Text/Capital Of the Day
Vigilance is the attitude that should be.
Japanese manufacturing is getting deeper and deeper into the quagmire of counterfeiting.
Recently, Japanese media reported that in the three years from June 2017 to October this year, the company exported a large number of non-compliant car audio parts to European car companies, with a quantity of more than 335,000 pieces. Europe has implemented new regulations for radio equipment since June 2017, and Mitsubishi Electric's parts have not met the new standards, so they are non-compliant products. However, Mitsubishi Electric Company not only concealed that the product was compliant, but also forged relevant documents. When the local agency inspects the product, Mitsubishi Electric Company uses the modified product to pass the test, creating the illusion that the entire batch of products meet the standard.
Japanese Mitsubishi executives have come out again to bow and apologize, but the outside world seems to have become numb to it. On April 20, 2016, Mitsubishi admitted for the first time that in order to "optimize" the test results, it deliberately cheated when setting the load value of the tire, resulting in a difference of about 5%-10% between the final result and the true value. In just one hour from 3 p.m. to 4 p.m. on the day of the incident, Mitsubishi Motors' stock price plummeted by about 15%, and its market value instantly evaporated by $6.6 billion. It is reported that it is its partner Nissan that reported Mitsubishi's counterfeiting.
On November 24, 2017, Mitsubishi re-exposed the scandal that Mitsubishi Electric Wire Industries and "Lingshen Copper Co., Ltd." of the Mitsubishi Group had falsified millions of product data in the past 2 years and 1 year, respectively, while the companies that purchased these products were mostly in the aircraft and car industries, with 229 and 29 companies respectively, including Boeing in the United States and Airbus in Europe.
Mitsubish is not a separate company, but is a group of numerous independent companies, most of which use the name "Mitsubishi" but do not simply call themselves "Mitsubishi." There are 28 core members of Mitsubishi Kinyokai (also known as The Friday Club), about 500 mitsubishi member companies, about 400 companies with "Mitsubishi" in their names, and hundreds of mitsubishi companies with no "Mitsubishi" in their names. The business activities of these companies are conducted independently and even compete with each other in many fields.
It is worth mentioning Mitsubishi Heavy Industries. In World War II, Mitsubishi Heavy Industries produced a large number of weapons and equipment for the Japanese military, all over the land, sea and air, as long as there is a Japanese army, there will be equipment produced by Mitsubishi Heavy Industries. Mitsubishi Heavy Industries' business is quite extensive, covering the manufacture of transportation equipment, weapons, machine tools, nuclear energy equipment, aerospace equipment and other products. But its most important product is still military products, because it is Japan's largest defense contract contractor, today's Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, responsible for Japan's land, sea and air equipment manufacturing, and established a complete production and research and development system.
Such an important and well-known company in Japan is repeatedly involved in counterfeiting, but what about other Japanese companies?
In fact, since 2015, Japanese companies have been frequently exposed to fraud and cheating, causing the "human design" of "Made in Japan" to collapse. For example, Founded in 1933, Takata's airbag and seat belt business had a global market share of nearly 20 percent at its peak. In May 2015, Takata admitted for the first time that airbags were a hidden danger and recalled about 32 million vehicles.
The incident shocked the world. As of 2017, at least 18 people worldwide had died due to defects in Takata airbags, and more than 180 people had been injured, involving up to 120 million cars. In June 2017, Takata filed for bankruptcy protection with liabilities ranging from $10 billion to $50 billion.
For example, on May 18, 2016, Suzuki also admitted to irregularities in the measurement of fuel consumption. They placed tests that should have been outdoors indoors. Nissan, which reported Mitsubishi, was no better. On September 18, 2016, Japan's Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism found that they had used unqualified personnel as quality inspectors during an inspection of Nissan's factory, so they ordered it to rest. However, the "bold" Nissan regarded it as a "wind in the ear" and did not correct it. This can make the Japanese government angry, and immediately ordered the suspension of production of the six Nissan factories involved.
On October 8, 2017, Kobe Steel admitted that from September 2016 to August 2017, the aluminum and copper products produced by its factories had falsified material data. What's even more shocking is that they started falsifying data as early as 10 years ago, and this behavior has been approved by senior leadership, which is a systematic and substantive problem for the company. Kobe Steel ranks 53rd among global steel companies, and as one of the world's top 500 companies, its annual crude steel production can reach 7.259 million tons.
