Cooper tires, which are pursuing unique moves in brand building, hope to use the two most common conventional weapons - quality and training, to help companies survive the winter period of the industry.
Richard Zeyen, director of material application development, led the reporter through the slightly open office space of the Cooper Tire Asia Pacific Technology Center and entered a house that was being renovated and had several partitions. He hopes that through the description, reporters can see the high-tech content of this material laboratory from among these scaffolding and decoration materials. “In two months, you will see here the advanced equipment that we have purchased from the world.†On November 13, the tireless expert on tire materials told reporters.
Li Zeen, who came to China two and a half years ago, is the first employee of the technology center. He has worked at Cooper for 24 years. After that, Cooper Tire experienced two-member veterans Glenn Arbaugh and James F. Piper joined the Chinese R&D team one after another, responsible for tire engineering application development and product testing. According to the plan, by early 2009, this R&D center in an industrial park in Shanghai's Minhang District will become one of the three R&D institutions around the world in Cooper. The other two are in the US and UK respectively. In terms of function, the role of the Shanghai R&D center is not just to help the Asia-Pacific market. Cooper's large number of export products must be tested and developed.
It takes about several million dollars to build this R&D center. No loss of headquarters due to a loss of US$77 million in Cooper's global statements over the past two quarters, and delaying the pace of the Asia-Pacific R&D center. Allen Tsaur, President of Cooper Asia Pacific, accepted The reporter said in an exclusive interview: “The determination to establish an R&D center cannot be moved. In China, we are a new brand, so the product update speed must be fast, but also close to the local needs. This is an objective demand.†Before coming to China, the grid Lan et al. have designed Dean tires for the card and passenger car market specifically for China in the US R&D center. Now, they hope that the Asia Pacific Technology Center can design more reasonable passenger car and passenger car tires for Chinese customers as soon as possible.
At present, Cooper has two joint venture factories in China. The factory located in Shandong Rongcheng mainly produces truck and bus tires and some sedan tires. The factory in Kunshan, Jiangsu Province is used to produce exported passenger car tires. In terms of output, 25% of Cooper's products come from China. In a time when the world is struggling to cope with industry downturns and financial turmoil, the Asia-Pacific market can bring some future prospects for Cooper. Cao Kechang said: “In the first half of the year, Europe was better than us. By the second half of the year, Asia Pacific sales and profit growth has exceeded Europe.â€
In Cao Kechang’s view, although the entire industry was affected in 2008, he had the means to lead the Asia Pacific region safely. The strengthening of R&D capabilities has made Cooper optimistic about the long-term market competitiveness. Since the beginning of this year, a series of highly targeted quality improvement, productivity improvement, and training upgrade initiatives have allowed Cooper to see profitability during the trough. ability. Cao Kechang said: "These measures were started last year. We will gradually find the defects and fix them in a fixed manner this year."
In fact, in an era when the economic situation is not good, companies always hope to obtain the most accurate prediction of the future to guide their business activities. This is precisely the point where the most difficult breakthrough has been chosen to seek solutions. Cooper tires, which are pursuing unique moves in brand building - they have sponsored various forms from rock to comics in the past year. They hope to use the two most common conventional weapons - quality and training to help companies. Through this winter in the industry. This simplest method may play an unexpected role in the crisis era.
Exercise internal strength
Zhao Ming is a Six Sigma expert who was invited by Cooper from elsewhere. He is now a full-time trainer for Cooper and is responsible for the Six Sigma “Black Belt†training in the quality management system. Cao Kechang said: “Zhao Ming was originally a Master of a different company. He has been doing this for a long time. First he really understands, and secondly, he has very strong communication skills. For the quality system, communication is the key The training project that started from March this time was originally aimed at strengthening the management of the quality system of the factory, but it unintentionally fits the current economic situation.
Cooper selected nine employees from the Kunshan and Chengshan factories to participate in the training. In the previous six months, they took classes one week per month, and returned to the factory at other times. The first time I started classes in Shanghai, the second was in Kunshan, and then I went to a factory in Shandong. Because the two factories are not the same (Justinshan sells truck and bus tires mainly, and Kunshan exports mainly car tires), I can give them A more comprehensive experience.
