Rebirth 99 to become a car giant

In 2004, the localization rate was still a topic that every joint venture car company would pay attention to when reporting internally.

However, as the models launched by various car companies all meet the standards on the surface, the importance of this data is slowly declining.

For Chinese private enterprises like Xingchen Motors, normally no one cares about your localization rate.

But if the boss has a request, someone will naturally take care of it.

Not to mention that the parts purchased directly cannot be imported from overseas, even some parts purchased from China, we also hope to achieve 100% true localization as much as possible.

Obviously, there are difficulties and difficulties, so there are such requirements and goals.

Otherwise, who cares about the data?

"Minister, I'm not trying to quibble. It's actually a hollow stabilizer bar produced by any domestic stabilizer bar manufacturer. The pipes are all imported from abroad, without exception."

"We found Mubea and ThyssenKrupp from Germany, as well as Yangcheng Rizheng from Dongying, plus local companies Yangcheng Huade and Huaxia Spring Factory. Five suppliers competed for quotations."

"Although the prices of the latter two are relatively cheap, they have never done the business of hollow stabilizer bars. I think the prices have no reference value."

"The hollow pipes of the first three companies are either imported from Germany or Japan. There are no pipes that can be used to make hollow stabilizer bars in China."

Lu Feng, the buyer in charge of chassis parts, is making a report on the localization of parts to Su Mingxing.

Most of the parts in the chassis field are iron lumps.

With the cooperation of Nanshan special steel, basically the materials do not need to be imported.

But I didn't expect that the hollow stabilizer bar, a part that doesn't look so complicated, has lost the chain.

This made Su Mingxing a little annoyed.

Lu Feng also felt a little wronged, it was not his fault.

After searching all the manufacturers in China, none of them has domestic hollow pipes, so what can I do?

"Isn't it just a pipe?"

"Is it that difficult?"

"Why does everyone need to import?"

Su Mingxing suppressed his anger, and planned to clarify the situation first.

"Minister, before answering this question, let me briefly introduce the situation of the stabilizer bar."

"The function of the stabilizer bar is to prevent the car from rolling over when the car is turning or the left/right wheels are subjected to different loads, so as to improve the operating stability of the car."

"At the same time, the ride comfort of the car can also be improved."

"The current stabilizer bars mainly have two specifications: solid and hollow."

"Based on the force characteristics of the stabilizer bar in actual work, the research institute designed it as a hollow stabilizer bar, which can achieve a weight reduction effect of about 40%."

"The stabilizer bar of a car can be said to be a part that survives in the cracks. Usually, the spatial arrangement of the stabilizer bar needs to be carried out after the spatial arrangement of the subframe, steering gear, swing arm, shock absorber and other parts is completed."

"In order to meet the safety clearance distance with the surrounding parts, most of the car stabilizer bars have different shapes and bends."

"The hollow stabilizer bar in this complex shape needs to meet 200,000 endurance tests under specific experimental conditions, requiring it to have high strength and low stress."

"And it must meet the design requirements of stiffness, and no fracture will occur under the conditions of the limit test."

"And in order to reduce weight, the wall thickness cannot be set too high."

"In this way, the tube-making process of the hollow stabilizer bar is very complicated."

"And the hollow stabilizer bars are machined differently than the solid ones."

"The solid stabilizer bar is thermoformed, and a special thermoforming machine is required to bend the stabilizer bar, and then perform heat treatment such as quenching and tempering, while the hollow stabilizer bar adopts cold-bending method according to the space direction of the stabilizer bar. Then heat treatment and other processes."

"This cold bending process also has high requirements on the pipe material, otherwise it will break or some hidden defects will appear if you are not careful."

"So if we want to achieve localization, we must either change to a solid stabilizer bar, or we can only import pipes from abroad."

Lu Feng obviously did a lot of preparatory work.

For the parts he was responsible for, he also went to several manufacturers to conduct on-site investigations. After confirming that there was really no way to localize them, he could report to Su Mingxing so confidently.

"According to your statement, there is no way to localize the pipes of the hollow stabilizer bar. The main reason is that the domestic pipe-making process is not up to standard?"

After listening to Lu Feng's explanation, Su Mingxing basically understood the current situation.

But if you understand it, you understand it, whether you accept it or not is another matter.

"Yes!"

"Simple hollow stabilizer bar base material, Nanshan Special Steel can produce products that meet the requirements."

"But I couldn't find a suitable pipe maker."

