Interview with Xiao Guopu, Chairman of Shangchai Co., Ltd., taking care of the automotive and industrial machine market

At the close of the year when Shanghai Diesel was formally incorporated into Shanghai Automotive Group Co., Ltd. (abbreviation: Shanghai Automotive), the board of directors of Shanghai Diesel International recently appointed a new general manager and chief financial officer. So what does this move illustrate, what changes will this company make in the future, and what are the highlights of the operation? Regarding the concerns of this series of investors, Mr. Xiao Guopu, Vice President of Shanghai Automotive and Chairman of Shangchai Co., Ltd., was released one by one when he was interviewed by this reporter.

Normal personnel changes

Talking about the recent personnel changes, Xiao Guopu first emphasized that this is a normal personnel change of the Shangchai Group's management team. He explained that during the transition period of Shangchai’s share transfer, Shanghai Automotive had already involved the company’s daily business affairs according to procedures. Therefore, former general manager Xiong Weiming had actually worked for Shangchai for about two years. During the period, Xiong Weiming and the entire management team fully implemented the tasks assigned by the board of directors and Shanghai Automotive, revealing excellent management skills and synergy, and successfully completed the mission of Shangchai’s integration into SAIC. Because of this, according to the need to implement SAIC's commercial vehicle strategy, this time it was assigned to SAIC's commercial vehicle vehicle company.

Xiao Guopu believes that since Shangchai will assume its unique role in the development strategy of SAIC's commercial vehicles in the future, SAIC attaches great importance to the personnel changes in the company's management layer. The company’s board of directors has employed the SAW system as well. The two comrades came to take on the new general manager and financial director of Shanghai Diesel. Among them, the general manager Wang Xiaoqiu engaged in technical background, and also engaged in enterprise quality management and business management, and achieved brilliant results. He believes that the new general manager and its team members will lead the management team to creatively display their talents and obtain competent positions in the process of building the core competitiveness of “Quality, Technology and Service” in Shanghai Diesel's shares. Performance.

Two major markets

Since Shangchai’s shares have entered the SAIC family, it is inseparable from the perspective of Shanghai Auto’s business development to talk about the development of Shanghai Diesel’s shares. In the view of Chairman Xiao Guopu, after Shangchai entered Shanghai Auto, it first solved the problem of adjustment and deployment of its business strategy. That is to say, Shangchai’s stock is not dominated by construction machinery, and the layout of ships’ main engines and power station engines along the river is not considered. Under the premise of change, according to the SAIC Group's commercial vehicle development strategy, Shangchai's original commercial vehicle engine, which was only produced in small batches, should be bigger and stronger. He said that the future product structure of Shanghai Diesel Engine Co., Ltd. will undergo a great change, that is, the original construction machinery and other traditional products and commercial vehicle engine products will each account for 50%.

Then, why can a commercial vehicle engine account for half of the products of Shangchai's future products? Xiao Guopu analyzed the strategic thinking of SAIC Motor Corporation in the overall development of commercial vehicles. As SAIC Motor Corporation focused on the development of passenger vehicles in recent years, it has been implementing commercial vehicles in recent years. In parallel with passenger cars, over the past years, they have implemented ultra-regular development measures, namely through the reorganization of mergers and acquisitions of Chongqing Hongyan Automobile, Nanjing Automobile Group and Shanghai Diesel Engine Co., Ltd., to solve the problem of product sources and factor allocation; The joint venture between Fiat and Iveco solved the technical resources of commercial vehicles. From this, it can be seen that after being included in the Shangqi Group's territory, Shanghai Diesel Engine Co., Ltd. has acquired the confidence to expand its commercial vehicle engine products.

Steps have been taken

Xiao Guopu further explained the development space of Shangchai's products based on the production and sales data of the existing commercial vehicles of SAIC Motor. Take Nanjing Iveco, a subsidiary of Shanghai Automotive, as an example, the company’s annual sales of commercial vehicles such as young cards and light buses are expected to exceed 80,000 units, and the planned sales volume for next year will be 100,000 units, to the planned annual production at the end of the “Twelfth Five-Year Plan” period. The goal is to reach 200,000 units; currently, Nanjing Iveco's engines are mainly supplied by other domestic diesel engine manufacturers. In the future, once Shanghai Diesel Engine Co., Ltd. is able to manufacture the engine of its required model, it will naturally have the opportunity to gradually replace the current outsourcing products. After all, independent products can be ensured in terms of delivery time, supply quantity, and after-sales service. The SAIC Motor has formulated a business strategy for key components and parts that need to be controlled as far as possible.

