The car giant started by marrying the daughter of the king

Chapter 322: Insufficient Transport Capacity? A Direct and Simple Solution
The Chinese are very familiar with various groundbreaking ceremonies, offline ceremonies and other activities.

Both the ministries and the factories under them have rich operational experience in these activities.

Naturally, there will be no problems with the process of the BMW Light's offline ceremony.

After about an hour and a half, leaders at all levels finished speaking, and the factory director Jiang Hui finally went up to express his gratitude. The BMW light, covered with a big red silk, slowly came down from the production line, and the off-line ceremony was successfully completed.

However, with so many people coming from far away to participate in the event, it is impossible to send them away in just an hour and a half.

After the event ceremony, Jiang Hui naturally took everyone to visit the BMW production line.

"Lao Yang, the first impression of the BMW production site is that it is very neat and clean. We should learn from this."

Chen Qi followed the tour group and carefully looked at the various factory layouts and equipment of BMW.

You know what, at first glance, I really saw the difference.

Yang Qingshan, who was standing next to him, was the deputy director of the Capital Automobile Manufacturing Plant in charge of production, so naturally he would be promoted.

"Their production line was purchased from Suzuki Motor, and they probably learned the on-site management methods of Japanese car companies."

"I visited Toyota before, and they did a better job in on-site management than BMW."

"But I think the neatness and cleanliness of the site have little to do with the quality of a car."

"Instead of spending so much time on superficial work, it is better to improve the production process level."

Yang Qingshan's view should represent the attitude of many factory managers in China at this time.

In everyone's opinion, it is enough to arrange for workers to clean the production line once a week.

Because people do not pay enough attention to this issue, there are few clean toilets in various factories.

Not only did it smell bad when you walked in, but the floor was also dirty.

This situation was still common in many factories until the beginning of the 21st century.

If Jiang Hui listened to Yang Qingshan's words, he would definitely not agree.

In Jiang Hui's opinion, if a worker does not care about the hygiene of his workstation, how can people believe that he will be dedicated to his work?
“The level of craftsmanship naturally needs to be improved, but attention must also be paid to on-site hygiene.”

Chen Qi did not realize the relationship between good on-site 5S management and improved production efficiency. He simply felt that there must be a reason why Jiang Hui asked BMW to do so.

As long as it was not difficult for Capital Automobile Manufacturing to follow up on anything Jiang Hui asked for, Chen Qi felt it necessary to follow up.

Since Jiang Hui graduated from university until now, no matter what he has done, whether or not it was understood at first, it was ultimately proven that Jiang Hui was right.

Chen Qi, who is already aware of this, naturally has a certain tendency to follow Jiang Hui's style of doing things.

"Well, I looked at the equipment. It looks a bit old, but many of its structures and arrangements are quite different from ours."

"I think the next step is to consider asking the Ministry of First Machinery Industry to apply for some foreign exchange quotas and import some advanced equipment from Japan or other countries."

Compared with his concern for on-site hygiene conditions, Yang Qingshan is more interested in introducing new equipment.

This new equipment can be taken out and introduced to visitors continuously, and can also be mentioned frequently in the introductory materials.

During the equipment procurement process, there is also an opportunity to go abroad for on-site inspections and even receive gifts from the other party.

Yang Qingshan felt that this was the time when he could best demonstrate his authority as deputy factory director.

“Equipment procurement is of course necessary. After all, some of our processes do require new equipment to be improved.”

"However, the focus at this time is to complete the construction of Shouqi Jeep's new factory, and only then will the relevant foreign exchange quota be freed up for us to use."

Although Shouqi Jeep was a company established with AMC with a lot of manpower and material resources from Capital Automobile Manufacturing Plant, during this process, Capital Automobile Industry Company, which originally had no presence, also began to change.

In order to better manage the capital's automobile industry, the capital city referred to some overseas practices and incorporated various automobile factories and parts factories under the capital city into the management of the Capital Automobile Industry Corporation.

It is equivalent to the Capital Automotive Industry Corporation being a group company, and the factories under it being branches.

Although the Capital Automobile Manufacturing Plant and the Capital Automobile Industry Corporation are of the same level, Chen Qi, the factory director, also serves as the general manager of the Capital Automobile Industry Corporation.

But the trend may slowly change in the future.

In the future, Capital Automobile Industry Corporation will be the leader of its subsidiaries such as Capital Automobile Manufacturing Plant and Capital Jeep, and Chen Qi will gradually focus his work on the industrial company.

Otherwise, if the city arranges people to work in the industrial company, Chen Qi will be depressed.

In this case, Chen Qi must also take into account the situation in the city and give priority to the construction needs of Shouqi Jeep.

The Capital Automobile Works just needs to slow down a bit.

"I am a little worried about whether the Jeep models from AMC will have an impact on the sales of BJ212 after we introduce them."

"Don't waste a lot of manpower, material resources and foreign exchange to build Shouqi Jeep, only to find that it will compete with our own products in the end. That would be totally unworthy."

Yang Qingshan's worry is obviously not without reason.

After all, Shouqi Jeep’s first product is the Jeep off-road vehicle, and its positioning has many similarities with BJ212.

"Even if Shouqi Jeep doesn't produce off-road vehicles, other automakers will definitely consider producing similar products after seeing the hot sales of BJ212."

“Instead of giving the opportunity to compete to others, we should take it into our own hands.”

"It will be easier to deal with any situation that may arise in the future."

"Besides, Jeep is a world-famous car brand after all. Its sales price will definitely be higher than that of BJ212. I think it is better to say that they cooperate with each other to expand the off-road vehicle market rather than competing with each other."

