Fake scandals keep shutting down who pushed Japanese manufacturing down to the altar

All along, "Made in Japan" is synonymous with "Quality Takes," "Quality," and "Artisan Spirit." However, a series of recent fraud scandals have made "Made in Japan", especially the Japanese automobile manufacturing industry, at the forefront. First, in early October, Kobe Steel, Japan’s third-largest steel maker, was exposed to scandals that falsified product data and continued to ferment. Many Japanese car companies were affected. Even some of Japan's Shinkansen trains, H2A rockets, and Mitsubishi regional airliners are Unfortunately, "recruitment." Immediately after Nissan was exposed for more than 20 years, there have been cases where undocumented personnel have conducted final quality inspections on new cars, which is surprising. If this is not a "decline", Subaru will immediately become the next Japanese automobile brand to fall into the same category. It has also been exposed to quality inspection fraud, and this has allowed undocumented technicians to conduct final inspections of vehicles for more than 30 years.

In less than a month, Japan's three manufacturing companies have repeatedly exposed counterfeit scandals, and people have to express their emotions. The "Made in Japan" shiny gold label is gradually fading. In fact, we can already see this sign from the previous "Takada Airbag Door" and "Mitsubishi Fuel Consumption Door." So, what exactly caused the myth of "Made in Japan" to gradually vanish? What experience and lessons can Chinese automakers learn from them? What implications does this have for rising "Made in China"?

â–  Falsehood storms one after another

A few days ago, Japanese Kobe Steel executives, including President Kawasaki Boye, are considering whether they should resign and take responsibility for data fraud scandals. They are expected to make a decision after the results of an investigation conducted by an independent investigator. Last month, Kobe Steel acknowledged that it had tampered with product quality data for decades. The scandal has had a huge impact on the entire global supply chain. Hundreds of companies that purchased raw materials from the company, including Toyota, Ford and other automakers, as well as Boeing, the United States, have suffered. Some of Kobe Steel's brass products have lost Japanese industry standard certification, and the Ministry of Economy, Trade, and Industry of Japan required Kobe Steel to explain in detail a data fraud scandal within one month and appointed an external investigation team that is expected to be completed before the end of the year. Announced results of the investigation of the Kobe Steel fraud incident.

At present, Nissan is conducting inspections on problem models sold in Japan. After the Nissan counterfeit scandal was exposed, Nissan Motor Co. found an external investigation team to investigate the matter. According to Reuters latest news, Nissan is improving the inspection process. Nissan's five local factories that stopped production due to inspection scandals just resumed production on November 7th. However, they immediately revealed that the training of their inspectors had leaked questions and training in advance. There are questions about time and so on. Nissan said that the company is retraining and testing quality inspectors; the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport of Japan is also investigating the company's local factory quality inspection process. At the same time, Nissan announced the recall of 1.2 million passenger cars produced in the past three years for sale in the Japanese market for re-inspection.

On November 6th, due to the clamor of “fake doors”, Subaru President Ji Yongtai held a press conference in Tokyo to apologize. He said that Subaru has about 245 quality inspectors in its assembly factory in Gunma Prefecture, Japan. Four untrained staff members participated in the final quality inspection of the car. What is more, in the past four years, Subaru's Japanese factory has an average of eight undocumented people on average every month to conduct final quality inspections on the cars. They are actually only interns; what's more, the problem of counterfeiting at the quality inspection stage is not a matter of years. It has existed for more than 30 years. These were all discovered after the company’s internal investigations revealed that the Nissan quality inspection fraud scandal was revealed. At the press conference, Ji Yongtai stated that Subaru has submitted relevant report documents to the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism of Japan, the Ministry of Land and Resources of Japan, and the Japan Tourism Administration, and will recall about 400,000 vehicles in Japan.