Theoretical training ended in September. After the training, these people return to the factory and they are responsible for the specific projects. In the next six months, they must ensure that they are responsible for the project and really see the process improvement and cost reduction. After that, they can become truly "black belts."
In fact, the period during which the trainees returned to the factory to improve their process capability was the most stressful time for the Cooper plant. It also gave the trainees the best platform to use their skills. Cao Kechang said: "From the general sales of the tire market, sales began to decline in October and November, the provincial distributors can not send the goods in the hands of the press, the following municipal, county dealers because sales are not good Dare to purchase."
Most factories choose to reduce production capacity. The entire province of Shandong, where China's largest tire production base is located, is not far behind. According to statistics from Shandong Rubber Industry Association, the operating rate of large tire companies in the province is only 60% to 70%. Tire plant is on the verge of bankruptcy. In Kunshan, the export markets it faces are also not optimistic. The American Rubber Manufacturers Association believes that US tire sales will fall by 4% this year.
At the plant in Chengdu, Cooper, Shandong, the pace of production has also been adjusted to a slower pace from the past seven days a week and three shifts per day, and more time has been devoted to training and equipment overhaul. However, due to the advancement of process reform measures, Cooper still saw a significant increase in production efficiency and product quality while reducing the pace of production.
In addition to Six Sigma's help, Cooper has also gradually broken down all aspects of tire production, with strict control to achieve higher product quality and yield. For example, tires are composed of multiple layers of materials that require a tight bond between these layers when finished. Whether tightly integrated or not is affected by many factors, including the humidity in the air. In general, summer humidity is not easy to control when the temperature is high. After in-depth understanding of the production process, the manufacturing process was re-established. Even after the cooling pipes were updated, the adhesiveness jumped.
Cao Kechang said that since the implementation of improvement in quality control from last year, Cooper has gradually found improvements in various aspects and put it into practice in January this year. He said: "After grasping the key points, we must find the root cause and measure the exact value. We can't say the same thing. We can do it step-by-step and improve each step, including the construction process."
After this improvement, statistics for September of this year, without adding any production equipment and personnel, the efficiency of the Cooper Shandong production line has increased by 40%, and the scrap rate has dropped to less than half of last year. At the Kunshan plant, Cooper produced the first tire from March 21 last year. From October to October this year, Nissan went from 0 to Nissan to 10,000. For this achievement, Cao Kechang is quite satisfied: “This is where new equipment will be installed and training will be required. Tires will be produced, and new employees will be recruited. This is the fastest in the history of Cooper. 14 key personnel are responsible for Zero production. This is a milestone. Our goal is to reach 20,000 in July next year."
In the first three quarters of this year, the prices of raw materials were very high, making the tires' profits very low, the scrap rate dropped by half, and the profits may be doubled. As the tire scrap rate decreased and customer complaints decreased, the acceptance of Cooper in the market also increased. "This is why we can maintain profitability in September this year," said Cao Kechang.
Cao Kechang said: "The improvement of tire quality is not just a change of formula, but a system capability. We must instill ideas into the heads of employees. After two years of continuous education, every employee has an understanding of quality. When it comes to production, we must talk about efficiency, but it is not enough to quickly guarantee quality, because it is a very thin profit market. When we increase the quantity, we can also increase the quality. It is a university. We have done it.â€
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Cooper Camp
The Cooper Shanghai office has to wait half an hour ahead of schedule on Mondays. At 8:30 in the morning, Cao Kechang and Alex Koi, general manager of Cooper China, will appear on time in the conference room on the 17th floor of Jiahe Building in Gubei District, Shanghai. When sharing breakfast with employees, Cao Kechang and Yu Sili shares her company developments or the latest hot spots with her employees in 15 minutes. This breakfast will last for more than a year. The initial content is mainly to increase the team spirit of the employees. By April this year, Cooper Asia Pacific Technology Center moved to the suburbs. Cao Kechang also hopes to be able to use it together to use the conference call. He had to speak ahead of time about his own outline and be ready to send it to the staff of the technical center. From then on, he began to intentionally fix the form and timing of breakfast meetings.