"It is very difficult to produce such a high-strength carbon steel as a small-diameter pipe."

"This pipe also needs to be cold-formed into a complex-shaped stabilizer bar, and the requirements for the pipe have been raised several levels."

"Otherwise manufacturers like Mubea and ThyssenKrupp would not choose to import."

"Even a few years earlier, the hollow stabilizer bars used by Spring City Volkswagen and Modu were directly imported from overseas."

"Now at least it has evolved to the import of pipes, and the assembly is processed in domestic factories."

Lu Feng explained further.

However, when he said this, Su Mingxing immediately thought of another question and said, "There should be many places on our chassis that need to use pipes, right?"

"For example, some of the components on the steering column are processed using pipes, and even the shock absorbers also need to use pipes."

"Some other parts, such as the instrument panel beam and seat frame, also have demand for pipes?"

"These pipes don't all need to be imported from overseas, do they?"

When Su Mingxing asked such a question, Lu Feng immediately felt guilty.

How do you answer this question?

It's not the parts that I am responsible for. If they add extra reporting work because of my answer, they will definitely be complained by then, right?

After all, whether it is a seat frame or a shock absorber, there are many components on it.

Under normal circumstances, Su Mingxing would not pay attention to a single pipe part.

Even if it is a hollow stabilizer bar, 70% of the cost is on the pipe, and it is difficult to avoid this problem.

"I'll check this again."

It was impossible not to answer, so Lu Feng had no choice but to bite the bullet and adopt a delaying tactic.

However, Su Mingxing did not intend to let this matter go.

Instead, after finishing the report, he went to find Xie Lingyun of Nanshan Special Steel.

...

"President Su, are you suggesting that we set up another pipe-making factory?"

Xie Lingyun is also a member of the Xingchen No. 1 new model project team, and he is quite familiar with the development of new models.

"Yes!"

"Lightweight cars will be a general direction in the future, and more and more parts will be designed with this requirement in mind."

"For parts like the stabilizer bar, if you design them as solid, the weight of a bar may reach 6 kg, but if it becomes hollow, 4 kg or even lighter can meet the requirements."

"Calculated from the front and rear poles, the lightweight effect is still very worth looking forward to."

"In addition to the hollow stabilizer bar, there are many places on the whole vehicle that also need to use pipes."

"Even our pipe factory can consider making stainless steel pipes in addition to steel pipes, so as to get back this part of the profits."

Xie Lingyun was also moved by Su Mingxing's explanation.

As the general manager of Nanshan Special Steel, he naturally hopes to make the company bigger.

But according to his understanding, Cao Yang should not intend to expand the production capacity of the special steel plant in the near future.

In this way, it is worth considering from another dimension to build a pipe-making factory.

For Xie Lingyun, who is proficient in steelmaking, the pipe making process is no stranger.

Basically, it is a pipe making machine. Nanshan Equipment may be able to help design it.

There is even a pipe-making factory. In addition to using the steel pipes produced by Nanshan Special Steel, it can also make full use of the production capacity of Shaoguan Steel to process some relatively ordinary carbon steel into pipes.

After all, for most pipes, it is not necessary for the base metal to have very high performance.

This can be regarded as a disguised expansion of Nanshan Special Steel's business.

"The hollow stabilizer pipe has not been localized for so many years. It is estimated that there are some unique difficulties in the pipe making process that we have not mastered."

"If the situation in this regard is not clear, we will rashly propose to the group to open a new factory, and it is estimated that it will not be approved."

Although Xie Lingyun also knew some basic pipe-making knowledge, he didn't specialize in this after all.

So even if he was a little moved, he would not immediately agree to Su Mingxing's suggestion.

"Mr. Xie, your worries are indeed justified."

"However, I think that the lack of localization in the past was more due to various coincidences."

"Early models were generally solid and stable, and there was no need for this."

"That is to say, in the past few years, more models have slowly started to be equipped with hollow stabilizer bars. It is not surprising that domestic pipe manufacturers have not caught up in time."

"Or for some pipe manufacturers, it is more profitable and easier to produce ordinary other large pipes, so why produce this kind of pipes with high technical difficulty and requirements, and the demand is not so large?"

Su Mingxing obviously wanted to persuade Xie Lingyun to take the initiative to find Cao Yang to set up a pipe factory.

As long as this pipe factory is in place, the relevant pipes on Xingchen Automobile can be localized.

Even Nanshan Auto Parts can further use these pipes to produce some parts by itself.