â–  Influence in China is not yet obvious

The "Made in Japan" crisis has a geometric impact on the Chinese auto market? Excluding the continuous recall of Takada airbag safety issues, at present, the more influence of the data fraud issue of Kobelco seems to be reflected in the imported cars in Japan. Mazda, Mitsubishi, Toyota and many other companies have indicated that the data fraud of Kobelco has not affected them. In a car made in China, Ford said in a statement that it uses counterfeit aluminum materials from Kobe Steel in the hood of Chinese-made Mondeo models, and it is currently confirming whether engine parts are damaged.

Nissan Co., Ltd., which exposed quality inspection fraud, said that the fraudulent incident occurred only in parts of Nissan's Japanese factories. The vehicles involved were only sold in the Japanese domestic market and did not affect other regional markets, including the Chinese market. A few days ago, a reporter of “China Automotive News” called Pang Qinghua, Chairman and President of Great Motors, and Chairman of Subaru China. He replied: "At present, the company has not received any news from the headquarters, but the company has done research on the incident and believes that the case does not involve quality issues, and imported products have been strictly tested at customs ports." Pang Qinghua told reporters The lack of quality inspection at the Japanese headquarters did not harm the quality of imported Subaru products.

“At present, China only has requirements on the quality of imported products, and there are no requirements on the regulatory provisions of the exporting countries.” A staff member from the AQSIQ told this reporter that the regulations governing the quality inspection of Japanese car companies belong to management. Sex regulations are not in the scope of import product inspection requirements. Unlike Japanese car companies, Chinese car companies are required to apply for corporate quality certification from the China Quality Certification Center and receive their annual supervision and inspection. Therefore, there will be no missing quality inspections for Japanese car companies.

“The quality of products that may be imported into China is not affected, but it does not mean that their brands will not be affected.” The outbreak of the “Made in Japan” scandal reminds us that we must strengthen the supervision of imported products in the future. At present, China is taking sampling inspections on imported products. The system should adopt a one-hundred-hundred complete inspection system for newly imported products.” An industry expert who asked not to be named stated that there may be some problems in the import of imported products, but some importers and users are afraid of being held responsible. Unwilling to tell the truth, only a 100% inspection system can fully protect the interests of consumers. In addition, the parameter requirements for whether the imported product meets the contract during the inspection process should also be regarded as an objective judgment criterion, instead of just looking at whether or not there are quality problems.

â–  Talent shortage superstition technology

Then how did the "Made in Japan" quality image collapse? From a macro perspective, this is related to Japan's economic environment. Since the 1990s, Japan's economic bubble burst and it has entered a "lost two decades." “Japan's manufacturing industry is also gradually declining.” Independent economist Kim Bo-soon pointed out that the Japanese manufacturing industry can not afford to ensure high quality and high investment, and due to the aging of the phenomenon, the manufacturing workers today are mostly low quality The contract workers or temporary workers planted foreshadowed today's many scandals.

Indeed, the current aging of Japan’s society is a serious problem, coupled with the fact that many Japanese companies implement a lifetime employment system, which makes Japanese companies’ jobs more solid and their practitioners age. Japanese media have pointed out: "Some people can stay in the same job for 20 years, and they only do the same thing every day without asking." Although the permanent employment system can foster employee loyalty to the company, with the auto industry With the ever-changing changes, the "old set" obviously has not worked.

"According to the Japanese people's style of doing things, there should not be such a thing." A technical engineer who worked for a Chinese-Japanese joint-venture car company for a long time said to the "China Auto" reporter that in his eyes, the Japanese are rigorous, Self-discipline, even to the point of dogma, but it may be this dogma that led to the continuous fermentation of this series of scandals. The persistence of his own original technology and "obsessive-compulsive disorder" make it unable to quickly adapt to new changes and lead to frequent problems.

In fact, many Japanese economic research scholars have put forward this view. After the advent of the Internet age, the “craftsmanship spirit” of excellence and pursuit of the ultimate, has caused Japanese manufacturing companies to fall into the original technological structure, which in turn has limited its Development has led them to rely excessively on the original technology and failed to keep pace with new technology trends, and has fallen behind in the process of transformation and upgrading. In this era of drastic changes, companies need a subversive innovation.

