The Trifles in Gree

By Zhu Jianghong Translation by Liu Jie

The Trifles in Gree

By Zhu Jianghong Translation by Liu Jie

The beginning of the 1990s saw the golden era of development for air conditioners in China. How did Gree, then “at the bottom of society,” battle through the fiercely competitive circumstances to get to the Promised Land?

One thing that challenged me greatly in the beginning of 1994 was when we first made it to the Italian market. We had been racking our brains to do everything we could to ensure the quality of the first batch of air conditioners ever exported to a developed country. After signing the contract,we commissioned “a pre-war mobilization” before organizing well-planned manufacturing, for which we had rigorous requirements for production materials. In addition, we also formulated strict quality standards and adopted scrupulous tests for the products according to European standards so that everything would go smoothly.

When visiting Italy with some of my colleagues in November, I felt quite proud of our success and believed that we would reap praise from our client.However, we got a good scolding upon our meeting.“Your air conditioners are terrible. They are as loud as tractors, and we’ve suffered greatly from that,”he said. It was like a head-on blow to us. We felt completely at a loss.

How was it possible? The air conditioners had gone through rigorous testing before getting out of the factory, and all of them had reached European standards. So, I asked the client to lead us to the site of the air conditioner to have a check. When we got there and turned it on, we found that the noise was indeed very loud, well exceeding the normal standard. On opening the enclosure, we found a spindly sponge that had slipped due to faulty sticking. One of its ends had fallen onto the cross-flow fan, hence making the jarring sound.When the sponge was stuck in its place, the noise vanished immediately.

Could we blame the client for not knowing how to use air conditioners? Air conditioners are expected to be in perfect condition when they get out of the factory. Whatever errors there are in the products, we should be responsible for them.Gluing the sponge, being a trivial thing in the whole process of production, seldom got emphasized in the past; however, if not well glued, the trifle may bring about a big problem when the products are in the client’s hands.

Steve Jobs believed, “When we have higher requirements for ourselves and focus on all the details, then our products are sure to be different from those of others.” The quality distinctions between different enterprises are, in most cases,embodied in trivial matters.

上世紀(jì)90年代初，中國(guó)迎來空調(diào)發(fā)展的黃金時(shí)期，處于“社會(huì)底層”的格力，怎樣殺出一條血路呢？

有一件事深深地觸動(dòng)了我。1994年初，我們第一次打入意大利市場(chǎng)。為了這首批出口到發(fā)達(dá)國(guó)家的空調(diào)，可謂“費(fèi)盡心機(jī)”，制定了嚴(yán)格的質(zhì)量規(guī)范，按歐洲標(biāo)準(zhǔn)，嚴(yán)格檢驗(yàn)把關(guān)，合同簽訂后，進(jìn)行“戰(zhàn)前動(dòng)員”，生產(chǎn)過程周密組織，選材嚴(yán)格把關(guān)，力爭(zhēng)“萬無一失”。

到了11月份，我?guī)е鴰酌?，懷著春風(fēng)得意的心情，訪問意大利。本以為能聽到客戶的贊譽(yù)聲，可見面后便被客戶臭罵一頓：“你們的空調(diào)很不好，聲音像拖拉機(jī)一樣，可把我們害苦了?！焙?jiǎn)直給了我們當(dāng)頭一棒。

空調(diào)出廠前，明明是經(jīng)過嚴(yán)格的檢測(cè)，完全符合歐洲的質(zhì)量標(biāo)準(zhǔn)呀。我叫客戶帶我們到現(xiàn)場(chǎng)查看，到了現(xiàn)場(chǎng)，開動(dòng)空調(diào)，噪音確實(shí)很大，完全超出標(biāo)準(zhǔn)的要求。打開外殼，發(fā)現(xiàn)有一條細(xì)長(zhǎng)的海綿，粘貼不牢，一頭掉了下來，正好碰到高速旋轉(zhuǎn)的貫流風(fēng)葉上，發(fā)出刺耳的聲音，把海綿重新貼好，噪音隨之消失。

難道能怪客戶不懂得使用嗎？空調(diào)出廠就應(yīng)該是完美的，任何紕漏應(yīng)當(dāng)都是我們的責(zé)任。貼海綿在整個(gè)空調(diào)生產(chǎn)過程中，只是小事一樁，過去，根本沒有人會(huì)在意它，可貼得不好，到了客戶手中，就可能成為大問題。

喬布斯認(rèn)為：“對(duì)自己要求更高，并且關(guān)注所有細(xì)節(jié)后，產(chǎn)品就會(huì)和別人不一樣?！逼髽I(yè)之間質(zhì)量的差別，很多時(shí)候，就體現(xiàn)在一些細(xì)小的事情上。

意大利之行，看似慘淡收?qǐng)觯瑓s收獲了一個(gè)理念的轉(zhuǎn)變：抓質(zhì)量必須從小事做起。

1995年，有一件事在公司引起極大的震動(dòng)。那年5月，有一批空調(diào)出現(xiàn)大面積“死機(jī)”現(xiàn)象，空調(diào)開動(dòng)不久，突然停止工作，需要關(guān)機(jī)，重新啟動(dòng)，工作了一會(huì)兒，又重復(fù)原來的故障。

消費(fèi)者紛紛投訴，售后部門應(yīng)接不暇，焦頭爛額。

追查原因，出在一個(gè)小小的片狀電容身上。

我們找到供應(yīng)廠，他們說是該批電容不合格，是因?yàn)樵瓉淼牟牧?/p>

The tour to Italy seemed to end in humiliation,but actually we gained and benefited from a change of notions: quality control must start with the small things.

