Rebirth 99 to become a car giant.

Chapter 153 Don’t listen to the wind, it’s the rain

Aisin is a giant in the auto parts industry.

They not only supply gearboxes and other parts to Toyota, but also supply parts to many OEMs.

Therefore, their sales department is directly connected with the procurement of many OEMs.

In addition to arranging for Zhang Hao to go to Yangcheng to inquire about the news, Saburo Sato also asked other colleagues in the sales department to try their best to find out.

"Minister, judging from what we know so far, Nanshan Technology Co., Ltd. has indeed done some research on gearboxes."

"Some time ago, they also had some cooperation projects with Huaqing University and Lingnan University of Technology on control systems."

"They also hired a professor from Beijing Institute of Technology who specializes in gearboxes to take charge of projects in this area."

"It's just that normally, their gearbox shouldn't come out that quickly."

Zhang Hao's work ability is still very strong, and he quickly learned some information through various public and non-public channels.

After all, the circle of the automobile industry is actually not very big. Through various methods such as former customers, classmates, and classmates of colleagues, you can find some intersections with basically every OEM or supplier.

In addition, Nanshan did not keep this information confidential, and there was no way to keep it completely confidential.

So Zhang Hao quickly formed a preliminary reporting material.

"Since Ford dares to place orders for Changan Ford's gearboxes in Nanshan, and Changan Ford's first model, the Fiesta, will be mass-produced in January 2003, the time in between is very tight."

"Nanshan's gearbox must already have some products to convince Ford."

“We need to work harder to figure this out.”

"The best thing is to get some of their samples and send them to the headquarters to study them."

Sato Saburo felt that the situation was not that simple.

The switching of auto parts is a very cautious matter. Even if Ford is not as good as Toyota and Honda in this regard, it will not be much worse.

So Sato felt that Nanshan must have some information about the gearbox that he didn't know about.

"Nanshan is China's leading domestic manufacturer in terms of bearings, bolts and nuts. It not only supplies domestic customers, but also exports to customers such as Ford, General Motors and Volkswagen."

"They may have taken advantage of this and imitated any 6AT gearbox on the market to obtain orders from Ford cars at a low cost."

"After all, Ford Motor Co. is under great cost pressure this year, which is something everyone in the industry knows."

Zhang Hao's analysis made Saburo Sato think it was quite reasonable.

"If this is the case, then for Nanshan, the weakest point is the TCU design."

"Have you heard anything about this?"

To deal with Nanshan, it is natural to find the opponent's weaknesses.

If Nanshan's product quality or schedule cannot meet Changan Ford's needs by then, the order will naturally return to Aisin.

This way, the information that Thomas revealed to Sato would not be exposed.

"It really does. Didn't I just say that Nanshan and Huaqing University have cooperation in gearboxes?"

"According to my investigation, their main cooperation is the design of the TCU of the gearbox."

"Huaqing University has done a relatively good job in this area. It is very likely that Nanshan's plan is to use this cooperation project to get TCU."

When Zhang Hao said this, Sato Saburo immediately came up with an idea.

"Do you think if Aisin cooperates with Huaqing University on the TCU project, would the other party be interested?"

"Absolutely! We, Aisin, are an internationally renowned parts and components company and a foreign company. We can provide a certain amount of foreign exchange as research funding."

"What do they think of Nanshan? It's just a local small business."

"No match for us at all."

"We can even cooperate with the other party to ask them to terminate the TCU cooperation with Nanshan."

"At that time, there will be no qualified TCU available in Nanshan, and the schedule of the gearbox project will definitely be affected."

Zhang Hao knows the domestic situation very well.

Whether it is investing in building factories or cooperating on various projects, foreign capital has great advantages over domestic private enterprises.

Most people are more willing to work with foreign-funded companies, and their reputations appear to be more prestigious.

"So, is this idea really feasible?"

Saburo Sato was moved.