â–  The lack of institutional rigid supervision

It is noteworthy that according to Japanese media reports, data on the tampering of Kobe steelmaking has lasted for decades. The former employees broke the news that they were acquiesced by the top management; Nissan quality inspections made frauds for at least 20 years, and Subaru quality inspections made fraud more than 30 years; although Takata The airbag door “had only recently come to an end, and Takata would have been Gabriel’s “platter,” but the incident could be traced back to the year 2000; Mitsubishi executives personally admitted that during the “fuel door” scandal that plagued the country last year. Fuel consumption tests have been fraudulent for 25 years. Why are these companies able to continue to fake for so many years, and have always kept the issue "hidden from hair loss"?

In Japan, there is a lot of pressure on the baths, and when the baths are worn, they can be felt at the end. . 约 约 牟 牟 牟 牟 19 19 19 19 19 19 19 19 19 19 19 19 19 19 19 19 19 19 19 19 19 19 19 19 19 19 19 19 19 19 19 19 19 19 19 The “Product Liability Law” stipulates that companies have product responsibilities for their products and emphasize the responsibilities and obligations of product producers to products. Article 3 of the bill clearly stipulates that manufacturing products manufactured, processed, and imported by the manufacturing department shall be responsible for compensating for the damage caused by damage to the life, body and property of others caused by defects in the goods they sell. Chai Maorong pointed out that because these previous fraud problems did not cause major harm to the lives, property, and safety of users, or that they had not been exposed, some Japanese manufacturers dared to commit fraud unscrupulously for decades.

Bai Ming, deputy director of the International Market Research Institute of the Institute of International Trade and Economic Cooperation of the Ministry of Commerce, told the reporter of China Automotive News: “The Japanese value the 'face', and they have a problem and take a 'stuck' attitude, a piece of 'two' Staying 'it's all right, it's a problem day after month, and small things have become bigger.' And the root cause of these problems for Japanese companies to successfully 'grab' lies in a series of doctrines such as its product declaration system and the Product Liability Act. Regulations and regulations, the lack of monitoring by government agencies for enterprises is an umbrella that has caused the fraud problem to continue for many years. In addition, Wu Songquan, director of the Center for Policy Research of the China Automotive Technology and Research Center, told the “China Auto” reporter that the long-term solid supply relationship between Japan’s zero-clearing companies is also the key to this problem.

â–  Competition intensifies the rise of China and South Korea

In addition to these internal reasons, Jin Bosong pointed out that the pressure from the international market is also a major reason for Japanese manufacturing companies to take the risk. He pointed out that in recent years, manufacturing levels in South Korea, China, and other countries have improved and progressed rapidly, while labor costs have been relatively low relative to Japan, which has exerted tremendous pressure on Japanese manufacturing companies. Forced by cost and profit pressures, companies failed to hold onto the bottom line and eventually led to this outbreak of scandals. Wu Songquan also pointed out in the interview that factors such as the increase in the purchase price of raw materials, the increase in customer quality requirements, and the competitive pressure from the international market have caused Japan's manufacturing industry to face enormous pressure in terms of cost control, thus adopting products and production. The next step is to reduce costs in the process.

Not long ago, JDPower released the 2017 China New Vehicle Quality Research Report (IQS). The report proposes that the gap between the quality of Chinese self-owned brands and the quality of new international brands has narrowed for the seventh year in a row. From the first JD Power research on the quality of new Chinese cars in 2000, the gap has narrowed from 396 to 13 points. What needs to be pointed out is that, despite the negative news, Nissan still achieved the championship of the new car quality in the midsize sedan market together with Hyundai Langdong.

The industry expert who mentioned above did not want to be named believes that the recent “Made in Japan” scandal has frequently occurred. This may be a good opportunity for Chinese brands to catch up. But first of all, they must learn lessons from Japan and do it. Good credit guarantee, process supervision and problem feedback decision-making mechanism. "In the international competition, one is better than the other and one is better than no mistake." Bai Ming pointed out that the series of scandals in the Japanese manufacturing industry did give Chinese companies opportunities. "In this case, we have the power to catch up, but we must look at ourselves if we cannot seize the opportunity."