Reflections on Excavator Supply Chain Caused by the Japan Earthquake

Recently, the topic most concerned by everyone in the industry is undoubtedly the impact of the Japanese earthquake on the supporting system. Regardless of domestic brands, or Japanese brands such as Komatsu and Hitachi, or even Caterpillar from Europe and the United States, a large part of the core components comes from Japan. After the earthquake, many people asked about the production of Kawasaki and Isuzu. The official speeches were almost all of a kind of “less influential” and “nothing”. However, the entire manufacturer’s market and procurement staff were still worried about the continuous blowout market. Demand and spare parts supply are no doubt equivalent to cutting off the company's financial road.

A simple five-force model analysis of the excavator industry makes it easy to see that in addition to major pressures on the procurement of major parts, other parties face more powerful manufacturers, coupled with strong market demand, the excavator can be said to be quite a Nice industry. For the domestic brands in the industry, how to solve the left-side problem in the lateral pressure becomes an important factor for its development.

Five-force model analysis of excavator industry

Regarding the issue of core components, the policy orientation is just beginning. Like the whole machine growth path, if parts and components are regarded as a relatively independent industry, their development in China has only just begun. Driven by policy support and demand, the parts and components market will absorb large-scale investment in the next 5-10 years, and the number of manufacturers will grow geometrically, but there is still a long way to go from import substitution.

China's manufacturing growth path

Therefore, for a domestic machine company, the domestic supporting environment is unlikely to meet the current demand in a short period of time. In addition to relying on its own strong capital to increase investment in R&D of parts and components, it is wise to cooperate well with foreign suppliers.

solution

The earthquake in Japan has had a profound impact on the global supply chain, especially in the machinery manufacturing and IT electronics industries, which has led to in-depth thinking of downstream machine manufacturers. For the current domestic excavator machine enterprises, avoiding such emergencies as earthquakes, decentralized procurement became the only choice. For export-oriented Japanese manufacturing, further overseas expansion and technical output may be worth pondering. Will the "non-proliferation of technology" strategy be shaken!