Editor's note:
Recently, the news of Qingdao Doublestar's acquisition of Kumho Tires has become a hot spot in the industry.
In the past, mergers and reorganizations of the tire industry were often the acquisition of local companies by multinational corporations. The cases of domestic companies acquiring foreign brands rarely occurred. Under the increasingly fierce competition in domestic and foreign markets, this move of Qingdao Double Star was considered by the industry. To adjust actively for domestic tire companies to respond to market changes.
Cars and tires are twin brothers. Without the rise of the auto industry, there will be no recovery in the tire industry.
With China becoming the world’s largest automobile production country, China’s tire industry has also placed itself in the top spot in terms of production and sales. However, the entire tire industry in China is showing a large but not strong situation, regardless of the manufacturing level, and the added value of products. The degree of brand concentration is not too high. In today's booming Chinese auto industry, China's tire industry also needs to rush to catch up with China's automobile era.
In recent years, with the rapid development of China’s automobile industry, China’s tire industry has experienced an unprecedented market demand. How to seize the strategic opportunity period of 'Made in China 2025', change the current situation of being big but not strong, and catch up with the advanced level in the world, To increase the horsepower for the Chinese auto industry to change lanes and overpass, it has become the most urgent task in the Chinese tire industry.
As a state-owned rubber company with a history of 97 years, Double Star started the journey of 'Second Venture' in 2014. It built the world's leading industrial 4.0 intelligent factory in the tire industry and took the lead in exploring the large-scale customization of the tire industry. The transformation and upgrading of China's tire industry has brought new enlightenment.
China's tire industry is facing 'three low'
At present, the world tire industry is highly concentrated. The “Global Tire Business 2017” released by the US’s “Tire Business” shows that there are more than ten billion US dollars worth of companies in the global tire rankings: Bridgestone, Michelin, Goodyear and China. Most of them have strong financial strength and research and development capabilities, leading the development direction of the world tire industry.
China's tire industry is developing rapidly. In 2005, China’s tire production reached 250 million, which exceeded the 228 million in the United States and became the world's largest tire producer. According to large database data from the China Business Research Institute, China’s tire production reached 926 million last year. Article, an increase of 5.4% year-on-year. Industry insiders predict that China's tire production will exceed 1 billion in 2018.
Chairman of the China Rubber Industry Association’s tire branch, Chuang Yongsen, chairman of Doublestar Group, told reporters that although China’s tire production is large, it is 'large but not strong’ and mainly manifests itself in 'three lows': low brand concentration, and China’s entry into the world There are 34 tires 75 strong companies, but total sales are not as good as the second; product added value is low, China's tire production exceeds one-third of the world, but sales accounted for only about 20%; low level of manufacturing, high-end tires Most of the design, craftsmanship, and equipment are in the learning and simulation stages.
Grasp the opportunity of Industry 4.0 to catch up with the world's advanced level
Double Star is a full transition from the 2008 to the tires and machinery industries. The “three lows” faced by the Chinese tire industry also exist in Double Star: Plant, equipment and process are backward, gross margin, quality, energy consumption and user reputation are all significantly lower than Average industry level, companies are on the verge of losses.
In 2013, Chai Yongsen served as chairman of the Double Star Group and led the company to start its second venture. 'The global manufacturing industry is transforming into Industry 4.0 and smart manufacturing. This is the challenge faced by the global tire industry and the tire industry in China The important opportunity. ' Chai Yongsen said.
In the midst of the nationwide supply-side structural reforms, Double Star decided to eliminate outdated production capacity with its strong wrists, and set 60% of non-profitable, poor quality, high energy consumption and low reputation production capacity as backward production capacity with an annual production capacity of 4 million. Biased tires and ordinary steel tires with an annual capacity of 2 million are eliminated.
