After nearly two months at home, Xiao Jun (pseudonym), a quality engineer at an auto parts company in Shanghai, finally returned to the office. “I got up at 7 the day before yesterday, and I made the antigen after eating. After the nucleic acid was done at 9 o’clock, there was a meeting, which was held until 2 am the next day.” Xiao Jun shared the recent one-day arrangement with reporters. The work intensity of closed production is far greater than he imagined.
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In late May, the auto industry chain accelerated to resume operation. Some factories of SAIC Motor, SAIC-GM, Xpeng Motors, FAW-Volkswagen, Tesla and other auto companies have resumed double-shift production, and some companies have achieved full double-shift production capacity.
According to information from SAIC, since May, the group has exported more than 10,000 SAIC-owned brand vehicles at Haitong Wharf alone. It is expected that overseas sales in May will exceed 70,000, a year-on-year increase of more than 60%. Beginning on May 24, the daily output of Tesla’s Shanghai plant resumed to 2,600 vehicles, nearly doubling the output in mid-May.
The accelerated recovery of OEM production capacity has driven many auto parts companies to resume work and production, and the smoothness of the auto industry chain is getting better day by day.
At present, 21 auto companies that account for more than 90% of the industrial output value of the auto industry in Pudong New Area have all resumed work and production. More than 700 first- and second-tier suppliers of SAIC-GM and SAIC Passenger Vehicle have resumed work for more than 90%. In Anting, another major automobile town in Shanghai, the top 50 enterprises in the town have all resumed work and production. More than 25,000 people have returned to work, and the overall production capacity of the automobile industry has recovered to 60%.
“The supply chain has improved a lot, and now the downstream demand is huge. We are short-staffed, and one person is used by several people.” Xiao Jun said.
Car companies require employees to be multi-skilled in one post in closed production
“On May 19, our company launched a large-scale employee recall. Unlike the previous batches, firstly, there were a large number of people recalled this time, and there were about 300 people on the list; secondly, the way to return to the company was mainly based on The company sent a car to pick it up in the community, and this time a group of people can drive back to the company.” Xiao Jun told reporters that downstream demand is increasing, and colleagues who returned to the factory earlier can no longer afford the production needs.
Xiao Jun said that at present, it is still necessary to strictly implement the epidemic prevention regulations when returning to the factory. After returning to the company, it is first necessary to isolate for three days, complete two antigen tests and one nucleic acid test every day, and return to work only after three days of no abnormality. Due to the limited area for isolation, the company cannot accept 300 employees to return to the factory at one time. Currently, only about 30 people can be arranged to return to the factory every day, which affects the efficiency of employees returning to the factory to a certain extent.
Since all employees cannot be on duty, in order to meet production requirements, most companies require employees to be multi-skilled in one post during the process of resuming work and production.
SAIC said that the Lingang Smart Factory implemented closed-loop management in the early days of the outbreak, which provided a solid personnel guarantee for the resumption of work and production, but it was not enough to achieve normal operation of double shifts. To this end, the factory fully supports production operations through the use of second-line personnel and second-line personnel sinking to the first-line.
“Especially for a group of new employees, we have increased training efforts.” said Li Wenbin, workshop production manager of SAIC Lingang Smart Factory, “Many times, team leaders will use their rest time to conduct one-on-one document training with them, and pass the The operation method of video simulation is used to conduct practical training for the entire vehicle series, so that team members can achieve ‘multiple abilities in one position’.”
An insider of a joint venture automobile factory in Shanghai told reporters that now it is not only the workers who have “multiple abilities in one position”, but sometimes professional engineers who have returned to the factory have to go to the front line to undertake the production work of skilled workers.
Xiao Jun told reporters that in addition to his own work related to quality, he also needs to go to the warehouse to manage inbound and outbound, stock inventory, and check delivery. In the past few days, he sometimes went to the warehouse at 8:00 in the morning and worked until 10:00 in the evening.
(Photo provided by the interviewee)
In the photo of Xiao Jun’s “bed” for rest at night, there is only a layer of cardboard and a thin cloth pad on the ground, Xiao Jun said: “My neck hurts after sleeping all night, but I have already A colleague has slept for dozens of days.”
“It is much harder than normal production in the past. Some colleagues have been under a lot of pressure. They have closed production for too long. Like our section chief, it has been closed in the factory since the beginning of April, and it has been almost 2 months now. Go home.” Xiao Jun believes that the long-term closed production and increasingly heavier work tasks have made many employees feel huge psychological pressure, and disputes and quarrels between colleagues, employees and leaders are inevitable .