It is reported that more than 200 companies around the world have been pit by Kobe Steel, in addition to aircraft, motorcycles, air conditioners, such as Tesla, Ford, General Motors and other car manufacturers have also been affected. From October 10 to 11, Kobe Steel's stock price plunged by 34%, and its market value shrank by $1.5 billion. It is also reported that Kobe Steel also bid for the Three Gorges Project, and the inspected products were not selected.
Not only that, but also Subaru "quality inspection door" and mileage fraud, Toray tire tampering data, etc., in the three years from 2015 to 2018, Japan's well-known enterprise fraud cases have been repeatedly exposed, coupled with Mitsubishi Electric's counterfeiting incident, so that the outside world suspects that Japan's "craftsman spirit" has collectively fallen, and even schadenfreude that Chinese companies may usher in opportunities.
Theoretically, Company A is caught up in a fraud scandal, and Company B, as a competitor, may really have a chance to take advantage of the situation. But how easy is it?
Public information shows that from the perspective of the competitive landscape of the global motor market, it is dominated by several large multinational enterprises, such as General Electric (GE), Siemens (SIEMENS), ABB, Toshiba Mitsubishi (TMEIC) and other developed countries, with prices significantly higher than similar domestic products more than double.
What about domestic motors? Unfortunately, although China's drive motor industry has won rapid development, from the perspective of matching with the whole vehicle, domestic motor technology is still lagging behind foreign countries for about 5 years, and most of them are low-end products. The main reason for lagging behind foreign countries is that core raw materials and components such as high-speed bearings, silicon steel sheets, and IGBTs for domestic motors are highly dependent on imports, and the procurement price is relatively high, and the cost reduction is more difficult. Secondly, domestic motor enterprises are generally small in scale, weak in economic strength, and insufficient production facilities. It is understood that at present, most of the domestic motor off the line, controller assembly, logistics, etc. are still mainly manual and semi-automatic production.
It must be admitted that despite the frequent occurrence of counterfeiting incidents, the quality of Japanese companies is also first-class in the world. This is also due to Japan's "quality to save the country" strategy implemented since the 1950s. Through the "industrial rationalization campaign", we actively advocate total quality awareness for the majority of enterprises, and put product quality upgrading at the national strategic level in the same important position as industrial structure adjustment, trade nation-building, trade revitalization and other policies.
At the same time, Japan has continuously established a complete legal system for the protection of consumer rights and interests through legislation, which has formed a strong back-pressure mechanism and external constraints on the quality behavior of enterprises. Third, a quality certification system has also been established to form a guiding mechanism for quality standards. In addition, the education system has been reformed many times, and a series of occupational policy legislation has been established, and a vocational education system with the goal of cultivating a team of high-skilled "craftsmen" has been successfully created.
To put it bluntly, Chinese manufacturing is taking the road of "climbing the slope" of Japanese manufacturing, and we must face up to this reality. Bragging at every turn, flickering to the end of the damage is still made in China itself. The prominence of a point does not represent Made in China. Think about it, while the Chinese people scold Toyota to reduce the allocation, while adding money to queue up to buy Highlander, you should understand where the gap is.
Compared with some overly optimistic industry insiders, the regulator is still very calm and objective.
In 2015, Li Yizhong, former minister of the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology and president of the China Federation of Industrial Economics, bluntly said at a forum five major problems of Made in China: backward standards and specifications, shoddy manufacturing, counterfeiting is not uncommon, service systems are missing or underdeveloped, and e-commerce and online shopping have yet to be standardized and perfected.
In 2018, Wang Xiwen, director of the Institute of E-commerce of the International Economic and Technical Cooperation Center of the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, said that although China is already a manufacturing power, the manufacturing industry is "big but not strong", and there is still a big gap with the manufacturing power, and there are three major problems: unreasonable industrial structure, low added value of products, large energy consumption, and serious pollution.
In September 2020, the former director of the Department of Industry of the National Development and Reform Commission, Nian Yong, said that due to the short industrialization time in China, although it has become the world's largest manufacturing system in terms of scale, there are many problems, mainly three major shortcomings, namely, weak industrial base, incomplete industrial chain, and poor industrial environment.
Simply put, whether the terminal product can be competitive depends on the improvement of the entire industrial chain, which is a basic and systematic breakthrough. Japanese companies are fake, Chinese companies have opportunities, this idea is good, but it is difficult to achieve. Even if the opportunity can be seized, vigilance is the attitude that Chinese manufacturing should have.
[Daily Capital] is the author of today's headlines for four consecutive years. This article is for communication purposes only and is not investment advice, please be aware of the investment risks. Code words are not easy, if your mobile phone still has electricity, please help like, forward. Thank you