(Shanghai War Epidemic Record) Viewpoint | Shanghai's resumption of work and production: how to solve the "supply chain difficulties" of manufacturing foreign companies?
China News Service, Shanghai, April 29 (Reporter Li Jiajia Zhang Hengwei) "Most of our raw material inventories may be consumed around May 1. If no raw materials come in by then, the factory will have to face production cuts. It even stopped production,” a Swiss chemical company in Minhang, Shanghai told reporters.
At present, while Shanghai is not slackening its efforts to prevent and control the epidemic, it is rigorously and orderly promoting the resumption of work and production.
In the past week, 70% of the first batch of 666 key enterprises in Shanghai have resumed work and production, and the capacity utilization rate has been improved. However, the "fragile recovery" of the industrial chain and supply chain still faces challenges.
Get through the stoppage of production and supply
On the evening of April 16, the Shanghai Municipal Commission of Economy and Information Technology issued the "Guidelines for the Resumption of Epidemic Prevention and Control of Industrial Enterprises in Shanghai (First Edition)", which officially sounded the clarion call for resumption of work and production.
"Before this, I saw a document called "The First Batch of Key Enterprises "White List" on social platforms, which mainly focused on key industries such as integrated circuits, automobile manufacturing, equipment manufacturing, and biomedicine. Our company is not in Column", Zhang Wei (pseudonym) of Denso (Shanghai) Automation Technology Co., Ltd. said that according to the requirements of the guidelines, enterprises that resume work and production must formulate epidemic prevention and control and closed-loop management plans, which means that employees must be in the factory area after resumption of work. Food and lodging, "our company does not have such conditions."
Denso (Shanghai) Automation Technology Co., Ltd. is located in Jiangqiao, Jiading, Shanghai. It is a Chinese subsidiary of Denso, Japan's largest auto parts supplier. It mainly produces auto automation assembly line equipment. Although it does not belong to the auto parts catalog, it is an industry A very important link in the chain.
I heard that Denso (Shanghai) Automation Technology Co., Ltd. is temporarily unable to resume work, and its parent company, Nippon Denso’s subsidiary in Tianjin, is very anxious, because it urgently needs the former to provide technical support for it to transform its assembly line equipment to meet the needs of new components. manufacturing.
"If we can't proceed according to the previous production plan and provide them with personnel and technical support, then the Tianjin factory will have to find a replacement company, which will not only greatly prolong the construction period, but also face rising costs. If the connection is not good, it will directly It will affect other downstream enterprises in the industry chain.” Zhang Wei said, the automobile manufacturing industry chain is long and complex, interlinked, and the resumption of work is not a matter for a single component company. The entire industry chain cannot operate, and the resumption of work by one company or several companies will not help. .
Similar problems are also experienced by Tesla's Shanghai Gigafactory.
On April 17th and 18th, 8,000 Tesla employees returned to the factory one after another. On the morning of the 19th, the battery and motor workshops resumed production, and many assembly lines were running efficiently.
At the same time, many Tesla component suppliers in Shanghai have also begun to resume work, becoming the area with the largest proportion of resumption of work and production among Tesla's supplier partners.
In addition, Tesla suppliers located in Zhejiang Province are also actively linking up to ensure production under the guidance of the government, and opening up logistics to support Tesla vehicle manufacturing.
However, many Tesla suppliers in Jiangsu Province are still in a state of shutdown, and transportation is difficult.
In this regard, Tao Lin, Tesla's vice president of external affairs, said that the automobile is an industry with a very long industrial chain. Tesla's resumption of work means that many suppliers will also resume work to ensure production. Stable and ongoing.
"We have also sorted out more than 100 suppliers in our industrial chain and sent them to the Shanghai Economic and Information Commission and governments at all levels in Shanghai, including neighboring Jiangsu and Zhejiang, and the Joint Prevention and Control Team of the State Council." The latest news is that the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, Jiangsu Relevant departments of the province and Suzhou are actively coordinating the recovery of the supply chain.
With the support of relevant departments, Tesla has already had a number of suppliers actively promoting the resumption of work and production.
Difficulties in clearing customs clearance
"I just received a notice from DHL today that the shipping logistics of bulk commodities in East China has been suspended." After receiving the news, a representative of a Swiss company in Shanghai seemed helpless.
According to him, his company has strictly implemented closed-loop management of the whole process since the outbreak of the current round of the epidemic in Shanghai. "The conditions are very difficult for employees to build ground floors in the company. Fortunately, as a supply guarantee enterprise connected with the Shanghai Jiading District Government, we can pass the external service every day. The way of delivering boxed lunches relieves the tension of living materials."
Production continues and the risk of raw material shortages looms.
The representative of the company told reporters that because it is in the energy industry, most of the company's raw materials rely on imports, and most of the transportation methods are by sea. "The direct import has been suspended before, and today I received a notice from the logistics company to suspend the transportation of bulk commodities, which can be described as worse."
A Swiss chemical company located in Minhang is also facing the same dilemma, and the blocking points are mainly concentrated in customs clearance.