Aisin already has some R&D expenses in cooperation with scientific research institutions in China. In the past, these expenses were mostly given to institutions that can influence industry policies.

It can be said that this is a kind of public relations fee for Aisin in the name of research fee.

They don't really expect to improve Aisin's R&D technology through these collaborations.

All real research and development is done in Japan, how could it be done in China?

"Absolutely doable!"

"We don't even need much higher research funding than Nanshan to snatch Nanshan's cooperation projects from Huaqing University."

"As long as we provide foreign exchange and our reputation, we can definitely handle it."

Zhang Hao gave his opinion very definitely.

The importance that various Chinese institutions attach to foreign exchange was extremely exaggerated in the 90s and [-]s.

Even by 2001, this situation had eased, and everyone still preferred foreign exchange.

After all, China has not yet joined the WTO, and China's foreign exchange amount is still relatively small.

"Okay, then we will arrange for someone to contact you immediately and disrupt the cooperation between Huaqing University and Nanshan."

"We will see if there are no qualified TCUs available in Nanshan and whether they can successfully respond to orders from Ford."

Saburo Sato's originally depressed mood suddenly became much better.

It's really nice to be able to solve this problem so easily.

……

Ae Shin moves quickly.

Ford's efforts to cooperate with Nanshan had not yet fully spread in the industry, but their efforts were bearing fruit.

"Mr. Cao, Huaqing University has contacted us. The project cooperation between our two parties has ended because all the funds have been used."

Ji Hua came over to report to Cao Yang in a bad mood.

As a former university professor, he is very familiar with the situation of industry-university-research cooperation projects.

Before reporting to Cao Yang, he also called Huaqing University.

But the situation is not optimistic.

Of course, it is not difficult to get information in a circle, and he finally understood the situation behind Huaqing University's approach.

"Used up so quickly?"

"Didn't you say there's no problem in holding on until next year?"

"Besides, even if the funds run out, shouldn't they take the initiative to communicate with us and ask if they can increase the funds?"

For the first time, Cao Yang felt why Huaqing University was so unreliable.

This kind of thing shouldn't happen.

"I heard that they used the funds to urgently purchase a relatively expensive experimental equipment, so they ran out of funds very quickly."

"But that's not actually the real reason. There's a story behind it."

Cao Yang was originally responsible for Ji Hua's collaborative research project at Huaqing University.

Now that it has become like this, Ji Hua naturally wants to explain clearly what he has learned.

Otherwise, it will become a case of taking the blame.

"Ok?"

"A story?"

"what story?"

Cao Yang really didn't understand why it became like this.

This is inconsistent with my own understanding.

"Aisin has contacted Huaqing University and will set up and spend US$50 to cooperate with them in the research of TCU in the next three years."

"We also invited members of the project team to visit Japan."

"But their request is to stop cooperating with us and not to cooperate with Nanshan on TCU in the future."

"Mr. Cao, I think this matter is a bit strange. It's obvious that Ai Xin is specifically targeting us."

"Otherwise, their TCU technology is much more advanced than Huaqing University's, and there would be no need to launch such a cooperative project."

Based on the information he learned, Ji Hua also made his own judgment.

After hearing this, Cao Yang immediately realized that Aixin was indeed targeting Nanshan.

"It seems that Aisin already knows that we have obtained a 6AT order from Ford Motor Company."

"These international giants are really not fuel efficient."

"However, the TCU we use has nothing to do with the project cooperated with Huaqing University."

"It won't have much impact on our 6AT in a short period of time. It's just that Aisin disgusts us like this and is obviously trying to suppress us."

Although when he entered the gearbox field, Cao Yang knew that there would be conflicts with giants such as Aisin and ZF in the future.

But he really didn't expect this conflict to come so quickly.

"That……"

"How are we going to fight back?"

Ji Hua is a little confused now.

Should he just swallow his anger or find a way to do something?

"Stealing some of Aisin's orders from Ford is already a counterattack."

