products in the Asian market has enabled Toyota to meet the ability to meet the needs of different markets around the world; the second is that toyota TPS pioneered by Ohno Has released the creative ability of engineers and technical talents, formed a bottom-up CE system, and can also accept top-down TNGA innovation faster; third, TPS has achieved strict cost and efficiency control, providing inspiration for Toyota's TNGA efficiency improvement. Fourth, Toyota's lean production and global layout, as well as the engineer team absorbed and established on a global scale through mergers and acquisitions, laid the foundation for TNGA's flat management.
On the other hand, I think toyota does TNGA, and the core that others can't do is the supply system. Most of Toyota's suppliers are subsidiaries or cross-shareholding companies, and other car companies are mostly from outside. Toyota's suppliers are mainly from its group or shareholding parts companies, which can cover most of Toyota's parts needs. Controlled upstream and downstream supply chains provide Toyota TNGA with the comprehensiveness and thoroughness of innovation.
All along, I think there are 3 concepts in the Toyota TNGA that are easy to misread. First, TNGA is not a simple modular production platform; second, optimize the cost of "earmarked funds"; third, TNGA and CE coexist: retain the advantages of the CE system.
First of all, the difference between platform, module, and architecture. First, the platform is used for models with similar basic structural elements, such as models of the same level, the advantage is intensive production, saving resources, and the disadvantage is limited compatibility and scalability; second, the platform is used for models with similar basic structural elements, such as models of the same level, the advantage is intensive production, saving resources, and the disadvantage is limited compatibility and scalability; third, the expansion of the concept of the architecture platform, after entering the architecture, modularity enters the deep level of collaboration. Architecture can be understood as a highly collaborative LEGO within, with a wealth of flexible options for R&D, design, manufacturing, and production. Compared with the simple modular production demands, TNGA is more like Toyota's comprehensive rethinking of automobile manufacturing based on the past CE, and TNGA is more comprehensive and in-depth than a modular production thinking.
The second point is that TNGA invests 120% to optimize the special funds. For example, the TNGA architecture builds modular production at the production stage and reduces initial investment by 40% and production costs by 20% through a modular platform. At the same time, the cost savings will continue to be invested in the research and development of this unit, so that the product investment will be transformed into "120%", so as to surpass the competitors in the parallel comparison of product performance and configuration, and form a technological acceleration advantage in long-term development.
Third, the CE regime will not be replaced by the TNGA. While introducing the TNGA structure, Toyota will reform the original CE system and retain the essence of the CE system. TNGA is responsible for the development and application of vehicle core technology, which is top-down development, while the reformed CE system is to improve the charm of each model from the bottom up, so as to achieve the difference of each model. It can be said that the "CE system" and the "TNGA" are the two wheels for Toyota to make better cars.
Toyota TNGA has been around for 15 years now. Over a long period of time, Toyota's market performance and product performance have been recognized. In addition to this, what vitality can TNGA bring to Toyota? First, intelligent + electrified future, TNGA can fully empower Toyota. The second point is to tap the development potential of the scale and quality of the Chinese market.
As far as I know, there are currently 4 major sub-platforms under the TNGA framework covering various brands and sizes, of which GA-B, which is responsible for small cars, is a new platform released in September 2019, and the first model is the 2020 Yaris in the Japanese market. In addition, the e-TNGA is specifically aimed at the framework of electric vehicles (the models of the four GA segments are traditional and hybrid models), in line with Toyota's electric vehicle strategy launched in 2020. The e-TNGA will be developed by Toyota and partners and can be subdivided into 6 sub-platforms, and has announced a mid-size SUV development with Subaru and a compact car development with daihatsu and Suzuki. Therefore, these six platforms are a potential foundation for electrification and the future development of the new four modernizations.
For Chinese public opinion, the woven city is an important plan for Toyota's electrification and intelligent development, and it is also an important embodiment of Toyota's logic. Huanqiu Automobile previously collected, interviewed, and sorted out information from various parties at home and abroad, and unveiled the mystery of Toyota's castle through 8 series of articles. In the process caused by Toyota, the TNGA production model also played an important role, which shows that this model is universal.
On the other hand, TNGA's potential for the development of scale and quality in the Chinese market has been tapped, and this time we take the birth of the Crown brand as an example. Now everyone can feel that as long as it is a product of FAW Toyota 4S store, it basically has to wait for three months. In this case, there is a voice that says, why should Crown come out alone to make a new brand?
Through the analysis of TNGA's perspective, I think Toyota still needs to do a good job of the Crown brand, and a few data can be found. Enterprises need a basic model size and the mainstay model size and the upper level of the scale, such as The German brand reaches nearly one million, there must be 10% to 20% of the high-end models and cutting-edge technology, to give consumers enough forward-looking, millions of vehicles to have quality, including consumers, supply systems, dealers. And the joint venture Korean brand, it just lost the top. Including luxury brands are also like this, cutting-edge models will always remain at about 20%, which can keep enterprises momentum, for the supply chain system, everyone is willing to play with you, for consumers, the next few years may be reflected in the model.
Now, Yifeng is moving towards one million vehicles, which is crucial for Toyota in China. In recent years, Toyota's parts system has been stable and the supply system has been stable, so that its products have a very good reputation and a solid user base in popular models. But on another level, we also think that this car can not be better. For Toyota, it can't change the existing brand tone, so we can make Toyota's products a little better and Toyota's services a little better through the Crown brand.
I think the crown has two things that can be done better, the first is the hardware, TNGA can completely make the Toyota brand's current car more refined, the lower body infrastructure better, the upper body according to our existing market demand to make a better car. The second is Toyota's customer operation and maintenance, such as retention rate, service efficiency, etc. From the perspective of the media, this is sentiment, but this is what consumers need most, and a minute cannot wait. So when we look at TNGA, we also see these concepts of the crown brand now, which are some specific points that I think TNGA has empowered in China.
What is TNGA? Manufacturing model, intelligent manufacturing representatives, we all know that China has been talking about intelligent manufacturing for so many years, I believe that after just listening, there is both an intelligent side and an intelligent manufacturing side, an industrial industry, anything needs human subjective initiative. I believe that TNGA is to TPS, CE Toyota in the past to do lean production, human subjective initiative and machine energy to the maximum, absorb the best, so TNGA now to do these four things: first, improve the basic performance and commodity strength; second, cluster development, flexible realization of parts and assembly commonality; third, together with suppliers including collaborative production, high efficiency and high quality car manufacturing; fourth, TNGA+TPS to help Toyota make a better car.