As an injection molding company, its raw material sources are mainly divided into two parts: domestic procurement and raw material import.
"Due to the epidemic, the customs clearance processing capacity has declined. After our raw materials arrived at the port, we could not complete the customs clearance in time and were detained." Xiang Lei (pseudonym), the head of the factory of the Swiss company, told reporters that before the goods arrived from the port to the port Customs clearance, even if it takes up to a week for customs random inspection, it has been waiting for two to three weeks. "We have been negotiating with customs during this period, but they said that there is really no manpower at present."
Xiang Lei also said that if it is FCL (full container by sea), it is easy to handle. If it is LCL (sea freight consolidation), it must be stored in the warehouse designated by the customs after arriving at the port. At present, such supervised warehouses are in a closed state, which means that The LCL has basically been suspended.
"At present, there are indeed problems such as slowing customs clearance and delaying the import of some raw materials and products," said Gu Ren, general manager of Kao (China) SCM (Supply Chain Management).
As one of the first batch of key enterprises to resume work and production recently announced by Shanghai, ASML of the Netherlands also hopes to receive more support in logistics transportation and personnel returning to work, so as to facilitate the transportation of materials.
The slowdown in delivery has also made freight forwarding companies miserable.
Liang Bo (pseudonym), the business manager of Huilida International Freight (Guangzhou) Co., Ltd. Shanghai Branch, gave an example to reporters. When a batch of seaborne goods was about to arrive at Shanghai Waigaoqiao Phase 5 Terminal, it temporarily received The notice of the transfer to Yangshan Deepwater Port was due to nucleic acid testing of all local port personnel. "Although they also dock in Shanghai, the customs declaration requirements and procedures in the two places are different. Re-submission of materials and customs clearance will undoubtedly prolong the import time. , the port cargo turnover rate has slowed down, and the cost has increased."
Liang Bo said that Shanghai, as the port with the largest container throughput in the world, plays the role of cargo distribution, but under the influence of the epidemic, the cargo turnover rate has slowed down, which has directly led to a drop in the port's empty container turnover rate. Influence".
Kao Shanghai factory closed-loop production in an orderly manner. Photo courtesy of Kao
Unblocked logistics channels
Looking for a car is probably the biggest bottleneck encountered by foreign-owned manufacturing enterprises in Shanghai.
The limited number of passes issued, the lack of logistics capacity, and different anti-epidemic measures for inter-provincial transportation, and the overlapping of many restrictive factors have caused domestic logistics channels to fall into a situation of "unblocked but not smooth".
"For the same cargo, the same destination, the current logistics price has risen three to four times the original price. If the manufacturer is in a hurry to ship the goods, someone will pay for the eight or nine times the freight," Xiang Lei told reporters. Logistics vehicles can be compared to luck. They are not only expensive but also have few resources. "Once a vehicle is found, if we don't finalize it in time, the resources will basically be gone after an hour. It can be said that the success rate of finding a vehicle is only 1/10."
Xiang Lei believes that the limited number of passes issued is the main reason for the lack of logistics capacity.
Previously, a representative of a Swiss company in Shanghai believed that the increase in anti-epidemic policies in various places also made it difficult to maintain the stability of the supply chain under the epidemic.
"Just taking Shanghai to Suzhou as an example, according to the strict epidemic prevention regulations, the local receiving company needs to send someone to pick up the truck, and the truck driver not only has to fill in the letter of commitment, but will also be required to undergo nucleic acid testing again when arriving at the local expressway exit. Negative results can only be released.” The representative of the company said, which means that the same journey will take 2 more days than in the past. “The increase in epidemic prevention measures has caused many truck drivers to be reluctant to undertake inter-provincial transportation tasks, while other provinces want to If you have to pick up the goods yourself in Shanghai, you often cannot afford the 14-day quarantine requirement after returning."
The difficulty of logistics is also a hurdle in the freight industry.
"For example, the expressway is unobstructed, but once the expressway is off, the situation is different. The same goods arrive in Wuxi, in the urban area of Wuxi and in Yixing, a subordinate of Wuxi, the epidemic prevention policies and requirements are not the same, transportation costs, The superposition of policy costs has made freight companies with small profits feel that their burdens have greatly increased, and their enthusiasm has been weakened,” Liang Bo said.
At present, under the big test of the epidemic, no matter which link has a problem, it will put a heavy pressure on the recovering supply chain, which will lead to difficulties in contract performance and affect the user experience.
To this end, from the central government to Shanghai, to the ports and related companies, they are trying every means. Whether it is the government's solution to the difficulty or the company's bailout, it has released a signal to ensure the safety and stability of the global supply chain to a large extent. .
Multi-party joint efforts to solve the "supply chain difficulties"
The logistics problems generally reported by foreign-funded enterprises have received echoes recently.
On April 22, Zhang Wei, deputy mayor of Shanghai, said that the resumption of work and production should be promoted in accordance with the basic principle of "step-by-step and chain-driven promotion", and the operation channel of important production materials should be opened up through the resumption of work and production in the industrial chain.
