Big Three's Outsourcing Plan:
Make Parts Suppliers Do It
Global trade and American labor are creating a quandary for the Big Three auto makers. Facing intense price competition, they want to take advantage of the plunging cost of manufacturing in China. Yet their labor agreements at home make it hard to shift jobs overseas.
Now the auto giants have hit upon an unusual strategy: Push their suppliers to do the outsourcing for them.
Consider the case of Superior Industries International Inc., a big aluminum-wheel maker in Van Nuys, Calif. For years, President Steve Borick dismissed Chinese manufacturing. The quality of Chinese wheels didn't impress him. The logistics of shipping thousands of rims across the Pacific seemed too complicated.
Then Mr. Borick and his managers started getting a blunt message from General Motors Corp. and Ford Motor Co., with whom Superior does 85% of its $840 million a year in business: Match the prices they were seeing at Chinese wheel suppliers. If Superior didn't want to agree to new terms, both auto makers said separately they could go directly to the Chinese or turn to a North American wheel maker that would, Superior officials say.
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"It's presented very simply," says Mr. Borick. "This is the price we are getting for this product. You either match that" or the auto maker will look elsewhere. "It's that black and white," he says. "The message is: Close the gap no matter how." In Superior's case, that meant cutting its profit margins -- and finally deciding to make its own wheels in China.
Both GM and Ford acknowledge that Chinese auto-parts suppliers now serve as global "benchmark" prices for quality and price on certain components, such as electric-wire cables, radios, speakers, small motors, and even brakes, suspensions and aluminum wheels. The prices reflect China's average wage costs of 90 cents an hour, compared with $22.50 in the U.S., according to Roland Berger Strategy Consultants of Munich, Germany.
"It's Economics 101, Adam Smith," Ford President Nick Scheele says in an interview. "It's the law of comparative advantage." He says the benchmark component prices Ford is asking suppliers to match these days represent "optimal" prices, and can come from anywhere in the world, including China.
Ford opened its China purchasing office in Shanghai in 2002 and is aiming to buy billions of dollars of components in the country, a good portion of which would end up in cars built in Ford's North American assembly plants.
U.S. suppliers say the pricing policy leaves them scrounging to close a cost gap as wide as 20% to 40% even after taking into account the costs for complicated logistics caused by the distance between Asia and North America. All of this is contributing to the disappearance of U.S. jobs in the parts industry.
Detroit's preoccupation with China goes back to the late 1990s, when the first wave of GM executives began coming home from the auto maker's joint ventures in Shanghai. They brought fresh perspectives on China as a place where car makers both could make money by selling cars and save money by purchasing cheaper parts. GM in 1997 set up a purchasing office in Beijing and later moved it to Shanghai. (See related article.)
The intensity of the auto industry's interest in China increased markedly in the months after the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks. With cash discounts and no-interest loans, the auto industry managed to keep itself afloat despite a darkening economic picture. The price war has continued even as the economy recovers.
With their own moves constricted by job-protection restrictions built into their pacts with the United Auto Workers, the Big Three began leaning on suppliers to help with cost cutting. Superior officials say meetings with senior purchasing managers such as Jeff Engle of Ford and GM's Ann Ryan, among others, made this clear. They demanded to know why Superior wasn't taking advantage of China's lower costs, says Jeff Ornstein, Superior's chief financial officer. GM and Ford declined to make the officials available for comment.
The Big Three say they are still a long way from fully exploiting China's potential as a source of parts. Less than 5% of the components Ford uses to build vehicles in North America come from offshore, says Ford Spokesman Paul Wood. Ford missed its 2003 goal of buying $1 billion of China-produced parts for use outside the country -- in part because it took longer than expected in verifying varying degrees of quality and other capabilities of Chinese suppliers.
At GM, only one-tenth of 1% of materials and parts the company uses in North America come directly from China -- though some parts from suppliers might contain subcomponents from China or other low-wage countries, says Tom Wickham, a GM spokesman.
Overall, China last year exported $1 billion of components to the U.S., up 32% from 2002 and more than double the 2000 level, according to Commerce Department data. Still, China trailed far behind Germany and Japan, which shipped to the U.S. $2.2 billion and $7.3 billion of components, respectively, in 2003.
Becoming 'Chinese'
Ultimately, the only way for U.S. suppliers to match their China-based rivals' low bids is to become more "Chinese" themselves, either by moving jobs there, or by acquiring a majority of subcomponents from Chinese suppliers.
