Shulou(Shulou.com)11/24 Report--

This article comes from the official account of Wechat: knowledge Automation (ID:zhishipai), author: Lin Xueping

Why can't Hunan lighters be moved to Vietnam? When many industries feel that they are going to move to Southeast Asia, the Shaodong lighter industry cluster in Shaoyang City, Hunan Province remains unchanged.

70% of the world's disposable lighters are made here. Thirteen export-oriented enterprises pull such giant machines, and factories can produce up to 10 million lighters a day. It's a daunting speed.

Like many labor-intensive industries, lighters are also a stray industry that floats all over the world. It first started in Spain, and later strolled around in France and the United States. He came to Japan in the 1960s and 1970s, followed by South Korea and Taiwan, and landed in Guangdong and Wenzhou of the Chinese mainland in about the 1990s. It is difficult for an industry with meagre profits to settle in one place, and the rising labor force simply cannot support it.

In the early 21 century, the Chinese mainland in Guangdong and Wenzhou, Zhejiang, also began to be unable to bear such industries. So Shaodong County, located in Shaoyang City, Hunan Province, began to undertake the industry of lighters, which is as loose as duckweed.

A lighter sold for one yuan ten years ago, but it still sells for one yuan. The material is getting better and more powerful, so how can it still make money? How to prevent yourself from further wandering to various countries in Southeast Asia?

Lighters, textiles, bags and stationery pencils are always easily seen as low-end manufacturing. This is actually a thoughtless misunderstanding. Behind the extreme cost of lighters, there is the ambition of high-end manufacturing.

No industry is simple, and so are lighters. It has eight product lines, including anti-fan, direct punching machine, grinder and so on. There are more than 260 varieties in these series. Each variety requires more than 30 accessories and is not compatible with each other. For example, the wheels and outlet valves of grinding wheel lighters are different from electronic lighters, and they are all completely different.

Behind the lighter is a complex supply chain. For example, the most common three-piece set of lighters, that is, the combination of drainage core, core sleeve and sponge, needs to be supplied by a series of supporting factories.

And the electronic device of the lighter is a supply chain. It can even be seen as an extension of the ceramic industry. After a complex process of settling, the ceramic powder forms an envelope to wrap the battery, which is then combined with an iron head, a compression spring and an iron cap to form a delicate lever. Press down the iron cap, just a little bit.

Similarly, surface treatments such as small outlet valves, dazzling printing packages and electroplating paint are all backed by micro-supply chains.

Except for plastic particles and dangerous chemical gases, which are not local in Shaodong, there are everything else here. And they are all within a 30-minute drive. There are more than 100 fitters in a lighter factory, and the speed of material transfer between them is faster than the exchange of eyes between basketball players.

Behind a strong industrial cluster, it is supported by more than a dozen different industries. The richer the ecology, the stronger the resilience, which is the most important basic market made in China. If every industry can achieve such extreme efficiency, then there will be no worry about the relocation of the supply chain.

Vietnam, Bangladesh and Indonesia all have scattered factories of lighters. However, almost all of them are run by Chinese, or even by Shaodong entrepreneurs. As the local policy restricts simple trade and requires manufacturing on the ground, Chinese factories will be located here. But the factory here is just a simple assembly. The R & D system and the real supporting facilities are all in China.

This means that it will be difficult for these regions in Southeast Asia to replace China's professional clusters in the next decade. The characteristic of these clusters is that the manufacturing capacity is very strong and the supply chain is deeply intertwined.

The most fascinating thing is that gradient transfer can also go to western China. Some are engaged in automation, some have gone to Southeast Asia, but others have gone to the small development of western China. Shaodong lighters also have branches in Guizhou, and seven or eight enterprises have set up lighter industry clusters in Cengong County, which borders Hunan in eastern Guizhou. This is an industrial cluster of satellites.

Most of these factories are still headquartered in Shaodong, where they generally do not have the right to purchase or sell. At present, they are only processing agents. But it also accounts for 5% of the country's lighter exports. The industry will also develop slowly, contributing vitality to the local industry. One factory can contribute 500 local workers, and more than a dozen factories are a good small industry. The planned layout of Shaodong lighter industry is impressive. The layout of the headquarters base, small-scale development of the western region and assembly in Southeast Asia can be said to set an example of supply chain transfer for other industries in China.

The biggest progress here is the improvement of automation. Starting from 2012, after the elimination of small and medium-sized production capacity, enterprises began to enter the upgrading of non-standard automation equipment. The bosses of every company work hard for themselves, and they are all technical personnel, and they devote their lives to developing automation equipment. They can't rely on others, technology centers or research institutes, which are not very powerful: the equipment developed by these institutions is always too expensive, while lighter factories can't afford to use them with a profit of only a few percent.

Or the grassroots are more powerful. Many self-organized technical guerrillas have become developers of non-standard equipment. These are experts who repeatedly install and disassemble machines in the workshop. The developer soaked in the workshop with the lighter factory. This is a typical greasy black-handed innovation in the workshop. Their approach is to iterate quickly, improving efficiency a little at a time, and upgrading again over a period of time.