In June 2016, DoubleStar built the world's first truck-child tire full-process industrial 4.0 intelligent chemical plant and put into production. It has increased labor efficiency by 3 times, and reduced product non-performing rate by more than 80%. In July 2017, double-star transportation was completed. In December 2017, Double Star decided to invest 1.5 billion yuan to relocate the Dongxing Tire Factory in Shiyan, Hubei Province, and took the opportunity to build the world's leading tire industry 4.0 intelligent factory.
According to Zhou Shifeng, General Manager of the Double Star Tire Manufacturing Division, the Double Star Full Process Industrial 4.0 intelligent chemical plant adopts the binary MEP intelligent information matching system to realize the intelligent matching of information of objects, people, equipment and location, and solves the problem of global use of liquid or powder as raw materials. The manufacturing company was unable to implement the smart manufacturing problem in the whole process; the APS intelligent production scheduling system used by the factory was called by the German Siemens experts as the world's second tire company to apply APS to actual production, and it took the lead in the world. The world's tires intelligent manufacturing direction '.
'Through the construction of Intelligent Factory in Industry 4.0, Double Star's competitiveness in terms of product quality, cost and efficiency, delivery time and security has been fully enhanced.' Zhou Shifeng said.
User-centric promotion of large-scale personalized customization
Twinstar's Industry 4.0 Intelligent Plant is at the forefront of the world's tire industry, but this is not the goal of Double Star, and they want to carry out large-scale personalization on this basis.
'Our Industry 4.0 smart factory not only realizes product leanness, but more importantly it realizes product modularity, creating conditions for large-scale individual customization of tires.' Chai Yongsen said, 'Now we can provide tire treads, Structures, formulas and colors are four categories of personalized tire customization.
The large-scale customization of tires must first solve the safety problem, because some sidewalls and treads cannot be combined together, otherwise there is a potential safety hazard. Double Star subdivides target users into depots, fleets, 4S stores, auto repairs Eight categories, such as factories and consumers, use big data to classify complex individualized requirements as basic and variable requirements, and ensure the security of various module combinations through thousands of trials.
Now, as long as you log in to DoubleStar's Star Monkey Network, submit information such as car models, and then select the usual travel conditions and the required performance of the tires, including wear resistance, resistance, collision, etc., and finally choose the tire color according to personal preference. At the time, the back-end will generate a tire model and order price based on the information submitted by the user.
Nowadays, Double Star is no longer a tire, and it has launched a special fire-resistant tire for Jinpali. It has good flame retardancy and can be used in many fields such as firefighting, hazardous chemicals transportation, mining, public transportation, school buses, etc. Wild Master Series The safety features of the tires are prominent, and the shoulder part adopts a shield-like simulation design, which can increase the sidewall strength and can effectively prevent sidewall abrasions. The addition of aramid fiber in the side wall of the body armor material can easily withstand high-speed impact. In addition, this The tires also have 'black technology', the application of smart nano materials effectively automatically repair the tire hole, even if the tire can be run with a nail bar.
However, if someone has a custom suit, will someone customize the tire?
'The manufacturing industry has been monopolized by large companies in the past to carry out large-scale, low-cost and mass production. In fact, there are too many markets in the subdivision of the manufacturing industry. Small markets can be subdivided, nurtured, and subdivided. The market has great potential and great prospects. 'Chai Yongsen said: 'Our custom business has been growing. Although it has not yet formed a fashion, it is a trend. Once the customization era comes, the opportunity must be reserved for those who are prepared.'
Chai Wing Sum said that Industry 4.0 is not a simple machine substitution. If user needs are not found in the era of the Internet of Things, large-scale customization cannot be carried out. The faster the production, the greater the losses.
Push down the corporate pyramid structure
To carry out large-scale personalization and customization, Guangyou Industry 4.0 intelligent factory is not enough. It also needs a unitized organizational structure as a guarantee. Because the core of large-scale customization is to meet user needs, this requires employees to form different units. It is always connected with users. To this end, Double Star pushes down the traditional pyramidal corporate structure and explores organizational platformization and internal marketization.