Big auto supplier Delphi Corp. has found savings of as much as 40% by shifting production to China. Auto makers obviously "don't want us to leave those savings lying around on the table," says Delphi Vice Chairman Don Runkle. The upshot: Of the $650 million of components Delphi produced in China last year, the company shipped roughly 20% outside China, to North America and other destinations around the globe. "I think over the next five years, we will see a significant increase" on those exports, Mr. Runkle says.
Under pressure to lower prices, Summit Polymers Inc., a plastic auto-parts producer near Kalamazoo, Mich., has been exploring ways to cut costs. One way is to buy the molds it uses to produce plastic parts from China, where they are much cheaper. The company also has been considering shifting some production to China and earlier this year sent a small mission to explore opportunities there.
The North American unit of Tokyo-based Foster Electric Co. has been selling speakers made in Mexico to Ford since 1998. Last year, Foster shifted its entire production of automotive speakers to Guangzhou, putting a serious dent in its Mexican plant's operations. According to a Foster official, the move helped Ford shave 20% off its procurement costs.
In Hangzhou, an industrial megalopolis three hours from Shanghai by car, Lu Guanqiu says his company sees visitors from the Detroit auto makers or big U.S. and European parts suppliers "just about every day." The Chinese billionaire is chairman of big parts supplier Wanxiang Group Co. They come, he says, "because they want to use my company to lower prices." Wanxiang's exports to the U.S. of chassis and suspension systems, brakes, transmission systems and shock absorbers, among other components, are growing at 30% or so a year, Mr. Lu says.
At Superior, the pressure to cut costs has been relentless. During the fourth quarter of last year, Mr. Borick says Superior agreed to cut prices of products shipped to GM and Ford, though he wouldn't say by how much. It was "a matter of survival," he says.
Superior has a 38% share of America's market of 40 million aluminum wheels a year. To protect that position, the California manufacturer had to accept a big hit to its profit margins. In this year's first quarter, Superior's margins are expected to have fallen to 5.5% from the 8%-to-8.5% range last year. A few years ago, Superior had margins as high as 12%. Now pricing is so precarious that Mr. Borick declined to predict margins for the full year.
After Ford announced its plan to buy wheels from a Chinese supplier, Superior's board decided to act. "That was evidence that when they talk about resourcing to China, it isn't all talk," says Mr. Ornstein, the Superior CFO.
In March, Superior's board gave Mr. Borick the green light to spend $10 million to $20 million to build a joint-venture plant near Shanghai with a Chinese wheel producer. Though Mr. Borick declines to give specific numbers, the move is expected to produce big savings for Superior, which charges the North American auto makers about $50 apiece for its wheels.
"We have to take the posture that we are going to continue to work with our major customers ... who keep pressing us to be in China," he says.
Disappearing Jobs
According to a recent study of parts suppliers by Roland Berger, 133,000 jobs, or 16% of the labor pool, in the American parts industry have disappeared over the past four years as parts suppliers cut costs by improving productivity or shifting jobs to lower-cost countries such as China and Mexico. By 2010, the same study predicts a further 127,000 jobs, or 18% of the 707,000 remaining, will disappear or move overseas, says Andreas Mai, the author of the Roland Berger study.
Superior has seven U.S. plants in Arkansas, Kansas, Tennessee and California. For now, Mr. Borick has assured Superior's 5,400 U.S. workers that they won't face immediate layoffs or plant closures. But Mr. Borick suggests there is no long-term guarantee. When the company starts producing wheels in China and adds a third plant in Mexico over the next few years, Mr. Borick says Superior will "reassess some of [its] existing North American operations."
Company insiders say the most vulnerable of Superior's U.S. plants is its oldest and highest-cost plant, located next to the company's head office in Van Nuys. The plant is one of the greater Los Angeles area's largest manufacturers, employing 1,000 workers who produce 2.5 million wheels a year for vehicles like Ford's Mustang and Explorer and GM's Pontiac Vibe.
Mr. Ornstein says closing the Van Nuys plant is "not in the cards" at least for three to five years because the number of aluminum wheels brought into the U.S. from its joint-venture plant in China would remain small initially and because of new business the company has managed to cultivate recently. He declined to elaborate.
If the company eventually shutters its Van Nuys plant it would represent a major blow to the town that once thrived as the Detroit of the West. GM produced Camaros and Firebirds in Van Nuys until 1992 when it decided to shift production to Canada. Today, at a 68-acre site where GM once employed well over 2,000 workers stands an industrial and retail complex.
