When the reporter recently went to Scania, he learned that this company, which had been bankrupt in the 1920s, has come back to life after hard work. From 1933 to today, the company has maintained a record of profit. An important reason for its continuous profit for more than 70 years is the use of component parts that are highly versatile in component production. Componentized production is the early form of modular production in the modern automotive industry. Today, modular production has become an important means for Scania to reduce costs, increase efficiency, and effectively participate in market competition. Some other well-known heavy truck manufacturers in the world, such as Mercedes-Benz, Volvo, and Man, also regard modularization as an important way to increase their competitiveness.
Heavy truck giants have implemented modular production
Modular production of automobiles is not a new term in China. Some people in the industry had already discussed this issue some years ago. Some say that modularization originates in the IT industry, and some say that it originated from the production of passenger vehicles. These arguments have not been proven. In the international arena, European heavy truck giants have already implemented modular production at the end of the last century. This is an indisputable fact. Among them, the time for Scania to start modular production dates back to an earlier period. In the 80s of the last century, Scania had already gone through the component production of spare parts and gradually transitioned to modern modular production.
According to industry insiders, there are mainly two forms of modular automobile production, one is a system module and the other is an assembly module. The system module is widely used in the production of passenger vehicles, and the assembly module is used in many areas of commercial vehicles. Scania is mainly produced as an assembly module and has always benefited from it.
Easy to get started
Most of the trucking companies in China do not consider this a difficult task when it comes to modular production. The person in charge of a company in Hebei once said, "We introduce foreign concepts, what size of the user's board, we provide what kind of board. This is called 'a la carte supply, modular production'."
Do you have different sizes of fences, even modular production? Strictly speaking, this can only be regarded as an entry level initialization of modular production. Since the scope of application is limited to such a component of a freight train, it is difficult to achieve the goal of comprehensively improving production efficiency and greatly reducing costs for modular production.
The leaders of several mainstream heavy truck companies in China have frankly acknowledged that although the modular production was implemented in local areas such as the cab and frame girders, no significant cost reduction was achieved. If we want to further expand the modular production, we must make parts suppliers reach the level that can supply a variety of modules, and there are not many such parts and components companies. In other words, most parts suppliers in China are still unable to meet the requirements for modular production of heavy truck companies. Specific performance in the development of limited capabilities, the convergence and compatibility between components is difficult to guarantee, quality responsibilities are difficult to define.
In addition, from another perspective, if modularization cannot reach a certain scale, not only can it not increase production efficiency and reduce costs, but it will increase costs and become a burden on companies. Therefore, the entry threshold for modular production does not seem to be high. A simple implementation of a small scope can also be regarded as modular production. However, it is not easy to truly achieve the goal of “achievementâ€.
An important means of forming a unique competitive edge
Hans, a spokesperson for Scania News, said that modular production is aimed at combining as many products as possible with limited parts. Scania currently uses more than 20,000 parts and components to combine thousands of models. This can not only greatly reduce maintenance costs, but also can meet the user's personalized needs.
It is understood that the reason why modular production can become Scania's unique competitiveness is an important reason why the main assembly of heavy trucks is entirely produced by the company itself. Moreover, most of the parts and components manufacturers have gathered around Nanteliyah, where Scania’s headquarters is located, to facilitate the unified design and coordination of the development department. Compatibility issues between components can also be better resolved.
Only with lower production costs and product prices that are slightly higher than the competitors due to satisfying the individual needs of users, can companies have stronger profitability and market competitiveness. Scania's successful experience is worthy of reference for heavy truck companies in China. China's backbone heavy truck companies also have a large number of spare parts suppliers. If these suppliers can take more responsibility for the R&D and production of automotive modules, the gap between China's heavy truck companies and international heavy truck giants in modular production will narrow. The market competitiveness can also be further improved.
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