Cao Kechang said: “The content of the breakfast meeting is usually that Alex and I discuss it over the weekend and prepare separately. According to the development of the company and the external situation, we sometimes talk about the economy, we sometimes talk about tire knowledge, and recently we talk about the process of the US presidential election, and some American cultural things." He thinks that the main purpose of this kind of communication is to enhance employees' understanding and confidence in the company, let employees know the direction of the entire company, the company is in crisis, don't be afraid to let them know, do not know there will be Rumors, let them know that the company is willing to share information with them, only let everyone know the company's general direction, he can do his job well.
As a U.S. company, the training culture demonstrated by Cooper Asia Pacific has become very Chinese. In addition to his practice, Cooper also asked middle-level department heads to give lectures for everyone. The reason is very simple. If you want to teach others and listen to others, you must first study thoroughly. Cao Kechang said: "In order to prepare for the 15 minutes on Monday morning, I have to spend the whole weekend. I don't quite agree with asking outsiders for training. They don't understand our company."
This sets an example and guidelines for other employees. When you want to get a higher position, you first ask yourself whether or not you can stand on the podium. Since then, the atmosphere and motivation of learning has naturally passed on to the entire organization. . As a result of the mobilization of the entire staff, there are no idlers in the office. Everyone has to learn something while they are away from work. Everyone is like fighting. However, young people are very happy to learn things and are very excited, but this puts a lot of pressure on supervisors and forces everyone to go forward.
In order to ensure that Cooper's philosophy can be reflected in every detail of Cooper, and in order to promote sales more, they used a unique form of training for dealerships. Since March of this year, Cooper has launched a training program in Shanghai called the "Cooper camp." They recruited 60 people from Shanghai and trained again and again. The training process began with the replacement of tires, including tire knowledge, sales skills, communication methods, and even life planning. After several months of training, they left nine people. These people are not regular employees of Cooper. Instead, they are commissioned by the dispatched labor service company to manage them. Cooper pays the wages. This flexible form of employment is resilient to the current situation. Now, the second batch of Cooper's camp people have also begun to enter the training phase. Some excellent Cooper's camp members will have the opportunity to switch to Cooper's regional sales executives, and most of the training they receive is centered on sales. "What I told them recently was how to deal with the customer's boss," said Cao Kechang.
The highly trained Cooper's members are equipped with good technical skills. At the same time, they also understand the latest concepts of Cooper's sales and company management. They will follow the distribution route and go to the local distribution stores to store clerk staff. In addition to regular rotations in different regions, they also return to headquarters every three months to do new training and report on their understanding of the market. According to the plan, the Cooper camp project will begin with sales of passenger cars and will enter the sales channels for truck and bus tires in the future.
The benefits of this form are obvious. In the Asia-Pacific market, especially in the Chinese market, in 2 to 3 years, the demand of consumers for tires is getting higher and higher. They not only want to get a tire, but also need to get a good, suitable tire. Cooper's products are mainly based on the replacement market, which is destined to diversify its products. Cooper Training Manager Li Bo said: “It's like some people like to wear shirts and like to wear T-shirts. We replace tires to meet these personality needs. Now many people want to spend money, but they don’t know which one is. Well, the degree of professionalism in installation and the consistency of service are also very important.When selling, if the operator can say some truth and knowledge, it may help more, and it will also help maintain the customer. This is also a lot of tire industry workers need to improve. We must not blindly promote sales, we must not introduce blindly, and should appropriately communicate the company’s image concept and tire knowledge.†Li Bo also trained these Cooper's camp members. He felt that with a measure, the sales of Cooper's dealerships would improve a lot. . Feedback from the frontline also proves that these training members are the dealers most want to retain.
The idea of ​​Cooper's camp came from Cao Kechang's and Koo Si's work experience at Kodak. Before and after 2002, they needed to promote Kodak’s digital products. At the time, such products were expensive, and there were few people who knew, and the competition was fierce, resulting in low profits. So, they recruited about 30 young people to do rigorous training, from product knowledge to sales knowledge, and then distributed these people to 1400 digital stores around the country, went to each shop to teach clerk, a family, It is hard to open the market.
Cao Kechang said: "We have selected members of the Cooper Group to have a requirement, not the higher the academic qualification, the better. We only need secondary school graduates and tertiary graduates, college best. First, they will cherish the job, and second, they We can endure hardship, and our training is very comprehensive. No one can teach them so much. Our training is very strict, but no one resigns."