According to Xiao Guopu's introduction, based on the planning ideas of SAIC Motors’ full range of commercial vehicle engine suppliers, Shangchai has made a choice in coordination with its brothers on the positioning of commercial vehicle engines, that is, given that SAIC Fiat Hongyan focuses on high-end engines. Shangchai Co., Ltd. is targeting the mid-range engine of its own brand; in terms of product specifications, the 114-series engine power of Shangchai’s existing vehicles, which are available for vehicles at the same time, is medium-grade with a maximum specification of only 9 litres. Now, large-scale developments are underway according to market demand. 12 liters or more, as well as a small 3 to 6 litre engine. In fact, Shanghai Diesel Engine Co., Ltd. is actively increasing the development of commercial vehicle engines in recent years. It is reported that the 12-litre or higher-horsepower diesel engine jointly developed by a globally renowned European engine professional design company has entered the late stage. Within a few months you can take out the prototype.

The west side of the moon is also bright

While the eastern side is at sunrise, the west side is also going to be moonlight. According to Xiao Guopu's introduction, Shanghai Diesel Engine Co., Ltd. is also making active adjustments to its traditional construction machinery engine. At present, the domestic market is becoming more and more competitive with loaders, and the demand for excavator engines is increasing. However, due to the excavator's more demanding operating environment than the loader and more complex operations, it is The engine performance, quality and service speed also have higher requirements. Therefore, the excavator engine market in China is mainly occupied by foreign brands. To this end, Shanghai Diesel has started to develop a power plant for the "medium-sized excavator." The excavator engine has been tested on an excavator that is a leading local construction machinery company. Once breakthroughs are made, mass production will be implemented.

Of course, Xiao Guopu pointed out that since the engine is a technology-intensive product, it will take some time to develop a new product series with stable quality. The current business strategy adopted is divided into three steps, that is, the old and the new, the old and the new, and the new. old.

For green power

When talking about the topic of product innovation, Xiao Guopu raised his voice. Shangchai Co., Ltd. is not satisfied with the development of new products in the traditional field alone, but focuses on the new energy issues that are generally valued in the world today, and has been trying hard for years. Accumulation, has successfully developed a green power device that is conducive to energy conservation and environmental protection - a natural gas engine that has many advantages over an equivalent power diesel engine. He believes that this is a major step taken by Shanghai Diesel Engine Co., Ltd. in the direction of the country’s industrial policy and targeting the future new energy equipment industry.

According to reports, in the past five years, the self-developed domestically-controlled electronic natural gas engine products developed by Shanghai Diesel have gradually won the market, especially in the Northwest China's bus users who have rich natural gas resources. Nowadays, in cities such as Yinchuan, Chengdu, Shijiazhuang and Xi’an, it can be seen that buses using natural gas engines from Shanghai Diesel are running on the streets. Later, Shangchai's natural gas engines opened up the public transport system in Jinan, Shanghai and Shenzhen. It is understood that following October Shijiazhuang Bus Company announced that it had ordered more than 500 units of Chaiguo III natural gas engines at one stroke, and the company recently obtained bulk orders in Shenzhen and other places. It is worth mentioning that this natural gas engine has also begun to be applied to heavy trucks. Its customers include Shaanxi Automobile, Hualing and Beiqi Futian. According to statistics, at present, Shangchai's natural engine share exceeds 80% in the domestic natural gas bus power and truck power market.

Seize market space

At the same time, the natural gas engines of Shanghai Diesel Engine Co., Ltd. also dominate the export market. The market covers Thailand, Malaysia, five countries in Central Asia and Russia and other natural gas-rich overseas markets, and has been highly recognized by users. It is reported that Shanghai Diesel Engine Co., Ltd. also tried to apply natural gas engines to the construction machinery industry. With the cooperation of local loader companies in Thailand, it applied tests on loader products equipped with natural gas engines to prepare for the next batch of production.

As the leader in the field of natural gas engines in China, Shangchai Co., Ltd. recently hosted the “Asia-Pacific Natural Gas Vehicle Organization China Tour and Shangchai Power Environmental Protection Tour”. Mr. Lee, President of Asia-Pacific Natural Gas Vehicle Organization, said that the Asia Pacific Gas Vehicle Organization Association will continue to work hand in hand with Shangchai to promote cooperation between the upstream and downstream industrial chain of natural gas vehicles in the Asia Pacific region to jointly promote the use of natural gas vehicles in the Asia Pacific region. .

The reason why Shangchai Co., Ltd. actively participated in this 12-day event was highlighted by Xiao Guopu. This shows that our company is full of confidence in the universal promotion of environmental protection in China and even in Asia. With the deepening awareness of energy conservation and emission reduction in the global scope, People's acceptance of natural gas engines will be further enhanced, and the market space for natural gas engines at home and abroad will be further enlarged. Therefore, this product can bring considerable economic benefits to Shangchai.

Xiao Guopu finally emphasized that Shanghai Diesel Engine Co., Ltd. is currently brewing its own new five-year development plan under the framework of Shanghai Automotive's overall five-year rolling development plan. He also initially disclosed the idea of ​​the new five-year plan of Shanghai Diesel Engine Co., Ltd., that is, increase investment in research and development of new products to make the product line more abundant than now, and the R&D, trial production, and production process technology capabilities will be further strengthened, thus guiding the reorganization of Shangchai’s shares. brilliant.