Geely Automobile, which owns Swedish carmaker Volvo, turned to CH-Auto around 2005 for help on a project that led to the Panda, now one of China's most popular small cars. CH-Auto was responsible for the exterior styling and engineering the underpinnings. The rest was handled by Geely, according to the two companies.
CH-Auto and Geely made a clear departure from copying with the Panda. To be sure, they still selected a car to emulate or bench-mark - in this case, the Aygo, a "city car" that Toyota produces in Czech Republic and has been selling in Europe since 2005.
But instead of simply producing a fake Aygo, engineers at CH-Auto first studied and tested the Aygo and its components - often with the help of three-dimensional digital scanners - to collect data on their design and performance. Then they tried to manufacture components by adapting parts made in China to match desired functions and performance. If suitable local parts weren't available, they worked with suppliers to create new ones by simplifying the scanned Aygo designs.
The purpose was "not to copy but approximate the Aygo," Dai said.
PANDA'S UNDERPINNINGS
One example is the Panda's chassis. The under-body carriage, which the suspension and wheels are attached to, is key to how a vehicle handles corners on the road.
The Aygo, which starts at 6,462 pounds (about $10,000) in Britain, has a relatively sophisticated under-body structure formed in a single piece by using a process called "hydroforming," in which pressurized water is used to shape metal. For the Chinese this was a problem.
CH-Auto and its chassis suppliers have no proven know-how in hydroforming. And the light-weight steel that Toyota uses for the Aygo's under-body carriage was too pricey for Geely to use in a car to be sold in China.
Geely and CH-Auto's solution was to use cheap "everyday" steel commonly available in China, Dai said. Geely and CH-Auto divided the Panda's chassis frame into two pieces - upper and lower units - to simplify their structure so they could be easily stamped rather than using the more expensive hydroforming method. Then Geely welded those two pieces to create a chassis frame for the car.
"The problem was our solution compromised the Panda's NVH," Dai says, using the acronym for noise, vibration and harshness, the key attributes of drive feel.
Dai's engineers tweaked the Panda's suspension, adjusting the so-called rubber bushes, or isolators, to make them softer to better absorb shocks and vibrations.
Despite using cheaper materials and processes, Geely and CH-Auto were able to largely match the performance of the Aygo's platform in terms of the vehicle handling and NVH, which Dai says was confirmed by a third-party testing company. More important, by tweaking the design and using cheaper materials and manufacturing processes, Geely and CH-Auto were able to produce a platform for the Panda with "roughly half" the Aygo's cost, according to Dai.
ELIMINATING "MAJOR RISKS"
Despite the advances in design, safety standards in Chinese-made cars still lag those of U.S. and European manufacturers, in part because its government doesn't impose as stringent a body of safety requirements.
What's more, Chinese car makers ignore what they consider minor, non-critical risks, such as using far fewer crash tests with dummies.
"If the client only gives me two-and-a-half years to design a car, then I can only eliminate major risks. And the smaller risks, well, there's nothing we can do," says CH-Auto's president Wang.
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China does have vehicle safety standards, and any automaker launching a new car needs to meet them. But there is no required number of crash tests.
Geely and CH-Auto do not want to do as much crash-testing as global automakers because creating prototype cars costs up to 2 million yuan a car ($316,000), CH-Auto's Wang said.
A Geely spokesman, Victor Yang, would not say how many crash tests Geely conducted on the Panda. But Yang noted that the Hangzhou-based automaker conducted "more than what's typically performed in China." For cars being developed today, it routinely conducts more than 70 crash tests, Yang says.
By contrast, an established global player such as Toyota routinely tests a new car by crashing it a "minimum 120 to 150 times," according to a Toyota chief engineer who spoke on condition of anonymity. If the car is sold in many different markets around the world, Toyota crashes even more cars, he said.
THE ROAD AHEAD
Nevertheless, the Panda is a watershed product for both Geely and CH-Auto. The car's stylized exterior - featuring a Panda-eyed grill and tail lamps in the shape of paws - was considered cute and timely when launched in 2008 to coincide with the Beijing Olympics.
The exterior contrasted with the car's highly utilitarian interior, including exposed screws and a plasticky dashboard. The 1.3-liter, 86-horsepower motor pulls the Panda from a standstill to 100 kilometers an hour in an unthrilling 13.1 seconds. Nor is the Panda, like other no-frills Chinese cars, ready to meet the stringent safety regulations of Europe and America.