"Because I have brought new brands (referred to as Kodak digital products) into China, so we have experience in how to fight new things. Consumers buy things because they feel valued." Cao Kechang said: " Any industry, as long as it is new, must do so. Executive power is very important when doing business, so it is the clerk who decides the ultimate success or failure, not the boss."
Interview: I will soon see hope
Reporter: How do you judge the current form?
Cao Kechang: The economy will come back in the third quarter of next year. Many people are prepared to lower the full-year target next year. We only cut the first quarter and move the third quarter's indicators to the fourth quarter. This time, the country invested 4 trillion yuan to stimulate domestic demand, which is very helpful to our tire companies. There are two major types of Cooper tires: trucks and cars, and the national economic stimulus program is the first one to help trucks because of construction and road construction. This action will be very fast, and it will start immediately after the bidding. I predict that the truck market will recover in March and April next year, and the sedan will return in the next three months. Therefore, the truck will return in March and the car will return in May. This is quite favorable for us. As long as I can control it well in January next year, I am still quite optimistic about it in March.
Reporter: Have you experienced such great fluctuations in raw materials and petroleum during your career?
Cao Kechang: No. I experienced 2 times going up, but not falling so fast. It usually takes a few years to slowly go down. This year, I rushed faster and I dropped faster. Every time the economic crisis will filter out bad companies, if you are good enough, then it is a good thing. After this big wave, leaving some good companies like China has more than 300 tire companies is unreasonable, the United States will only be left The next two brands belong to the United States: Goodyear and Cooper. So I think that after this wave, the Chinese market is best left with only a few tire companies. This situation will make everyone pay attention to quality, the cost will be reduced, and consumers will benefit.
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Reporter: What plans does Cooper have on the passenger car tires?
Cao Kechang: For car and bus drivers and their bosses, the cost is very important. Therefore, it is very important for the tires to be refurbished because one tire is refurbished twice and the cost is reduced by half. The focus of refurbishment is to find a good partner while building a network. We will select local renewal cooperation partners and build them too late. The pilot project will be conducted next year, first in Guangzhou, the Yangtze River Delta, Sichuan, and Hebei, and then gradually pushed forward to other places.
Reporter: Does the distributor's expansion goal want to slow down?
Cao Kechang: Yes, it will be slower. There are now more than 200 coaches and more than 30 cars. Our goal for the first half of next year is to make sure that we are not going to be too big, so we will not open new stores. Sales are expected to double in two years.
Reporter: The raw materials are fluctuating. How will the price of your products be adjusted?
Cao Kechang: When the price of raw materials rose in January this year, inflation has not yet begun, and it has risen so far in March. However, we cannot raise the price all of a sudden. The market can't accept it, and there is still a bit of digestion and lag.
We did not have any price adjustment until April. Until then, we have always said that we must grasp the quality and wait until the raw materials are going up. We need to improve our quality. This is essentially lowering the cost, because the scrap rate is reduced, which can help you to stabilize the price and control the cost. .
In this case, although the quality system must be invested, it will help us save money. In general, the cost of defamation, the salary of employees, and the price of suppliers are the most cost-effective methods of reducing costs. They are also wrong and can only cause market reversal and form a vicious circle. To improve the quality system from the inside is the only way out. I am very happy to see results in this year's situation.
Reporter: Training is also the focus of your work. What role do you hope to play?
Cao Kechang: I also think about how to make employees have a centripetal force on the company. When I was recruiting director of personnel, I asked them how to keep the core staff's efforts on the company's work. They generally responded that they were paid quickly. I do not want to answer this because I can use these methods, which can be used to manage people. Later, I thought that the staff must have confidence in the company. To make him feel that he is learning something, money alone can never meet his needs. When he grows, the money becomes less important. Therefore, if you are a leader in Cooper, you must be able to teach and teach, and the culture of Cooper is taught.
The next step we will more to promote this idea to the factory. The implementation has already begun. Alex recently went to teach at the Chengshan Factory. Kunshan began teaching quality classes by Zhao Ming. Recently, due to the economic downturn, our output has been reduced. However, the company's opinion is not to lay off staff and to use spare time to continuously strengthen training.
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