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90年代初，中國迎來空調發展的黃金時期，處于“社會底層”的格力，怎樣殺出一條血路呢？

有一件事深深地觸動了我。1994年初，我們第一次打入意大利市場。為了這首批出口到發達國家的空調，可謂“費盡心機”，制定了嚴格的質量規范，按歐洲標準，嚴格檢驗把關，合同簽訂后，進行“戰前動員”，生產過程周密組織，選材嚴格把關，力爭“萬無一失”。

到了11月份，我帶著幾名同事，懷著春風得意的心情，訪問意大利。本以為能聽到客戶的贊譽聲，可見面后便被客戶臭罵一頓：“你們的空調很不好，聲音像拖拉機一樣，可把我們害苦了。”簡直給了我們當頭一棒。

空調出廠前，明明是經過嚴格的檢測，完全符合歐洲的質量標準呀。我叫客戶帶我們到現場查看，到了現場，開動空調，噪音確實很大，完全超出標準的要求。打開外殼，發現有一條細長的海綿，粘貼不牢，一頭掉了下來，正好碰到高速旋轉的貫流風葉上，發出刺耳的聲音，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？空調出廠就應該是完美的，任何紕漏應當都是我們的責任。貼海綿在整個空調生產過程中，只是小事一樁，過去，根本沒有人會在意它，可貼得不好，到了客戶手中，就可能成為大問題。

喬布斯認為：“對自己要求更高，并且關注所有細節后，產品就會和別人不一樣。”企業之間質量的差別，很多時候，就體現在一些細小的事情上。

意大利之行，看似慘淡收場，卻收獲了一個理念的轉變：抓質量必須從小事做起。

1995年，有一件事在公司引起極大的震動。那年5月，有一批空調出現大面積“死機”現象，空調開動不久，突然停止工作，需要關機，重新啟動，工作了一會兒，又重復原來的故障。

消費者紛紛投訴，售后部門應接不暇，焦頭爛額。

追查原因，出在一個小小的片狀電容身上。

我們找到供應廠，他們說是該批電容不合格，是因為原來的材料

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 “life” of the product. So, isn’t it worth the effort? ?

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

一時缺貨，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，到全國各地把這一批號的電容更換掉，不但花費上百萬元，還造成極其惡劣的影響。

自制零件易控制，別人做的采購件，如何控制呢？最終，我與相關主管研究出一個“最笨”的辦法，成立“篩選分廠”。篩選分廠一不生產零件，二不裝配產品，它的工作，就是把買回來的重要零件，在上線裝配之前，逐一檢驗篩選，不合格的剔除，退回原廠，并按情節的嚴重程度，給予協作廠一定的經濟處罰，迫使協作廠家重視產品質量。

我記得當時有一個零件——截止閥，偶爾有泄漏現象，一旦遇上，冷媒就會慢慢跑掉，空調不能制冷，或者過一段時間，就得加“雪種”，讓人非常頭痛。要把每個截止閥檢查一遍，并非易事，篩選分廠想了很多辦法，沒有現成的檢測設備，就用土辦法自己制造。開始時，檢測效率不高，幾經改造，最后制成一條自動檢測線，大大提高了檢測的精度和效率。

在當時空調不愁銷路的情況下，很多人笑話我們，認為是多此一舉，對銷售沒有什么促進作用，還增加生產成本。我堅持認為，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。因為每種零件有百分之一的不良品，裝配組合起來，就是一個不小的故障率，維護起來不但要錢，而且還要“命”，難道不值得嗎？?

（摘自《朱江洪自傳》 企業管理出版社）

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文/朱江洪 譯/劉潔