"California is tough," Mr. Borick says. "It is the highest-cost state to manufacture. California is going to keep losing its manufacturing base."
美国汽车厂商的中国情节
全球贸易和美国的劳动力成本正在为美国三大汽车生产商制造窘境。由于面著巨大的价格压力，他们希望能将汽车生产业务转移到中国以显著降低成本。但他们在国内签署的劳资协议却使其难以将就业机会转移至海外。
现在这些汽车业巨头们灵机一动，找到了一个不同寻常的策略：促使其供应商代他们完成业务外包工作。
让我们来看一看加州铝车轮生产商Superior Industries International Inc.的情况。多年来，该公司总裁史蒂夫?波瑞克(Steve Borick)一直对在中国从事制造业务持否定态度。中国产车轮的质量并未给他留下什么深刻印象。而将成千上万的轮圈运过太平洋似乎也是件太过复杂的物流工作。
不过，现年51岁的波瑞克终于认识到，他已别无选择。在2002年底花了9天时间到中国去了解了一番当地的竞争情况后，波瑞克发现美国汽车行业展开中国之旅的并非只有他一个人，在一些中国的业内同行那里，他看到了通用汽车公司(General Motors Corp.)和福特汽车公司(Ford Motor Co.)工程师及零部件采购员的身影。
波瑞克回忆说，那种情形使他大卫震惊。如果Superior自己不去利用中国的低劳动力成本优势，通用和福特这两家它最大的客户最终也会自己去找中国人做生意。Superior每年8.4亿美元营业额的85%是这两家公司贡献的。
今天，波瑞克当初的一些担忧已经成为了现实。福特汽车公司今年早些时候开始从一家中国供货商那里采购车轮。更有甚者，随著美国市场上价格较低的中国产车轮越来越多，美国的三大汽车制造商正要求Superior这类供应商在价格上向中国产品看齐。
波瑞克说，事情非常简单，价格决定一切，要么向中国产品的价格看齐，要么就得听任汽车生产厂去寻找其他供应商。在波瑞克看来，不是生存便是死亡，现在唯一能做的就是想尽一切办法缩小与中国产品的价格差距。具体到Superior，就是要按客户的要求将供货价格大大压下来，即使牺牲利润率也在所不惜，具体做法就是开始在中国成立合资企业。
2002年，美国三大汽车制造商要求其供应商利用中国低劳动力成本优势的呼声开始加大。到2003年，随著价格战席卷美国汽车市场，这一呼吁变成了喊叫。
波瑞克和他手下的业务经理们在与通用和福特的采购经理人会面时多次被告知，要向中国车轮生产商提出的报价看齐，因为中国产品在质量和其他技术性能上都不逊于美国产品，中国供应商的物流配送能力和制造能力也可与Superior相媲美。如果Superior不想接受这一苛刻的新条件，通用和福特都表示，他们可以直接去向中国厂家订货，也可以选择一家接受该条件的北美车轮生产商。
通用和福特承认，中国生产的电线电缆、车用收音机、汽车喇叭、小型马达，甚至刹车片、悬架和铝车轮等汽车零部件在一定性价比基础上已经为全球同类商品确立了“基准”价格。中国产品的价格是中国劳动力成本的反映，罗兰贝格管理咨询公司(Roland Berger Strategy Consultants)提供的数据显示，中国每小时的平均工资成本为90美分，而美国则为22.50美元。
福特汽车公司总裁尼克?谢勒(Nick Scheele)在接受采访时说，这是严酷的经济学法则和亚当?斯密(Adam Smith)的经济学理论在现实中的体现，是比较优势规律在起作用。他说，福特汽车公司最近要求其供应商达到的基准零部件价格是世界市场的通行价，在包括中国的世界各国都能找到按这一价格提供产品的供应商。
福特汽车于2002年在上海设立了中国采购办事处，打算在中国采购价值数十亿美元的零部件，其中相当大一部分将用于福特在北美的汽车装配厂。
美国的供应商们说，即使算上将产品从亚洲运到北美的高昂物流成本，福特从中国采购零部件的花费也比在美国购买同类产品要便宜20%到40%。
