In recent years, the overall decline of Japanese household appliances in the Chinese market has led to sluggish market sales, further affecting sales and profits. This has caused Hitachi’s lack of profits to support the entire value chain of home appliance manufacturing, and has had to reduce the production costs of electronic product accessories, such as Reducing the quality of parts, etc., leads to unstable product parts quality.
Rule of Law Weekend Trainee Reporter Wu Wei
Hitachi, a Japanese brand that has fallen into a mass quagmire, has recently set off in the appliance circle.
Recently, a washing machine product sold by Hitachi in China's home appliance market was reported to be unqualified by the State Administration of Market Supervision (hereinafter referred to as the State General Administration of Supervision of the People's Republic of China). The main reason for the failure was continuous harassment of voltage.
This is just a microcosm of Hitachi's home appliance products in the Chinese market.
The rule-of-law Weekend reporter found that Hitachi rice cookers, air purifiers, air conditioners, and refrigerators, etc., have all been found or detected as having quality problems.
In response to issues such as product quality and performance in the Chinese market, the Rule of Law Weekend reporter recently sent an interview e-mail to Hitachi Group (hereinafter referred to as Hitachi) and Shanghai Hitachi Home Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as Shanghai Hitachi). No specific reply has been received at the time of writing.
However, the Rule of Law Weekend reporter confirmed from a staff member who did not want to be named in the Hitachi washing machine department in Shanghai that the Hitachi washing machine failed to receive widespread attention.
Continuous disturbance voltage reduces product lifetime
On April 4, the State Administration of Urban Supervision issued the "Circular on the State Supervision and Inspection of the Second Batch of 27 Product Quality Appraisals of the Second Batch of Casual Wear in 2018," which is for daily use and textiles, electronic appliances, light industrial products, and agricultural production materials. , machinery and security, electrical and material and other 6 categories of products for random checks.
Among them, the Hitachi pulsator XQB80-BW household washing machine sold by Shanghai Hitachi, under the inspection of the fifth institute of electronics of the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (National General Electronic Components and Product Quality Supervision and Inspection Center), mainly failed the project. For continuous disturbance voltage, alleged failure.
The relevant person in charge of the State Administration of Urban Supervision revealed during an interview with the Legal Weekend Weekend that the continuous harassment voltage problem was mainly due to the fact that the product did not use the proper power filter and the cable wiring of the equipment was unreasonable. The harassment signal was transmitted to the power supply network through the power cable. When other electronic products and the product share the same power supply network, they may cause interference to these electronic products.
'The continuous disturbance voltage is one of the products' non-conformity indicators. For a washing machine, this item's failure will affect the stability and reliability of the product's use process. If this situation is not resolved for a long time, it will shorten the service life of the washing machine. . Wenji, a researcher of the home appliance circle think tank, introduced it to the Law Weekend Weekend reporter.
'The environment for product testing is very different from the domestic complex environment. Continuous disturbance voltage can cause voltage fluctuations. This problem is more serious and can cause voltage instability, trigger tripping and other problems.' said industrial economy observer Hong Shibin.
Hitachi Appliances Hits the Black List in Recent Years
The rule-of-law weekend reporter combed out that Hitachi's home appliance products were not on the quality black list for the first time.
In 2017, the Guangdong Provincial Administration for Industry and Commerce had disclosed that a model KF-26GW/J air conditioner manufactured by Hitachi Wuhu failed because of the 'protection against live parts' and 'grounding measures'.
Coincidentally, in October 2016, the former AQSIQ had identified Hitachi EP-A3000 240B air purifiers, EP-A5100C air purifiers originating from Japan as unqualified, for the following reasons: 'signs and instructions, power connection and External cord 'standby power'.
So what are the reasons for Hitachi Frequency's 'quality blacklist' in recent years?
