·Perspective "Hita Sky Airbag Door" spare parts global procurement hidden dangers
On June 25, Japan’s Takada Corporation held a press conference. Takada Mao, CEO of Takata Corporation of Japan, made his first public appearance after the disclosure of the Takada airbag incident. He apologized for the Takata airbag issue at the press conference and said that he was investigating.
However, the incident did not end here. On the day of Takada’s press conference, Toyota, Nissan and Mitsubishi issued a statement saying that the number of vehicles equipped with Takada airbags was again recalled on a global scale, totaling 3.18 million. At this point, the total number of recalled vehicles in Takada airbags is about 44.22 million, and this number may continue to increase.
It is said that the relevant agencies predict that the recall of the "Gaoda airbag door" will eventually exceed the Toyota "pedal door" and the general "ignition switch door", becoming the largest car recall event in history.
About the protagonist Founded in 1933, Takata is a multinational company specializing in the production of automotive airbags, steering wheels, seat belts, electronic sensors and other automotive safety parts. It is headquartered in Tokyo, Japan. Takada provides airbags for Toyota, Mitsubishi, BMW and many other automakers, accounting for 22% of the global airbag market.
Background Boards Takata Airbags and Many Since the beginning of last year, a series of recalls triggered by Takada Airbags have become the focus of the industry. The recalled companies include Toyota, BMW, Mitsubishi, Subaru, and Honda. The reason for the recall of this incident is also strikingly similar: when the co-pilot airbag is deployed, the gas generator container may be damaged, causing the debris to fly out and injure the inside of the vehicle. According to statistics, it has been confirmed that Gaotian airbags are associated with 6 deaths and more than 100 injuries.
Car companies have suffered from the problem of Takada airbags, especially Honda has been the most affected. On the 8th of this month, Honda announced that it would recall 106,722 cars including Civic and Feng Fan in the Chinese market.
The drawbacks of global procurement exposure are actually to some extent, nowadays car companies are doing more of car assembly work - their seats may come from Japan, the engine may come from Germany, the car system may be American... Of course this Nothing is not normal. The car companies have limited energy. It is impossible for all the spare parts to be produced by themselves. It is also wise to choose excellent cooperative enterprises. According to experts, since the 1990s, many car companies have adopted the practice of globally purchasing spare parts. The larger the batch size, the lower the cost, thus occupying an advantage in market competition.
However, centralized procurement also brings great risks. Once the supplier has problems, the production and sales links will be implicated. In fact, as early as 2008, the problems of Takada airbags began to be gradually exposed to the public's vision, but car companies still can not give up cooperation with Takada, and also have a lot to do with this form of procurement. In the field of airbag production, Takada has a large market share, and Takada Airbag and two other companies account for 80% of the global airbag market. Once the car companies give up Takata to choose other airbag manufacturers, Takada will encounter problems, and the car companies will face the test of capacity and technology because there are no matching replacement parts. Some experts said that Takata airbags accounted for a high proportion in the world. Once it went bankrupt, no spare parts manufacturers could make up for it by increasing production capacity. However, after the successive recalls caused by Takada airbags, the most affected Honda announced that it was fuel-efficient and space-saving, and did not use Takada airbags and switched to the safety of Daicel’s company when it launched the new Shuttle in Japan. Airbag.
Global sourcing has indeed increased profits for car companies, but this too close connection has made the entire chain of car production extremely fragile, and interlocking means that once a problem occurs in one link, the entire chain will break.
Massive recall or new normal In the global auto parts market, Japan's auto parts industry has a strong technical advantage. Thanks to this advantage, Japanese spare parts manufacturers have quickly established a monopoly alliance, resulting in the production of cars in various countries. Japanese spare parts companies are over-reliant.
According to the data, among the top 100 auto parts and accessories selected by American Automotive News in 2014, there are 29 Japanese companies on the list, 6 more than the US, 10 more than the auto industry Germany, and the list is selected. Enterprises also have few competitors in the world auto parts industry. This also shows the important role of Japanese spare parts companies in vehicle assembly. For example, the 2011 Japan earthquake triggered a large-scale suspension of Japanese domestic companies, and Japanese auto parts companies were unable to complete orders on time. This caused the Volkswagen, Volvo, General Motors and other auto companies that imported spare parts from Japan to slow down. Production speed. According to statistics, due to the natural disaster in Japan, as of the end of March of that year, the world's automobile production decreased by 600,000 units.
Analysts believe that it is not surprising that large-scale recalls have taken place today. Under the trend of automobile manufacturing platform and spare parts, the auto parts and accessories are globally procured. Once a problem occurs in a spare part, it will be A number of multinational automobile brands have to be collectively recalled, and the chances of similar “bulk-based†problems will gradually increase in the future.
Japan's auto parts and accessories not only affect the traditional automobile production countries, but also have a huge impact on the Chinese market. Automotive industry commentator Zhang Zhiyong said that in the first half of last year, the number of imported Japanese spare parts accounted for more than a quarter of the total import quota of auto parts, and the importance or influence of Japanese auto parts companies on the Chinese auto industry. It is bigger than the automobile manufacturing industry, and it also exposes the major concerns of the Chinese auto parts industry.
Compression cost or quality decline For car companies, how to produce cars faster and more economically, the pursuit of profit maximization is the goal that they have been pursuing, from the initial global procurement model to reduce costs, to platform and generalization of zero. The production and use of accessories can be seen in the control of the cost of auto parts.
However, in recent years, there has been a new problem in the aftermarket. Some automakers have been concentrating on the purchase of spare parts in order to further reduce costs, repeatedly lowering the price of suppliers and squeezing spare parts manufacturers. Car companies have lowered the price of spare parts manufacturers, which may lead to spare parts suppliers to cut profits in order to maintain profits. On the other hand, experts say that auto parts require strict quality testing when they are undergoing technological innovations, and some even need repeated testing. This not only increases time, but also increases capital costs. This will be for suppliers and car companies. Pressure is generated, and the inspection time is also gradually shortened to reduce costs, but the quality risk of the parts increases. In this Takata airbag incident, Toyota, which is said to be the most technically demanding, was also involved.
In addition, a series of problems exposed in the spare parts market also reflect the relationship between car companies and suppliers. In the final analysis, they must be interdependent and mutually supervised. Spare parts enterprises should supply qualified products. At the same time, car companies should also strengthen the supervision of spare parts enterprises, strictly control the quality, and cannot cause series matching problems due to the rushing schedule and compression test time.
A series of recalls triggered by Takada Airbags may continue for some time, but for car companies, how to get along better with spare parts suppliers and avoid such incidents may be a long-term issue.
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