Toyota's "recall door" is reminiscent of the "lock door" that Audi broke out that year. In 2006, Audi owners complained that “an Audi car key can open two Audi cars at the same timeâ€. At the end of 2008, Audi car locks again broke the quality problem. Audi owner complained: Press and hold the remote control of an Audi car, the remote control of several other cars can not be used, the door can not be locked. Audi's car lock is known as "the most vulnerable part of Audi" and is the "Achilles' heel."
However, it is worth noting that the accelerator pedal on the Toyota is not produced by Toyota itself. For Toyota cars sold in North America, the accelerator pedals are from CTS in the US; the Toyota accelerator pedals sold in Europe are produced by a Czech company. This is a typical outsourcing production model, and many domestic hardware companies are doing this outsourcing business.
As a world-renowned big company, I believe that Audi's car locks are not produced by Audi itself. It is not clear whether the domestic Audi is also outsourcing the car locks to the domestic car lock manufacturers. Audi's car lock quality problem has not caused widespread concern because the probability of failure is not too high, but "Toyota recalls the door" is still reminding the domestic car lock companies to do outsourcing business: quality is the basis of survival.
Our outsourced car lock companies should pay more attention to the quality of the products and avoid the tragedy of the Toyota accelerator pedal. Originally, the market competitiveness is not very strong. Once a Chinese lock company encounters such a major problem, it will be difficult to continue production.
The automotive industry is a highly market-oriented industry with extremely fierce competition. This puts very strict requirements on the quality of the whole vehicle and spare parts. Moreover, the quality of the car and its spare parts is directly related to the safety of human life, so it is also strictly managed . Most auto manufacturers have a very complete "recall system". Sometimes a small quality defect will lead to the recall of the entire line of vehicle products, causing huge losses to the company. When the Audi "car lock door" just broke out, some experts pointed out that the mutual opening rate of the Audi lock is unqualified, and the radio frequency of the remote control has a setting problem. These are already safety hazards. If such problems occur in large numbers, Audi should also recall related products.
Car locks have always been in a special position throughout the lock industry. It seems that it is far from other hardware industries and is closer to the automotive industry. But in any case, it is also an important member of the lock industry. The sales of car locks are quite special. Everyone rarely sees them in the market because it usually only supplies large automakers in large quantities, some to auto repair companies, and they all take big orders.
When it comes to big orders, it will definitely envy other hardware companies. But this is just "looking beautiful." The bitterness inside is only known to the car lock companies themselves. Here, experts have explained some of the characteristics of the car lock industry for us.
First of all, car locks are different from mechanical locks in the traditional sense. Today's car locks are generally radio remote locks, which is obviously much more complicated than the mechanical locks we have in mind. Therefore, the threshold for entry into the automotive lock industry is relatively high. Secondly, the production scale of general automobile enterprises is very large, so the demand for locks is also very large. Sometimes the demand for an order will reach 100,000 or even hundreds of thousands, requiring lock companies to have considerable capacity. Finally, and most importantly: the competition in the automotive industry is very fierce. Even if a small component has quality problems, it will be a heavy loss. Therefore, the general automobile companies will put near-demanding quality requirements on the purchased car lock products. Can not be sloppy.
It is not difficult to see from the above three points that in the past, “small hardware workshop†enterprises were unable to produce car locks. Therefore, most of the domestic car lock companies are medium-sized and above enterprises. It can be said that these few companies are successful winners in the industry competition. They have certain technology and can produce qualified car lock products; they have a certain scale to meet the orders of large auto companies; some have relatively fixed channels, and can stably obtain orders from a certain auto company. These are the outstanding features of the car lock industry.
Of course, in a fully competitive market, no industry or business can sit back and relax. The Toyota "Recall Gate" once again reminded us of the car lock company, product quality is the lifeline of the enterprise. In the long-term cooperation with an automobile company, our car lock enterprises have stable orders and significant benefits, and are in a virtuous circle. However, once the quality problems of the locks cause the related automobile companies to suffer losses, the "honeymoon period" will quickly pass.
It is a trivial matter to stop cooperation at that time, and even the relevant automobile companies will be held liable. The loss of reputation will also affect the cooperation between car lock companies and other auto companies. The final result may be to enter a vicious circle, it is difficult to re-order, and it will face difficulties in this industry. Therefore, product quality is the foundation of the company's survival, and this is not just a slogan. For the 'recall door' incident that Toyota broke out, our domestic car lock companies should take the precautions to improve product quality and firmly grasp their hard-won survival opportunities.