美国汽车业巨头的中国情节始于上世纪九十年代后期。当时通用汽车第一批派往其上海合资企业的管理人士们开始陆续返回美国。他们带回了看待中国的新视角，人们意识到汽车厂家不仅可以靠在中国卖车赚钱，还可以通过在那里采购低成本零部件而节省成本。通用汽车于1997年在北京设立了采购办事处，后来又将这一办事处移往上海。
在911恐怖袭击事件后的岁月里，汽车业对中国的兴趣显著增加。当时美国经济局面一片黯淡，汽车工业为了生存下去，纷纷推出了现金折扣和零利率贷款等促销手段。虽然美国经济现在已经复苏，但汽车厂商间的价格战仍在持续。
由于与全美汽车工人联合会(United Auto Workers)签有保护美国汽车工人就业机会的劳资协议，美国三大汽车制造商在将就业岗位向海外转移方面受到了限制，因此他们开始依靠供应商的帮助来削减成本。Superior的首席财务长杰夫?翁恩斯坦(Jeff Ornstein)说，从他与福特的杰夫?英格尔(Jeff Engle)和通用的安?赖安(Ann Ryan)等汽车业高级采购经理的会晤中可以清楚感知这一点。这些采购经理都在问，为什么Superior不去利用中国的低成本优势呢？通用和福特的相关管理人士都拒绝就此发表评论。
这两家公司都为从中国采购零部件而节省下大笔开支而欣喜不已。他们都在逐步加大从中国的采购量，并制定出了雄心勃勃的目标，要购买数十亿美元的中国产零部件，以供其北美汽车厂和其他中国以外业务之需。两家公司都表示，他们从中国采购零部件的最大动因就是要节省成本，他们还希望美国的消费者不要太在意两家公司所产的汽车使用中国的零部件。福特汽车的总裁谢勒就说，美国消费者购买的不是用中国零部件生产的汽车；他们购买的是福特汽车的产品。
但美国三大汽车公司称，他们在全面开发中国的零部件供应潜力方面还有很长的路要走，这既是因为受限于与工会签署的劳资协议，也是由于用远道而来的零部件来满足公司的“适时”生产是个复杂的物流难题。福特汽车的发言人保罗?伍德(Paul Wood)说，该公司北美产汽车中只有不足5%的零部件来自海外。福特汽车在2003年未实现其从中国采购10亿美元零部件用于该国以外业务的目标。
就通用汽车而言，该公司在北美所用的材料和零部件只有千分之一直接来自中国，不过公司发言人汤姆?威克海姆(Tom Wickham)承认，一些来自供应商的零部件中可能含有产自中国或其他低工资成本国家的组件。
商务部(Commerce Department)提供的数据显示，中国去年总计向美国出口了价值10亿美元的汽车零部件，较2002年增长了32%，较2000年则翻了一番以上。不过中国在这方面仍然大大落后于德国和日本，这两个国家去年分别向美国出口了价值22亿美元和73亿美元的汽车零部件。
归根结底，美国供应商看齐其中国竞争对手低报价的唯一出路就是使自己变得更“中国化”，要么将生产业务移师中国，要么从中国采购自己所产零部件的多数组件。
在距上海三个小时车程的工业城市杭州，大型零部件供应商万向集团(Wanxiang Group Co.)的董事长鲁冠球说，差不多每天都有美国三大汽车公司和欧美大型零部件供应商的采购经理及工程师来到他的公司，要求购买零部件。鲁冠球说，这些人来的目的是要采购到价格较低的产品，万向集团向美国出口的汽车底盘、悬架系统、刹车装置、传动系统和减震器等产品的金额每年都增长30%左右。
在降低产品价格的压力下，美国塑料汽车零部件生产商Summit Polymers一直在寻求以更激进的方法降低成本。方法之一就是从中国购买生产塑料零部件的模具，而该公司也在考虑将一些生产业务转移到中国，今年早些时候它已派遣了一个小型代表团到中国去寻找商业机会。（该公司尚未决定是否进一步推进这一计划。）
Foster Electric Co.是一家总部位于东京的公司，自1998年以来，其美国子公司一直在墨西哥生产出售给福特汽车的车用喇叭，但应福特的要求，Foster去年决定将其汽车喇叭生产业务全部移往中国广州，这使该公司墨西哥工厂的业务受到沉重打击。据Foster的一位管理人士称，此举使福特的汽车喇叭采购成本降低了20%。
汽车零部件大型供应商德尔福公司(Delphi Corp.)是在华业务规模最大的外国零部件厂商之一，该公司发现将生产业务转到中国能节省多达40%的成本。公司副董事长唐?朗克尔(Don Runkle)说，汽车厂商当然不希望德尔福白白放过这一节省成本的机会。其结果就是：德尔福去年在华所产价值6.5亿美元汽车零部件中，有约20%销到了中国以外。朗克尔认为，未来5年该公司从中国出口到国外的零部件将大幅增加。