But there is one very eye-catching thing about the car: its price. A new Panda starts around 40,000 yuan ($6,400) in China and about 5,000 euros ($7,400) abroad.
After the Panda, CH-Auto's business began booming. It developed or helped develop a slew of cars and sport-utility vehicles for Changfeng, an automaker affiliated with Japan's Mitsubishi Motors. The Changfeng projects then led to deals with Jiangling Motors Co. and Chongqing Changan Automobile Co., as well as Beijing Auto.
One of CH-Auto's upcoming models is a Beijing Auto vehicle based on technology the company purchased from the now defunct Saab of Sweden.
CH-Auto also has a major contract from Dongfeng Motor Co. — the 50-50 joint venture between Nissan and Dongfeng Motor Group Co. The team will develop a subcompact car based on the Nissan March (known as the Micra in Europe) to buttress a new "indigenous" brand called Venucia launched in China earlier this year.
The advent of the good-enough car is emboldening Chinese automakers to build up their own product development capabilities to rely less on CH-Auto and other independent engineering houses.
Geely, one of China's top indigenous car makers, is expected to sell about 370,000 cars in China and 90,000 abroad this year. By 2016 the company forecasts its export volume will hit as high as 300,000 or possibly 400,000.
"My vision," said Geely Chairman Li Shufu, "is to sell outside China the same number of cars we sell within China."
(Additional reporting by Hui Li and Jane Lee; Editing by Bill Tarrant and Richard Woods)
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アメリカとサウスコリアの時代？中国も黙っていない。
革新性とスピードが以前と比べものにならないほど要求される現代企業。
その変化が、かつての日本の企業文化を支えた教育システムと官僚主義を脅かす。
*****
The Sad State of Japan’s Consumer Electronics Giants
By Harry McCracken | October 1, 2012 | TIME MAG
Sony TVs and other products in a British store window in 1972.=写真
The Washington Post‘s Chico Harlan has a sobering story on the dicey financial condition of big Japanese electronics companies such as Sony, Panasonic and Sharp. Once they were the gold standard in gadgets; now they’re struggling to catch up with companies located elsewhere — especially the U.S.’s Apple and South Korea’s Samsung, both of which have helped create the smartphone boom which has largely left Japan’s giants behind.
If you’d told me a couple of decades ago that Sony wouldn’t be able to command a never-ending stiff price premium for an array of products based on its unique combination of technological prowess and general status symbolism, it would have been startling. Same thing for the notion of Samsung becoming known as a reliable maker of quality products rather than as a cut-rate also ran.
The biggest challenge these companies face is that nobody is standing still: By the time they catch up with Apple and Samsung, the world may have moved on to something new. And once you’re no longer a leader, it’s hard to bounce back to the top. Just ask Zenith, RCA or any of the once-mighty U.S. consumer-electronics brands which Japan Inc. displaced a few decades ago.
ソニー岐阜工場閉鎖、2000人解雇へ
Sony to close Gifu factory, cut workforce by 2,000
Saturday, Oct. 20, 2012 AP
Sony Corp. says it plans to close a factory in Gifu Prefecture, tweaking its restructuring plan by cutting 2,000 jobs from its workforce in moves expected to save it $385 million.
The company's Minokamo factory employs 840 people making lenses for digital cameras, lens blocks and mobile phones. Sony said Friday those operations would be transferred to other factories.
That closure plus an early retirement program involving Sony's headquarters and other facilities will cut its workforce by 2,000. About half of the reductions will be in nonmanufacturing support jobs.
Its profitability battered by the March 2011 disasters and other factors, Sony reported the worst loss in its 66-year corporate history for the business year that ended in March, with red ink hitting \457 billion ($5.7 billion).
日印混成のチームメンバーと現地コンサルタントの手作りカレーの昼食をとっていたある時、私はインドの大手プロフェッショナル・ファーム、Kochhar Business Servicesのマネージングコンサルタントで、私の相方であるManish Vig氏からからこんな指摘を受けた。「日本企業の製品・サービスは高品質・高性能なのに、なぜ企業経営はこんなにも非効率なのか？」