Earlier, HR of an auto parts company told reporters that closed production not only needs to solve the most basic needs of employees for food, accommodation and epidemic prevention, but also needs to pay attention to the mental health of employees in a long-term closed environment. A number of company insiders revealed to reporters that in addition to rewarding employees with additional subsidies, the company will also hold collective birthday parties, ball games, hot pot, KTV and other activities to help employees who have been closed for a long time relieve their psychological pressure.
However, not all companies have the spare capacity to organize related cultural and recreational activities to guide employees. At present, with the acceleration of the resumption of work and production, the large workload brought about by the substantial increase in production demand, combined with the long-term closure, has brought great challenges to the mental health of some employees.
Auto industry may return to normal in June
As the epidemic improves, Xiao Jun may soon be able to commute to get off work normally.
On May 29, Shanghai released the “Shanghai Action Plan for Accelerating Economic Recovery and Revitalization”, which includes eight aspects and 50 policy measures. The upstream and downstream enterprises in the industrial chain and supply chain have resumed work collaboratively, and steadily improved the production rate of enterprises.
Wu Jincheng, director of the Shanghai Municipal Commission of Economy and Information Technology, said: “From June 1, the city will enter the stage of comprehensive and orderly resumption of work and production, and the restoration of normal production and living order. The review and approval of enterprises’ resumption of work and production will be cancelled, so as to better serve all kinds of enterprises to resume work. Reasonable demand for resumption of production, promote the accelerated full resumption of work in industrial parks, office buildings, etc., production and professional service enterprises such as warehousing and logistics should resume work, and support all enterprises that meet the requirements of epidemic prevention to resume work and production equally, for the majority of small, medium and micro enterprises as soon as possible. We will actively create conditions for the full resumption of work and production, and employees will resume commuting to and from get off work.”
“Maybe I can go home after June 1. Some colleagues who are still at home can also come to work normally.” Xiao Jun told reporters. Recently, an auto supplier in the Fengxian area of Shanghai told reporters that closed production has ended, and employees have been able to commute “point-to-point” (home to company).
In order to get rid of the impact of the epidemic as soon as possible, car companies in different regions also communicate and learn from each other. Gao Dawei, production director of FAW-Volkswagen Changchun, said that since May, nearly 19,000 employees and partners of Changchun production organization began to commute point-to-point to maximize production. During this period, production records were frequently broken.
From June 1, Shanghai will resume work and production in a comprehensive and orderly manner, and the still missing links in the automotive industry chain will be quickly made up. The resumption of commuting to and from get off work will allow more “new forces” to be put into production.
With the gradual improvement of the national epidemic prevention and control situation, more people have begun to pay attention to the development trend of China’s auto industry after the epidemic.
Lai Yizhe, head of JPMorgan’s China Securities Research Department and Asian auto industry research team, believes that production in the auto industry will return to normal in June. In an interview with a reporter from China Business News in mid-May, he said that the company lowered its expected growth in passenger vehicle production and wholesale sales in China this year to flat, and believes that retail demand will decline; as for the overall auto market (including commercial vehicles) For example, car sales are expected to fall 2% this year.
However, the recent package of policies to stimulate auto consumption may play a role in rapidly boosting consumption in the short term.
On May 23, the National Standing Committee decided to further deploy a package of measures to stabilize the economy. In terms of promoting consumption and effective investment, the restrictions on car purchases were relaxed, and the purchase tax on some passenger cars was reduced by 60 billion yuan in stages. Various localities have also issued various measures aimed at boosting auto consumption.
Taking Shanghai as an example, 40,000 new non-commercial passenger vehicle license plates will be added during the year, and the purchase tax for some passenger vehicles will be reduced in stages according to national policy requirements. Before December 31, 2022, individual consumers who scrap or transfer out a passenger car registered in Shanghai and meet the relevant standards and purchase a pure electric vehicle will be given a financial subsidy of 10,000 yuan per vehicle.
Sun Shaojun, founder of the national auto sales and service platform “Chefans”, believes that the more important significance of this round of reduction of purchase tax is to stimulate consumer confidence, stimulate the vitality of automobile consumption in the unsealed market, and drive production and the recovery of the industrial chain through sales.
Chen Shihua, deputy secretary general of the China Automobile Association, believes that from the current situation, the development situation of the automobile industry is gradually improving, and enterprises are struggling to seize the critical window period of May and June to make up for the lost production and sales. The auto industry is expected to stabilize the full-year expectations and become a force for stabilizing macroeconomic growth.
Author / Wei Wen