Based on the communications with Chinese truck drivers, our correspondent concludes that Chinese drivers speak highly of Scania trucks. In July, two Scania trucks, operated by Wenzhou Qingfeng Transportation in Wenzhou, Zhejiang Province, were the first in the country to reach more than three million kilometres. This is an important milestone for Scania in Chinese market, indicating Scania's high level quality and high economic value.
Recently, our correspondent makes an exclusive interview with Mats Harborn, Executive Director of Scania China Strategic Office. "It is Scania's mission to create maximum value for users and adhere to the principle of reducing resource consumption and protecting environment," says Mr. Mats Harborn. Scania carries out many field researches and makes overall designs in order to ensure its high quality and reliability can be found in all respects such as design, production, rollout and residual value.
The huge value created by Scania Trucks for users is originated from its control on R&D, production, maintenance and design, and furthermore, from its employees' highly responsible attitude.
Scania attaches great importance to user's requirements on R&D. The R&D and production are all based on deep understanding and research on users' operation or specific requirements. For instance, the mining and forestry trucks are quite different from long-distance transportation trucks. Long-distance transportation trucks run longer mileages while mining trucks far away from grid need generators at service stations and require high attendance rate. Scania thus finalizes solutions through various such researches. Its purpose is not to sell truck, but to make a fortune for users. "It is also important for us know users' whole operation," says Mr. Mats Harborn.
Learnt from Mr. Mats Harborn, Scania's unique production system cann't survive without the constant improvement. In every link of every process, the person in charge should keep improving his work. This is the first principle. In Scania Group, every work, big or small, needs to be improved. Our second principle is to abide by the correctness. In the entire production process, only the correct things can be passed on. Once there is a mistake, no matter where it is, should stop at where it is. Scania makes sure the correctness in every link. Scania production lines have many assembly lines. Whenever who finds out a mistake or lacks a spare part, he has the right to suspend the line and ask experts for help so as to make sure the mistake will not be passed on. Mr. Mats Harborn stresses that "in Scania, we take mistakes and problems as new resources. We hope our staff could point out mistakes whenever they find one. Every mistake or problem is a new chance for us to improve." Everyone is the master or boss of himself, so in Scania, our employees are very positive and responsible. This is a foundation for the high quality.
Scania trucks have breaks through 3 million mileages in China. Qingfeng Transportation's Fleet Captain Xu Yurong says: "The truck has no problem in running one million mileages more." The actual running value is of special importance to Qingfeng Transportation.
"In West Europe, many Scania trucks after one million mileages are second hand trucks and will be exported to other places, such as East Europe. One Scania truck after three million mileages can run another one million mileages and even two million mileages more. The value of one Scania trucks equals that of two Chinese trucks.
Energy conservation and environment protection can be found in every respect
With increasing awareness on environment protection, the emission standard for diesel is also upgraded. As trucks have very important influence on the environment, Scania, a truck manufacturer, has been leading ahead in emission. To take Scania engine as an example, all the cylinders are produced according to one standard. Generators in different sizes are determined by the numbers of cylinders. Hence, Scania can make sure high quality of products by only focusing on optimizing the cylinder and making sure perfect consistency of every cylinder. In this way, Scania saves a lot of labor and energy in manufacturing process and it can spare more efforts on improving manufacturing technique.
Scania take R&D, design, production and residual value into full account.
Scania tries to reduce maintenance and avoid taking much time in afterward service. To give an example, Scania's design of chassis is based on two principles: customers' economic benefits are on the top list and the design is convenient for afterward service. Mr. Mats Harborn says all the design of engines or other parts should first consider whether it is convenient for afterward service and maintenance.
When talking about the application of Scania high-quality trucks, Mr. Mats Harborn comes up with his questioning on China's vehicle scrapping polity. The policy enables truck manufacturers are less concentrated on the raw materials and quality, but every scrapped vehicle is a huge waste for the energy and environment. If Chinese government encourages Chinese manufacturers to produce high quality products like Scania trucks which can run 2 million and even 3 million mileages, it will reduce the waste of resources and energy. The logistic cost in China is much higher than that in other countries. The reason is rooted in the transportation cost. Logistics and transportation are the most important part in the economic development. Without good control on logistics, the whole economy will be affected. Scania has been advocating the value of ton kilometer instead of short term value.