In Hong Shibin’s view, this is related to the value chain of Hitachi’s home appliance manufacturing. He believes that in recent years, the overall decline in Japanese household appliances in the Chinese market has led to sluggish market sales, further affecting sales and profits, which has caused Hitachi’s lack of profits to support home appliance manufacturing. A set of value chains, and then have to compress the production costs of electronic parts, such as reducing the quality of parts, leading to the instability of the quality of product components.
In addition, the conversion of products to OEMs overseas has resulted in unsecured quality control, which may be one of the reasons for Hitachi's product quality problems.
'Most Japanese companies that focus on home appliance manufacturing have gradually shifted or no longer focused on home appliance manufacturing business. This trend has a better impact on Hitachi than other Japanese home appliance companies, because Hitachi has its main business elevator. Manufacturing, as well as other businesses such as solar energy, electric vehicles, and other areas of business support. 'China E-Commerce Research Center contributing researcher, investment financial lawyer Dong Yizhi said.
According to the report of the Japan Economic News on March 30th, Hitachi Ltd. has begun to discuss entrusting the production of some white goods to the outside. Hitachi’s white goods have been manufactured almost entirely in Japanese factories before, but low-priced products will be transformed into overseas companies in the future. OEM.
Eliminating 'China Standard' through Market Supervision
'Actually, issues such as continuous disturbance voltages have previously occurred on Japanese electric appliances sold in China and are now also common. ' Dong Yizhi told the reporter on the Rule of Law Weekend that since the system of Japanese electrical appliances is consistent with British standards, the format of domestic electrical appliances in China is International Standards. However, Japanese home appliance manufacturers did not consider the use of electrical appliances in China at the time of design. More consideration is given to the Japanese or European and American countries' standards, leading to a large gap between the voltages, standards and standards of some Japanese appliances and China. There will be various problems in use.
In addition, he pointed out that many international brands do not use international standards after entering the Chinese market, but rather use the 'Chinese standard'. For example, when dealing with post-sale issues such as recalls, they treat Chinese consumers differently than other countries, and thus To protect their own interests.
In Dong Yizhi's opinion, although the former AQSIQ divided the batches of different batches of products on the domestic market every year, and published a list of qualified and unqualified products and their production companies, 'they are still very limited'.
He stated that although the 'quality blacklist' announced by the SAWS has an impact on the 'brand' of corporate brands, it is not punitive. 'We will gradually be in line with international standards in the future and accept foreign goods and brands to enter China. At the same time, is it possible to draw lessons from Western countries' penalties and management experience on quality issues?'
The State Administration of Urban Supervision disclosed to the reporters for the Rule of Law Weekend that the State Administration of Municipal Supervision has instructed the quality and technology supervision departments of various provinces and municipalities to carry out post-processing work for unqualified companies in accordance with the provisions of laws and regulations in response to issues discovered during the national supervision and spot checks of product quality in 2018. At the same time, we will inform the local government and related departments about the unqualified products in the spot check and take effective measures to urge the enterprises to implement the main responsibility for product quality and safety in accordance with the law, guide the company to strictly organize the production in accordance with standards, and effectively maintain product quality and safety.
Dong Yizhi further stated that it can be seen from the recent reform of the State Administration of Urban Supervision that the country is integrating market supervision models. Whether the “black list” announced by the national quality inspection agency can be used as a punishment basis for relevant departments and consumers sue quality companies The evidence, these problems also need to be continuously improved in the future countries.
Wen Jian believes that the level of product quality failure rate depends on the industry's overall barriers to entry and comprehensive competitive strength.
He said that at present, the passing rate of washing machines, refrigerators and other products is much lower than that of color TVs and air conditioners. The key is that the barriers to entry in their industries are relatively low, there are a large number of small and medium-sized micro-enterprises, and even hand-workshops, which directly produced some unqualified The no-name and small brand products also lower the overall product quality qualification rate.
Rule of Law Weekend Trainee Reporter Wu Wei
The Rule of Law Weekend link is http://www.legalweekly.cn/article_show.jsp?f_article_id=16009
