Despite of a depressed Chinese commercial vehicle market, Foton remains leading the industry ahead. It is estimated Foton will receive a rewarding year by over 660,000 units of production and sales. It is worthy of noticing that Foton, the world’s first commercial vehicle manufacturer in sales, has stepped into a new phase of quality improvement from quantity increase. Auman heavy trucks, Aumark light trucks and other high-level products see dramatic increase in sales with growth rates higher than the industrial average.
There is one GTL heavy truck rolling off the line every four minutes
Despite of one GTL heavy truck rolling off the line every four minutes, Foton’s Huairou plant still fails to catch up with the growth of orders.
The 556m general assembly line is the longest one in China and 60% of the line is automatically controlled. Instrument desk and file cabinet are installed through manipulator, ensuring more accurate installation and better quality. The press line of body’s structural component exclusive for Auman GTL is completely automated. The whole production lines need only 10 workers. Defects in per 1000 bodies are decreased to 17.6 pieces from 28.7 pieces after the upgrading of production line. With respect to body welding, automatic robots perform higher accuracy in 53 welding spots. Through such a refined production, GTL levels off with world top heavy trucks in terms of quality. In addition, the internal noise in workshop is under 60 db.
At present, Foton has 17 intelligent manufacturing centers in Beijing, Shandong, Hebei, Hubei, Hunan and Guangdong, all of which apply world leading facilities and technology, aiming to producing world-class product value and competitiveness.
Data shows in the first three quartesr, Foton’s high-level products are more competitive. It sells 93433 units of medium and heavy trucks, up by 33.5% year on year, 19.7 percent points higher than the industrial average. The market share soars to 11.8%, 1.7 percent point higher than that last year. Insiders believe Foton, through further cooperation with Daimler, will improve profits by upgrading technologies and products in the long run.