"The next thing we have to do is grab more orders from them."

"It will be them who are anxious at that time, not Nanshan."

"As for Huaqing University, if they are willing to cooperate with Aisin, then they can do so."

“In the future, we will try our best to cooperate with Lingnan University of Technology and other schools in our cooperation projects.”

“Forget it from Huaqing University.”

Although this incident had little impact on Nanshan, it was disgusting.

Spending money to buy nausea is something Cao Yang doesn't want to do.

……

Saburo Sato considers himself a very responsible employee who is dedicated to the company.

Therefore, I realized that Nanshan Technology Co., Ltd.'s entry into the gearbox field would have a great impact on Aisin. After sorting out some information, I immediately arranged to report to the headquarters.

However, the situation reported this time was very different from what Sato had imagined.

"Sato, you specially made appointments with so many people today to listen to your report. Is this what you were talking about?"

After listening to Sato's report, Okumura, the head of the Aisin Headquarters Sales Division, showed a look of disdain on his face.

In his opinion, Sato was completely out of business and could not find the focus of the problem.

What kind of things are reported?

"Yes, Nanshan 6AT has already received an order from Changan Ford, directly occupying our market. In time, it will become Aisin's biggest competitor."

"I even suspect that they directly copied our transmission technology and used low labor costs to achieve malicious price competition, so they won the order from Ford."

China's manufacturing costs are lower than Japan's, and everyone knows this.

However, Sato's views this time were not recognized by the personnel at Aisin headquarters.

"The Chinese people have wanted to develop automatic transmissions for a year or two. Have they succeeded after so many years?"

"Which of their car companies, such as Great Wall Motors, Geely Automobile, Chery Automobile and Changan Automobile, has developed a decent automatic transmission?"

"Not to mention the advanced 6AT, even 4AT they can't come up with."

"The gearbox is not just a shell that can be made casually."

"With the level of parts companies like China, it is simply impossible to produce 6AT that meets the requirements."

"Don't let the wind be the rain."

"It's a waste of everyone's time to report on trivial things."

"Our biggest competitors at Aisin are JATCO and ZF. You should pay more attention to the performance of these manufacturers in the Chinese market. This is your task."

Sato, who originally wanted to gain attention and perform, not only failed to achieve his goal, but was sprayed in the face.

Aisin employees in Japan simply don’t think that any manufacturer in China has the strength to threaten them.

And it is still the more advanced 6AT that Aisin is better at now.

What a joke.

If you talk about MT gearbox, China has developed it, so it is still possible.

After all, the difficulty of MT gearbox is several levels lower than that of AT, and it effectively avoids the relatively weak control links of Chinese manufacturers.

"Director, before Nanshan Technology Co., Ltd. appeared, what you said was completely correct."

"But this Chinese manufacturer is rather evil. Their bearings are now used in many car companies, and even SKF and NTN are under pressure."

"In this case, although the actual level of the 6AT they produced may not be very good, they may still gain a certain market by relying on the low price."

"I think it needs to be taken seriously."

Saburo Sato was still thinking of explaining one more time.

"Chinese people couldn't make excellent automatic transmissions in the past, and they can't make excellent 6ATs now. Even in the future, they won't be able to make any progress in automatic transmissions."

"Sato, you have to have confidence in us, Aisin. Otherwise, how can you convince customers that Aisin's gearbox is the best in the world?"

"If you continue to be like this and can't distinguish the key points, then I think the position of head of the sales department of Huaxia Branch is no longer suitable for you."

Okumura looked at Sato very rudely.

This subordinate was not very popular with him to begin with.

Otherwise, I would not be assigned to go to the Huaxia branch.

You must know that in 2001, unless you went to the American branch or worked elsewhere, you were considered to be assigned to the frontier and were not valued by the headquarters.

It has a naturally disadvantaged position in terms of promotion.

Unlike in 2023, China has become the world's largest market.

Being assigned to serve in China is often a sign of seriousness.