For hollow stabilizer bars, domestic manufacturers still need to use imported materials, and the cost is definitely not advantageous.

Can Nanshan Auto Parts work hard to win this market?

"Su Bu, your analysis makes sense."

"I'll arrange someone to go and investigate with your procurement department to see if the pipe factory needs to be set up, and if it can be set up."

...

"Lu Gong, it's not that we don't cooperate, it's because we can't find pipes that meet the SPEC requirements in China, so we import them from Deutsche Mubeir."

"As far as our current quotation is concerned, I dare not say it is the lowest, but it should be competitive in the industry."

"As far as I know, ThyssenKrupp's factory in China also uses pipes imported from Germany."

"The price per kilogram of their pipes should be more expensive than ours."

Qian Jun, Mubeir's sales manager, seemed very confident at this time.

Before entering the Huaxia market, they also investigated Huaxia's auto suspension spring and hollow stabilizer bar business.

Except for Thyssen, an opponent who has a certain degree of competitiveness, they feel that they have no opponents in the industry.

Even in terms of hollow stabilizer bars, they have done some cost comparisons themselves, and feel that the current price is enough to win orders from OEMs such as Volkswagen and GM.

Star Motors, a newly established local company, has a planned output of only 10,000 units.

The price given by myself is already very good.

Now I still despise this and that, and want to force myself to find a domestic stabilizer bar manufacturer.

They were even asked to submit a report explaining the difference between the hollow tubes they used and the domestic ones.

Naturally, Mubeir was unwilling to respond to these demands.

"I also understand what you said."

"Hollow stabilizer bars are a relatively cutting-edge technology application, and the experience accumulation of various domestic manufacturers is indeed a little bit worse."

"But I think the future trend is to achieve 100% localization."

"You are also very clear that domestic labor costs are not an order of magnitude compared with European labor costs."

"The same parts, produced in China, must be cheaper than in Europe."

"I even think it can be exported to Europe after being produced in China."

The localization of the hollow stabilizer bar cannot be done in a short period of time, but the work of Landwind has not stopped.

On the one hand, we need to find ways to reduce costs.

After all, the important purpose of 100% localization is mainly due to cost considerations at this stage.

The issue of supply is not so sensitive yet.

On the other hand, Nanshan Special Steel has started the project review of the pipe manufacturing plant.

Nanshan Equipment is even preparing to launch a research and development project for pipe-making equipment.

Because of the investigation, it was found that all the pipe-making equipment used by domestic pipe-making manufacturers are imported.

Even if it is relatively low-tech, one set will cost several million.

As for some stainless steel pipe production lines, which are more difficult and high-tech, the cost of one production line is more than 10 million.

But in the eyes of many people in Nanshan Equipment, the construction of pipelines is actually not that complicated.

As long as the welding parameters and roll forming parameters are set, other costs are very low.

A 10 million pipe production line, even if it is sold at 8 million, still has at least 200% profit.

This business can be done.

"I understand what you said, but at this stage we have no way to do more."

"If there is a demand for hollow rods in Huaxia in the future, maybe the headquarters will consider investing in a pipe production line in Huaxia."

"In the short term, it is definitely necessary to continue to use imported materials."

Qian Jun's attitude was already a little impatient.

The orders Mubea currently receives are mainly from European and American manufacturers such as Volkswagen, BMW, and GM.

For the projects of Huaxia's own brand, very few hollow stabilizer bars are currently used.

Or even say no at all.

That is to say, Xingchen Motors was the first to propose the use of hollow stabilizer bars, so whether it is Mubel or ThyssenKrupp, they all want to get this number one.

"If we want to go to your pipe factory in Germany to confirm the production process and ensure that the performance of the parts meets the requirements of the drawings, is it convenient for your company to arrange it?"

Lu Feng knew that there would be no results if the discussion continued, so he asked a new question.

If Nanshan Special Steel wants to build a pipe factory, it is best to be able to see how others do it.

At that time, there will be a lot of learning, and the difficulty of doing it will be reduced a lot.

After all, there is no domestic manufacturer that can produce this kind of pipe for the stabilizer bar.

It is estimated that the significance of learning from domestic production lines is not great.

Besides, German steel pipe manufacturers, whether it is Mubeir or ThyssenKrupp, are indeed world-class.

Not to mention anything else, the barrel on the Krupp cannon is the most convincing evidence.

"I need to ask for instructions. I can't answer you yet."

