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.

上世纪90年代初，中国迎来空调发展的黄金时期，处于“社会底层”的格力，怎样杀出一条血路呢？

有一件事深深地触动了我。1994年初，我们第一次打入意大利市场。为了这首批出口到发达国家的空调，可谓“费尽心机”，制定了严格的质量规范，按欧洲标准，严格检验把关，合同签订后，进行“战前动员”，生产过程周密组织，选材严格把关，力争“万无一失”。

到了11月份，我带着几名同事，怀着春风得意的心情，访问意大利。本以为能听到客户的赞誉声，可见面后便被客户臭骂一顿：“你们的空调很不好，声音像拖拉机一样，可把我们害苦了。”简直给了我们当头一棒。

空调出厂前，明明是经过严格的检测，完全符合欧洲的质量标准呀。我叫客户带我们到现场查看，到了现场，开动空调，噪音确实很大，完全超出标准的要求。打开外壳，发现有一条细长的海绵，粘贴不牢，一头掉了下来，正好碰到高速旋转的贯流风叶上，发出刺耳的声音，把海绵重新贴好，噪音随之消失。

难道能怪客户不懂得使用吗？空调出厂就应该是完美的，任何纰漏应当都是我们的责任。贴海绵在整个空调生产过程中，只是小事一桩，过去，根本没有人会在意它，可贴得不好，到了客户手中，就可能成为大问题。

乔布斯认为：“对自己要求更高，并且关注所有细节后，产品就会和别人不一样。”企业之间质量的差别，很多时候，就体现在一些细小的事情上。

意大利之行，看似惨淡收场，却收获了一个理念的转变：抓质量必须从小事做起。

1995年，有一件事在公司引起极大的震动。那年5月，有一批空调出现大面积“死机”现象，空调开动不久，突然停止工作，需要关机，重新启动，工作了一会儿，又重复原来的故障。

消费者纷纷投诉，售后部门应接不暇，焦头烂额。

追查原因，出在一个小小的片状电容身上。

我们找到供应厂，他们说是该批电容不合格，是因为原来的材料

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)

一时缺货，工厂擅自更换新材料所致。真是害死人。我们只好派出大批人员，到全国各地把这一批号的电容更换掉，不但花费上百万元，还造成极其恶劣的影响。

自制零件易控制，别人做的采购件，如何控制呢？最终，我与相关主管研究出一个“最笨”的办法，成立“筛选分厂”。筛选分厂一不生产零件，二不装配产品，它的工作，就是把买回来的重要零件，在上线装配之前，逐一检验筛选，不合格的剔除，退回原厂，并按情节的严重程度，给予协作厂一定的经济处罚，迫使协作厂家重视产品质量。

我记得当时有一个零件——截止阀，偶尔有泄漏现象，一旦遇上，冷媒就会慢慢跑掉，空调不能制冷，或者过一段时间，就得加“雪种”，让人非常头痛。要把每个截止阀检查一遍，并非易事，筛选分厂想了很多办法，没有现成的检测设备，就用土办法自己制造。开始时，检测效率不高，几经改造，最后制成一条自动检测线，大大提高了检测的精度和效率。

在当时空调不愁销路的情况下，很多人笑话我们，认为是多此一举，对销售没有什么促进作用，还增加生产成本。我坚持认为，只要从每种被检的零件中检出百分之一，哪怕是千分之一的不良品，我就是赢家。因为每种零件有百分之一的不良品，装配组合起来，就是一个不小的故障率，维护起来不但要钱，而且还要“命”，难道不值得吗？♦

（摘自《朱江洪自传》 企业管理出版社）

格力小事

文/朱江洪 译/刘洁