Chen Qi's ideas were obviously different from Yang Qingshan's.

The domestic automobile market has changed, with various types of models constantly emerging, and it is inevitable that the competition landscape will intensify.

If Capital Automobile Industry Corporation does not take action quickly, it may not be able to live well in a few years.

……

Chen Qi and Yang Qingshan kept communicating with each other while visiting the BMW production line, and the other visitors naturally had their own feelings as well.

"Xiao Jiang, the layout of your production line, especially the layout of the final assembly workshop, seems to be a little different from that of other automobile factories." As a workshop that assembles various parts together to finally form a car that consumers see, the importance of the final assembly workshop has not been fully recognized by everyone.

Many factories think that the final assembly workshop is just for assembling parts and does not require any special technical content.

In fact, the installation order of each component and the setting of each workstation are actually very particular.

Especially in the automobile industry, which relies on assembly line production, if the settings of different workstations are unreasonable, production efficiency will be greatly affected.

With the same staff and time, others may be able to produce 100 cars, but you may only be able to produce 80, which will lead to a difference in production costs.

Eventually, small amounts add up to a lot, and your factory's profitability will be much higher than others.

Take Toyota and General Motors for example. In terms of scale, the gap between them is actually not that big.

But Toyota's rate of return is much higher than General Motors.

One of the important reasons is that Toyota has done a very good job in cost control of parts and components, and has done a very good job in production site management and cost reduction.

Many on-site management methods in the later automotive industry actually have some influence on Toyota.

"When we set up each process, we fully considered the installation time required for each process and which auto parts need to be assembled into small parts and which can be directly put on the assembly line."

“So it looks different from the layout of the final assembly workshops of other car factories.”

Jiang Hui briefly explained why Zheng Haiming felt that the workshop in front of him was different from other automobile factories.

He is not afraid that others will learn this trick.

It is impossible to grasp the essence of production line layout through a simple visit.

"After visiting your production line, I am even more looking forward to the next performance of BMW Light."

"If you can really break all kinds of records in a short period of time and become the largest automaker in China in terms of sales, it will be of great significance to the development of the entire Chinese auto industry."

Zheng Haiming now needs more star enterprises to bring him political achievements, so that he will have the opportunity to go further.

Although the Capital Automobile Manufacturing Plant performed well, he was promoted based on his performance here. It would obviously not work if he wanted to use the same strategy in the future.

After much thought, BMW cars should be the most anticipated.

"We have fully considered the domestic market environment in the design of the BMW Light, and simplified various components to the greatest extent possible to minimize its failure rate."

“Even if there is a malfunction, it makes repairs much easier.”

"Ultimately, we will significantly reduce production costs and provide everyone with a versatile car."

Vans had a very strong market throughout the 1980s, 1990s, and even after entering the 21st century, their performance has not been bad at all.

BMW launched the BMW Light as early as the end of 1983, and the effect is definitely worth looking forward to.

Sure enough, after the BMW Light officially rolled off the production line, many companies began trying to place orders with BMW.

Especially in the capital area, many leaders of ministries and commissions attended the offline ceremony, which triggered the first wave of sales of BMW Light.

"Director, we have a backlog of more than 1000 orders that have not been delivered. The Spring Festival is coming soon, and it will become more difficult to coordinate the transportation capacity on the railway side."

"I think we should ask the Special Administrative Region to help us?"

Chen Chenxing is in charge of the marketing of BMW cars. He must be very anxious because the cars cannot be shipped on time.

After all, Shenzhen is a very young city. Even with various preferential policies of a special economic zone, its railway transportation capacity cannot be improved in a short period of time.

Large items like cars were mainly transported by rail in that era. If they had to rely on trucks, it would be impossible to find trucks specifically designed to transport cars like those in later generations.

"The shortage of railway transport capacity is not a new situation. It has been there for several years. Every carriage is very important, not to mention the others."

"In this case, if we want to ship our BMW Lights, it will take up a lot of railway capacity, so we need to consider other solutions."

Rail transportation is very important to the automotive industry, especially before road transportation developed.

However, railway capacity is tight and train speeds are slow. Even though BMW cars are highly valued in the SAR, it is very difficult to easily obtain large amounts of transport capacity support.

Because the level of their railway department is higher than that of Shenzhen Special Economic Zone.

You can't control other people, so why should they listen to you?

Jiang Hui was very clear about the ins and outs of this, so he had no intention of causing trouble for the Special Administrative Region.

"Transportation is nothing more than rail, road, water and air. Rail is not good, road is unreliable, water is lacking in suitable transport ships, and air is even less worth mentioning."

"Are we just going to watch the BMW Lights we produce pile up in the parking lot without being able to deliver them to customers in time?"

Chen Chenxing felt a little depressed.

This situation is a little different from what he thought.

"There is insufficient transport capacity. Can't we just ask each unit to arrange drivers to come and drive the vehicles back?"

"Isn't the BMW Sunshine in short supply right now? We'll give priority to those companies that are willing to arrange for drivers to come pick up the cars themselves."

"I think there must be a lot of units willing to send drivers here."

Jiang Hui directly proposed a simple and crude plan.

This plan will definitely be criticized in the future and has no feasibility at all.

But in 1983, things were completely different.

The current automobile market is still a seller's market, especially for models that are in short supply.

If BMW is willing to appropriately subsidize the drivers' transportation costs, more people will probably be willing to come.

"Just ask someone to come and take the car away?"

Chen Chenxing was stunned for a moment, and immediately realized the feasibility of it. "I will immediately arrange for someone to contact them and see which units are interested."

(End of this chapter)