在波瑞克又来中国跑了三趟之后，Superior的董事会今年终于同意该公司在中国投资1,000万至2,000万美元，与一家中国的车轮生产商在上海附近组建一家合资企业。有望成为Superior合资伙伴的厂家是戴卡轮毂制造有限公司(Dicastal Wheel Manufacturing Co.)、六丰机械工业有限公司(Liufeng Machinery Industry Co.)和源恒(福建)工业股份有限公司（Yuan Feng (Fujian) Industrial Co.）。这家合资工厂的铝轮年产量最终将达到200万只，其中一些将返销美国。
虽然波瑞克不肯透露具体数字，但此举预计将使Superior的车轮生产成本大幅降低，该公司出售铝轮给北美汽车生产商的价格是每只50美元。据零部件供应商的管理人士称，即使在计入将产品运回北美的物流成本后，将生产业务转移到中国一般而言也能为企业节省20%到40%的成本。
波瑞克去年第四季度时称，Superior同意下调向通用和福特的供货价，不过他不愿意透露具体调价幅度。波瑞克说，这都是为了生存。
北美地区每年的铝轮需求量为4,000万只，Superior在这一市场的占有率为38%。为了保住这一市场份额，该公司不得不忍痛大幅降低利润率。今年第一季度， Superior的利润率预计将从去年的8%-8.5%降至5.5%。而在几年前，该公司的利润率还曾高达12%。由于定价环境是如此不稳定，波瑞克现在甚至不愿意对公司全年的利润率作出预测。
在福特汽车宣布计划从一家中国供应商那里购买车轮后，Superior的董事会决定采取行动了。该公司首席财务长翁恩斯坦说，显然，当福特汽车谈论向中国外包业务时，它可不是在空谈。Superior目前尚未达成在中国合资建厂的协议，它也拒绝透露谁将成为其合资伙伴，不过该公司管理人士称，最终协议就快签署了。
波瑞克说，他仍然不能确信将生产业务转到中国就能使Superior的利润率恢复到以往的高水平。这也就是他为何决定先投资1,000万至2,000万美元试试水，而不是一下子就投资5,000万美元的原因。
波瑞克称，Superior不得不做出将继续与主要客户合作的姿态，而正是这些客户一直在催促该公司到中国开展业务的。
削减成本的努力导致汽车零部件供应商的雇工人数出现下降。罗兰贝格公司最近对汽车零部件供应商所做的研究显示，过去4年中，美国汽车零部件制造业已经丧失了13.3万个就业岗位，就业人数减少了16%，这既是因为零部件供应商为削减成本而提高了劳动生产率，也是由于这些供应商将业务转移到了中国和墨西哥等低劳动力成本国家。这项研究还预计，到2010年时，美国零部件制造业目前就业岗位的18%，即70.7万中的12.7万将会消失或流失海外。
Superior在美国阿肯色、堪萨斯、田纳西和加利福尼亚等地有7家工厂。波瑞克目前对该公司在美5,400名工人的保证是，他们不会马上失业，他们所工作的工厂眼下也不会被关闭。但波瑞克也说，无法向工人们提供长期的就业保证。他说，未来3年中，当公司开始在中国生产车轮，并在墨西哥建成第三家工厂时，Superior将重新评估其现有的北美业务。
据该公司内部人士称，最有可能被关闭的是与公司总部一墙之隔的那座工厂，该厂成立时间最久，生产成本也最高。这家工厂是洛杉矶地区最大的制造商之一，有工人1,000人，每年生产250万只车轮。
Superior的首席财务长翁恩斯坦说，公司至少3到5年内还不计划关闭这家工厂，因为公司在中国的合资工厂开业初期无法向美国市场提供大量的铝轮，还因为Superior最近又开发了新的业务。不过他拒绝对此详加说明。
如果该公司关闭这家位于Van Nuys的工厂，将对曾有西部底特律之称的Van Nuys城造成沉重打击。1992年之前通用汽车一直在该城生产其Camaros和Firebirds牌汽车。如今，一度是通用汽车2,000多名工人工作场所的原址上矗立的是一幢工贸综合楼。
波瑞克说，加州居之不易，这里是美国制造业成本最高的州，加州的制造业将继续流失。