"However, our steel pipes in Deutsche have practical application results in many European car companies. In fact, Xingchen Motors does not need to worry about it."

Qian Jun couldn't help complaining in his heart, thinking why Lu Feng was so busy.

"Then trouble you to help communicate, our quality and research and development want to go to the site to confirm, in order to carry out further testing."

Lu Feng sensed the other party's impatience, so he didn't continue to ask.

However, what he didn't expect was a hollow stabilizer bar, and there were more and more things behind it.

"Mr. Cao, there seems to be no problem with this process parameter. Now we can arrange personnel to start producing the pipe making machine."

Unless it is a trivial matter, the internal affairs of Nanshan Group are rarely not reported to Cao Yang.

For things like reviewing and developing a new type of equipment, or building a new factory, it is natural to report to Cao Yang immediately.

Otherwise, if the boss doesn't agree, you start to invest resources in this area. What do you want to do?

After hearing the idea of ​​Nanshan Equipment, Cao Yang set several key parameters for the pipe-making machine proposed by the other party after a few days, and also gave out the drawings of the most critical welding machine.

As for how these blueprints came from, Pan Jinxing didn't ask.

Cao Yang would not answer him even if he asked.

In Pan Jinxing's view, Cao Yang should have cultivated a group of commercial spies who were able to obtain information from some manufacturers.

In other words, Cao Yang arranged for people to use illegal means to buy these blueprints.

"Although the pipe making machine is not a large amount of equipment, if the pipe making needs of all walks of life are gathered together, the demand will be very considerable."

"All automobile exhaust pipes require a large number of stainless steel pipes. This market will not be small."

"There is also a demand for pipes for various hollow stabilizer bars, instrument panel beams, seat frames, shock absorbers and other parts. If the domestic supply can be provided, I think the relevant OEMs are interested."

"In addition, if the steel pipes used in various pipelines can also use our equipment, then the demand can be expanded many times at once."

"This pipe-making equipment should not be so difficult for ordinary people."

"Small tubes and very large tubes, the tube-making equipment they use is the most difficult."

The best thing Nanshan Equipment is doing now is the press, which can basically be said to be the world's number one.

Then, in terms of various machine tools and equipment, it can already meet most of Nanshan's own needs, and the next step is to promote it to the outside world.

But overall, the presence of Nanshan equipment in the industry is far lower than that of Nanshan auto parts.

Cao Yang obviously also wanted Nanshan Equipment to keep up with the development of the group.

If Nanshan Group wants to completely become the backbone of China's auto industry, it is definitely not enough to rely solely on car manufacturing.

The production of various parts is just a supplement.

The production equipment and materials of related parts are actually more critical core technologies.

Just like presses, Nanshan equipment can produce all kinds of excellent PRG presses and TRF presses, which means that Nanshan has a deep grasp of the technology of stamping parts.

Otherwise, you will not be able to produce a good press at all.

"Mr. Cao, speaking of this, I have a proposal."

Pan Jinxing thought about the sales of various equipment, and thought he could take this opportunity to raise it.

"Now the sales of various companies are basically under the unified management of the group."

"This is of course beneficial, but as more and more products are sold, it is often necessary for the factory to have its own sales in order to better sell products to customers."

"So I think that in terms of sales business, the group can have someone who is responsible for connecting with the sales department of each branch company, but the specific customer follow-up is the responsibility of each factory itself."

"Even apart from some basic science and cutting-edge technology research and development, the research and development work of the group research institute can also be divided into various branches."

"As long as the headquarters has grasped personnel, procurement and finance, other specific tasks are handed over to the corresponding departments of the branch."

Pan Jinxing is not a power lover.

He knew that Cao Yang knew his character.

Otherwise, they would not have dared to propose such a bold plan.

After all, this plan has the meaning of increasing the rights of the heads of various branches.

"The various branches are responsible for the sales. I don't think it's a big problem. We can do it first."

"However, in terms of research and development, because different branches will use many similar technologies, the group research institute will coordinate and coordinate, and the efficiency will be higher."

"Of course, the general manager or deputy general manager of each branch company can concurrently hold a position in the corresponding project team of the research institute, so that it is convenient to grasp the progress of research and development in a timely manner. This is also necessary."

Cao Yang is not the kind of person who doesn't listen to other people's opinions.

Nor is it someone who is what other people say.

Pan Jinxing's suggestion made sense and he directly adopted it.

If it feels inappropriate, a more flexible solution is used to deal with it.

Pan Jinxing didn't have any opinion on this.