In 1995, another event caused a great shock for the company. In May of that year, something strange happened. A batch of air conditioners crashed after working for a while. Then, they had to be turned off and restarted. After a while the cycle would repeat.

Consumers were making complaints one after another. The customer service department was overwhelmed with customers’ complaints and completely exhausted.

Note:

Zhu Jianghong: Former President of Gree Electric Appliances Inc., the world’s largest residential air-conditioner manufacturer

After we had investigated the cause, it turned out that the problem had resulted from a small chip capacitor.

We found the supplier who explained that this group of chip capacitors were not qualified because the original material had not been available for a while, so, unauthorized by us, they had used a new material instead. We paid dearly for that. As a result, a large number of the staff were sent out to all parts of the country to have the faulty capacitors changed, which not only cost us one million yuan,but more importantly, had a severe impact on the company.

It’s easy to control the quality of self-made parts, but how could we control the quality of the purchased parts made by others? In the end, we came up with a most “foolish” idea after discussing it with the related executive. The idea was to establish a “sifting branch plant”which neither produced any parts nor assembled products and whose sole duty was to test and sift through all the important parts purchased before they were assembled. This was done so that the unqualified parts could be removed and returned back to their manufacturers. What’s more, the co-operative plants would be subjected to some financial punishments according to the seriousness of the problem, in order to force them to take their product quality seriously.

I remember at that time, a part in an air conditioner, a stop valve, would leak occasionally.Once this happened, the refrigerant would drain away gradually, until the air conditioner would either stop refrigeration or had to be refilled with refrigerant. It was really troublesome because it was by no means an easy job to check the stop valve in each air conditioner. The sifting plant had come up with lots of ideas for that. Without a ready-made detection device, they had to make one of their own. At first, they did not have good testing efficiency, but after several modifications, they finally made an automated testing line, greatly improving both the accuracy and efficiency of testing.

At that time when air conditioners enjoyed good sales, we were laughed at by many people who thought we were bringing owls to Athens, for the move could hardly promote the sales but increased the cost. But I insisted that even if we found out that only 1%, or even 0.1% of the products were defective, we would still be winners. For if each 1% of all the parts were defective,when assembled, that 1% would accumulate into a big failure rate. And it would not only cost money for maintenance but might even cost the “l(fā)ife” of the product. So, isn’t it worth the effort? ?

(From Zhu Jianghong’s Autobiography, Enterprise Management Publishing House)

一時(shí)缺貨，工廠擅自更換新材料所致。真是害死人。我們只好派出大批人員，到全國(guó)各地把這一批號(hào)的電容更換掉，不但花費(fèi)上百萬元，還造成極其惡劣的影響。

自制零件易控制，別人做的采購(gòu)件，如何控制呢？最終，我與相關(guān)主管研究出一個(gè)“最笨”的辦法，成立“篩選分廠”。篩選分廠一不生產(chǎn)零件，二不裝配產(chǎn)品，它的工作，就是把買回來的重要零件，在上線裝配之前，逐一檢驗(yàn)篩選，不合格的剔除，退回原廠，并按情節(jié)的嚴(yán)重程度，給予協(xié)作廠一定的經(jīng)濟(jì)處罰，迫使協(xié)作廠家重視產(chǎn)品質(zhì)量。

我記得當(dāng)時(shí)有一個(gè)零件——截止閥，偶爾有泄漏現(xiàn)象，一旦遇上，冷媒就會(huì)慢慢跑掉，空調(diào)不能制冷，或者過一段時(shí)間，就得加“雪種”，讓人非常頭痛。要把每個(gè)截止閥檢查一遍，并非易事，篩選分廠想了很多辦法，沒有現(xiàn)成的檢測(cè)設(shè)備，就用土辦法自己制造。開始時(shí)，檢測(cè)效率不高，幾經(jīng)改造，最后制成一條自動(dòng)檢測(cè)線，大大提高了檢測(cè)的精度和效率。

在當(dāng)時(shí)空調(diào)不愁銷路的情況下，很多人笑話我們，認(rèn)為是多此一舉，對(duì)銷售沒有什么促進(jìn)作用，還增加生產(chǎn)成本。我堅(jiān)持認(rèn)為，只要從每種被檢的零件中檢出百分之一，哪怕是千分之一的不良品，我就是贏家。因?yàn)槊糠N零件有百分之一的不良品，裝配組合起來，就是一個(gè)不小的故障率，維護(hù)起來不但要錢，而且還要“命”，難道不值得嗎？?

（摘自《朱江洪自傳》 企業(yè)管理出版社）

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文/朱江洪 譯/劉潔