When the production line of lighters is getting more and more efficient, many manufacturers of automation equipment have made a fortune. Behind the rapid development of the lighter industry, there is a set of invisible structure of simultaneous upgrading of Chinese equipment manufacturing.

The progress driven by this double flywheel is rapid.

Now in the factory, except for the injection molding machine for injection plastic, almost all the other non-standard equipment developed by local manufacturers. Even the injection molding machine began to arm to the teeth. In the past, an injection molding machine needed two people: one person to pull the door and one person to add fabric. Now, by installing manipulators and loading and unloading mechanisms, one person can manage five injection molding machines.

The original inflatable device of the lighter was all operated manually. It's like a sewing machine worker, scrambling to cooperate. Operate the inflatable device above and step on the inflatable bag with your foot below. According to this method, one person can charge up to 3000 lighters a day. Now, with only one machine, you can charge 100000 lighters a day!

These factories are surrounded by supporting supply chain knives and axes, and the suppliers are capable of all kinds of martial arts. When plastic particles come, you can immediately make molds and plastic shells of various strange shapes; when metal plates come, you can immediately punch holes and bend electroplating. It can all be done in less than five kilometers.

Because of this, earth-shaking changes have taken place in the industry. In the past, the details of metal handling were poor and easy to rust, but now, the color is stable, spray painting, baking paint, electroplating and so on are all high quality and low cost.

For example, for the spare parts of the grinding wheel lighter, the original cost of the three-piece set was a few cents, but now it is a few cents. The outlet nozzle needs a rubber ring, with hollow vacuum bottom bracket, screws and plastic parts, pressed into one piece. How much does it cost? It used to be 20 cents, but now it only needs more than 1 cent.

The electronic lighter needs to press the iron head, spring and plastic parts into an electronic lighter. In the past, foreign imports needed more than one yuan, but now they can do it for five cents.

The cost is reduced by 95%. This is the deep diving ability made in China.

There are bigger goals. Now the automation of a single process in the factory workshop has been completed, and the next step is full-line automation. It will be a new world to challenge again.

While people see these powerful muscles such as dedicated entrepreneurs, multi-faceted supply chains and non-standard automation machines, there is also a layer of soft tissue that requires special attention.

The local lighter association has played a huge role in organizing and coordinating.

It looks for the ultimate channel in Dubai, Paris and other places around the world, while getting rid of Hong Kong intermediaries and establishing a global direct value network.

It sets up a trucking brigade to ensure that products are delivered to the port terminal on time. At the same time, handle customs clearance, customs clearance and other procedures. A fee is charged according to the number of containers. Large and small enterprises are fair and consistent.

Lighters seem like a simple industry, but in fact, they are heavily influenced by commodities. Market prices such as gases, metals and plastic particles are volatile and need whistlers. The association acts as a watchtower on the price of raw materials.

The most common industrial cluster is the "lobster in the basket" phenomenon. If a lobster wants to climb out of the basket and breathe more air, the other lobsters below will pull it back. This is the most desperate place to roll in, and no one is going to get ahead.

Such as the luggage capital of Hebei Baigou, it is easy to see the kind of suffocating price fighting. Any company takes months to develop a new product, as long as it appears, less than four days later, another manufacturer will start selling the same model. This means that no company is willing to invest and develop new products because there are too many risks. This kind of situation is very common in many spontaneous growth industrial clusters. These clusters trapped in the back basket are easy to fall apart in the next step.

In Shaodong lighter Association, there is a database of new products, which keeps all kinds of lighter styles. All the company's new products need to be sent here for the record during the development and proofing period. If it is a similar product, it will often be called back by the association. This approach encourages innovation and effectively puts an end to the slaughter of brothers. It even set up a price supervision committee, which does not allow low-price dumping, which completely solves the phenomenon of the most common bayonet in industrial clusters.

That's a brilliant way to organize.

For the past few decades, lighters have been drifting like nomads with no fixed abode. However, since he came to Shaodong, he has settled down here and never moved to Vietnam, India and other places. It is firmly attracted 200 kilometers southwest of Changsha, Hunan Province. The ultimate manufacturing capacity, supporting the supply chain, is such a huge sucker.

Lighters have never been made at a low end. China, as a big manufacturing country contributing to the global industry 1Compact 3, no industry has not been reborn, and no industry can survive today by low-end manufacturing. Shaodong lighter is the most vivid and standing red flag. Behind the Shaodong lighter, there is also a high-end organization. The organizational efficiency of this association is refreshing and may be far better than that of guilds in high-end industries.

Strategic emerging industries do not mean that they have high-end organizational strength.

Traditional industries tend to have more efficient organizations.

Guild, extreme automation, global value network, black hand innovation. When all these factors are added together, wandering the earth will stop wandering, and the wandering industry will take root in China.

A brief introduction to the author

Lin Xueping: general Manager of Beijing Lianxun Power Consulting Co., Ltd., visiting researcher of China quality Research Institute of Shanghai Jiaotong University

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