Series Reports On Supply Chain Of Intelligent Manufacturing Industry

Canon, as the global camera leader, is no exception.

On May 6, the new EOS series of Canon and its new products were officially released. It is not easy to encounter too many twists and turns for this new product.

In an interview with 21st century economic reporter on July 23, Xiushu Ozawa, chairman and CEO of Canon (China) Co., Ltd., recalled that Canon initially planned to launch these products at the beginning of this year, but with the outbreak of new crown pneumonia, it was finally postponed to July.

The impact of the epidemic is not only that employees can only work at home, unable to complete the various processes before the launch of new products, but also make consumers stay at home and affect the market itself. At the same time, the epidemic has also had an impact on the normal operation of the supply chain behind the products.

"At the height of the epidemic in China, our initial idea was that all products were produced in Japan." But later, Canon found that some parts of its products could only be produced and supplied in China. Without these parts, everything in the new product was zero.

Special launch

The launch of Canon EOS R5 on July 9 is also the first time canon has launched a new product online.

The release time in China was 8:00 p.m. on that day, which attracted more than 1.7 million people to watch. Since then, users' attention to the new products has continued. According to canon, as of July 22, 13 million people had watched the live broadcast or playback, while the microblog platform attracted 16 million people's attention, with a total of nearly 30 million people. Ozawa admits that the new attempt has been successful.

At the same time of launching new products in China, Canon has launched new products in Japan, Europe and the United States. "For the first time in Canon's history, Canon enterprises all over the world are shouting the same slogan to jointly release new products." Ozawa told the 21st century economic reporter.

However, the choice of online publishing is not the strategic consideration of Canon's intention, but it is a helpless move. Taking China as an example, although the epidemic situation has been well controlled compared with that of the world, it is still not completely over. When Mr. Ozawa explained that there might still be a large-scale event.

In fact, the new crown pneumonia epidemic not only affected Canon's new product release form. Although the research and development of Canon's new products was completed as early as last year, the epidemic situation in the first half of this year still restricted various links. "February this year was our trough. At that time, the company advocated home office, dealers had to close stores, and consumers were also at home. This situation continued in March, which had an impact on product release."

Junxing Shijing, vice president of Canon (China) Co., Ltd., told the 21st century economic report that in January this year, EOS R5, which has completed product development, has entered the stage of stock production and quality inspection. But just at this time point, the outbreak of new crown pneumonia.

"Many employees are unable to work in the company, but the testing equipment for quality inspection is in the company. Due to the company's strict requirements on product quality, in the context of unable to conduct final testing of products, in order to ensure the quality of relevant products, we finally decided to take the postponement strategy." Shijing Junxing recalled.

However, the delayed release of new products has not dampened the expectations of users. Ozawa told the 21st century economic report that Canon had planned to expose its products at an exhibition in Japan at the beginning of the year, but the exhibition was eventually cancelled due to the epidemic situation. Subsequently, Canon's new products, which were not successfully displayed to the public, attracted the users' appetite and aroused extensive discussion.

"In order to meet the consumer psychology, we released certain information to warm up, and finally achieved a good preheating effect for the new machine release." Ozawa pointed out.

It should be noted that the EOS R5 released by Canon this time integrates many image technologies: the new generation of full pixel dual core CMOS AF II focusing technology, the EOS ITR AF x with enhanced eye and head detection, high-speed continuous shooting up to about 20 frames / s, supporting 8K recording, 8K supersampling, 4K short film to achieve high image quality, and body × lens dual anti shake with maximum 8-level jitter compensation effect

Before the price of the new product was officially announced, some photography enthusiasts once said on the Internet that if the R5 price was lower than 20000, they would sell immediately. Finally, the price of R5 fuselage was set at 25999 yuan.

"I think pricing should consider three aspects: production cost, competitors and the value that can be provided to Chinese consumers," says Mr Ishii. "In the end, the fixed price strategy also caused a huge stir. Until now, we can see that users appreciate the price and we have received a lot of orders."

Diversified distribution of supply chain

How much is affected by Canon's supply chain. Xiushu Ozawa admitted that the outbreak of new crown pneumonia has exposed the vulnerability of the supply chain.

In his opinion, supply chain diversification is a proposition Canon needs to face in the future. On the one hand, Canon will continue to have relevant production capacity in China, but it may also establish production lines in Southeast Asian countries including Vietnam, Thailand and the Philippines. "If one supply chain fails, there will be other supply chains to make up for it."

In fact, Canon's idea is not caused by the outbreak of new crown pneumonia. In the past, natural disasters in other countries have repeatedly hindered Canon's normal production rhythm. In Ozawa's view, all kinds of crises may break out in the global scope, so enterprises need to take precautions and propose diversified supply chain system.

However, Mr Ozawa judged that this does not mean that foreign enterprises are withdrawing from China. "After the 1990s, China has become the world's factory. Now it has formed a complete supporting system, has comprehensive technology, talents and production experience, and foreign-funded enterprises can not quickly establish a system similar to that of China in other countries."

Of course, behind the diversified layout of the supply chain, Canon also has its own problems. "Centralized production and a single supply chain are bound to be the lowest cost solution, but the awareness of crisis management forces enterprises to consider the normal production capacity in the face of disasters," Kozawa admits. "How to consider the balance between cost and crisis management still needs careful consideration."

In addition to simply decentralizing the supply chain, another way to reduce the risk of disasters to enterprises is to reduce the number of spare parts.

According to Ozawa, Canon strictly controls the quality of its products, and every part needs to be tested. Therefore, if the number of parts is too large, it will require a lot of manpower, time and energy, which will affect the normal launch of products in extraordinary times. However, he also said that reducing the number of parts is not a one-day feat, which requires enterprises to consider at the beginning of design, which greatly tests the innovation ability of enterprises in R & D process.

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