Double Star has opened up all internal and external resources, and it has included all users, upstream and downstream resource providers, and so on. All of them can publish requirements, challenges and topics in the above, through collaborative innovation, to meet user needs. , Create value by solving difficult problems and completing tasks, share value.
Within Double Star, employees are divided into three types of units: R&D units, manufacturing units and market units. These three units are settled according to market principles, and require open front and back end resources, who can meet the needs of users who do, who's The higher the degree of satisfaction is, the more satisfied the user needs, the higher the degree of satisfaction, and the greater the value of sharing.
'The internal organization of the business organization is unitized and market-oriented. The purpose is to mobilize each employee's maximum subjective initiative and tap their potential to create maximum value.' Chai Yongsen said, 'Under this mechanism, they can not only meet the needs of users, It also creates demand, because some of the requirements did not exist before it was created.
Expanding to the entire industrial chain of the tire industry
Doublestar carries out mass customization of tires and provides tire-related services instead of tires. Because in the Internet of Things era, companies need to provide instant services based on user needs. Hardware is only a tool and is a service. One element.
According to Shi Yuanzheng, General Manager of the Service Center of the Double Star Group, Double Star has established the “Service 4.0 Ecosphere” in the automotive aftermarket, builds an integrated online website for Star Monkey, a social network, a passenger net, a star monkey car platform, and an offline experience shop. Shop, mobile star service network, can provide users with personalized, differentiated car services, to achieve online purchases by users, offline to store or on-site service, the entire process from user interaction, experience, transactions, to select service methods, practical On-site service, service evaluation, all realized the whole process closed loop.
Among them, the Star Monkey Garrison platform integrates the thinking and mode, integrates the automotive aftermarket products and service resources, and builds a “person, vehicle, and life” service platform. The service provider provides products and services for the users and one-stop service for users. , Keeping the whole lifecycle needs of the car, Realizing the platform, service providers, users win-win.
In the process of the construction of the Industrial 4.0 intelligent factory, Double Star is an independent R&D and production company. Based on these achievements and experiences, Double Star has built a smart equipment industrial park to produce high-end rubber equipment, environmental protection equipment, casting equipment, and industrial robots. equipment.
Since 2014, Twinstar and German Siemens have jointly established the Tyre Industry's Industry 4.0 Innovation Center to create an intelligent tire production program that complies with the Industry 4.0 standard; DoubleStar and Sweden ABB have jointly established a robot application R&D technology center, and developed and manufactured industrial robot application technologies; Cooperate with Hyundai Modern to enter industrial intelligent logistics.
Chai Yongsen introduced that waste tire pollution has always been a major problem that has plagued the development of the tire industry. Double Star sets the wisdom of global rubber cracking experts to develop smart equipment for the recycling of used rubber (tire) green ecological recycling equipment to crack waste tires into primary oil (after refining Can be used as car fuel), carbon black (can be used for reproduction), steel wire (can be used again for smelting) and combustible gas (as its own energy), to turn waste into treasure.
In December 2017, DoubleStar opened an industrialized and intelligent demonstration base for industrial recycling of waste rubber and green ecology in Henan. Binary plans to build this project into an industry model and replicate it, to create a 'combined fleet' of waste rubber and green ecological recycling. Waste rubber recycling industry accelerates in a greener, greener direction.
International M&A is another major path for Double Star to enhance its competitiveness. At the beginning of March of this year, Double Star and Kookmin Bank’s Kumho Tire Creditor Group reached an agreement, and Double Star will hold a 45% stake in Kumho Tyre with capital increase and become Its controlling shareholder. The capital increase is equivalent to approximately RMB 4 billion. It is expected that the transaction will be completed in the third quarter of this year.
'The advantage of Doublestar is the card passenger car tyre. The advantage of Kumho is the car tyre. The two sides just complement each other.' Chai Yongsen said, 'In addition, Twinstar will use Kumho's channels and brand advantages as soon as possible to double star and Kumho tires. Developed into a global leader in international business. '