"Promoting the use of the national unified standard pass, and with the support of brother provinces and cities, promote the construction of a series of important material transfer stations in the Yangtze River Delta, and realize contactless goods transportation by changing drivers, dropping and hanging, etc., which alleviates the need for corporate materials to a certain extent. nervousness."
Under the vigorous promotion of the national joint prevention and control mechanism, and with the full coordination of Zhejiang Province, Jiangsu Province and Shanghai Municipality, the transit station for emergency supply of important materials in the Yangtze River Delta (Zhejiang-Shanghai) has also been officially put into operation recently.
There are 6 transit stations in the first batch, 2 each in Jiangsu, Zhejiang and Shanghai, and 4 have been built so far.
The transit station for the emergency supply of important materials in the Yangtze River Delta implements closed-loop management and "contactless" delivery throughout the entire process, eliminating the risk of epidemic transmission and ensuring smooth material transportation through the transfer of goods.
On April 26, the spokesperson of the Ministry of Transport of China, Shu Chi, disclosed that compared with the beginning of April, the main arteries of the national trunk highways have basically been opened up, and the transportation capacity indicators have continued to improve. The logistics security in Shanghai and other key areas has gradually improved. The rectification of prevention and control problems has achieved initial results, the transportation guarantee of key materials has been continuously strengthened, and the problem of poor logistics across the country has been gradually improved.
On the evening of the 26th, the Shanghai Municipal Commission of Commerce also issued the "Notice on the Acceptance Scope of Vehicle Permits for Key Material Transportation in the Field of Foreign Trade of the Municipal Commission of Commerce", proposing that Shanghai has started the application for the "Vehicle Permit for the Transportation of Key Materials" for foreign trade enterprises. It includes important material import and export enterprises that ensure the integrity of the industrial chain, supply chain and value chain.
On April 28, Gao Feng, a spokesman for the Ministry of Commerce of China, said that in response to some specific operational problems faced by enterprises in the process of resuming work and production, the Ministry of Commerce is working with relevant member units of the special class for key foreign-funded projects and relevant parties in Shanghai to add Great coordination and promotion efforts will be made to fully ensure the resumption of work and production of enterprises.
In Shanghai's airports and seaports, "speeding up" is also underway.
In order to reduce the impact of the epidemic on land transportation and customer order change, pick-up and other aspects, SIPG has joined forces with major shipping companies and ports in various provinces and cities to improve the energy efficiency of services such as container "land to water" and paperless order change operations to promote normal container transportation business. operation, helping customers to effectively ensure the efficiency of logistics and transportation.
At present, the "Shanghai Port Northeast Asia Empty Container Transfer Center - Taicang Port Sub-center" empty container transfer mode has been launched first. Shanghai Port regards Taicang Port as an extension of its empty container service area, and provides integrated services for the two ports. Relieve the pressure of enterprise use boxes.
At Shanghai Pudong International Airport, many freight forwarding companies reported that the efficiency of picking up goods at Shanghai Airport has accelerated significantly in recent days.
Shanghai Airport Group has developed a "whitelist for operations" for customs declarers, tally staff, and forklift operators, and a "whitelist for delivery" for cargo owners, and opened "green channels" and "unaccompanied" inspections for inbound cargo. In this model, electronic "air cargo epidemic prevention passes" are issued for pickup vehicles, and efforts are made to ensure the normal distribution of inbound and outbound cargo arriving and departing from Pudong Airport, and maintain the stability of core key industries and foreign trade supply chains.
At the same time, the enterprises that have resumed work and production are also actively exploring the way to open up upstream and downstream supply channels through "grouping".
For example, Shanghai Sanli Huizhong Auto Parts Co., Ltd., located in Anting Town, Jiading, Shanghai, uses its own upstream supplier's factory as the cargo transfer point, and after collecting the goods of the other 5 suppliers, it is sent to Shanghai in a unified way, which alleviates the logistics problems.
The joint efforts of multiple parties helped the supply chain resist the "fragile recovery", and also sent "reassurance" to the Shanghai-based manufacturing foreign-funded enterprises that took the lead in resuming work and production, strengthening their confidence in taking root in the Chinese market.
In the interview, Yu Feng, President of Honeywell China, made it clear that Honeywell has been deeply involved in the Chinese market for nearly 90 years, and the epidemic will not shake the company's confidence in its long-term development in China.
Since the outbreak of the new crown epidemic, I have sincerely felt the strong resilience of the Chinese market and China's vision of continuing to expand its opening to the outside world.
"We are optimistic about the fundamentals of China's economic development with strong resilience, sufficient potential and long-term improvement."
Gu Ren of Kao (China) did not shy away from saying that "the epidemic has brought unprecedented challenges to enterprises", but he said that he thanked the government for trying to solve problems for enterprises. contribute to the victory.
Tesla's Tao Lin also said: "We are still full of confidence in China's development and believe that the epidemic is only a short-term test or a challenge. It can go back to normal." (End)