WABCO to Asia Nuggets Sinotruk has become the world's second largest customer

More than 100 years ago, to brake a running train, it was necessary to manually pull the handbrake of each car to the train. On the day of 1867, the American George Westinghouse, who had been stranded at the train station due to the collision of two trains, had the idea of ​​inventing an innovative braking system.

In 1868, the inventor who allegedly shared the same name with Edison invented the train air brake system and became the originator of the air brake system. The following year he founded Westinghouse Air Brake Company (WABCO). The company name was the inventor. The abbreviation for the surname and air brakes. On March 13, 1914, the New York Times wrote that "The George Westinghouse's train air brake system saved more lives than the total number of people killed in all wars.

In 1967, WABCO ABS began commercial research and development; and the 1981 Mercedes-Benz commercial vehicle jointly developed the ABS. Today, it has grown to become the world's leading provider of commercial automotive electronic control, stability, suspension, and variable speed control systems. In 1968, WABCO was acquired by American Standards Corporation and regained independence on July 31, 2007. It was listed on the New York Stock Exchange on August 1 of that year.

In mid-July 2009, WABCO released its second-quarter earnings report. The company's revenue fell by 59% year-on-year. However, the 140-year-old veteran parts supplier is still expected to be good for the whole year. It hopes that by the end of the year, the company’s operating income decline will remain within 3.2%.

More than half of WABCO's markets are in Europe. In the next two years, the commercial vehicle market here is not favored. But WABCO now has enough reason to explain its optimism about expectations: First, with strict EU regulations, by November 2011, all sales of new cars (trucks and buses) must force the installation of ESC (Electronic Stability Program). The current loading rate is only 10%.

WABCO's new technology ESCsmart has just passed the TUV Nord certification in Germany. This certification has enabled WABCO's new technology to be approved by the Federal Commission for Road Traffic in Germany and is licensed for use in 27 EU countries and in 20 other countries. ESCsmart technology controls ESC through precise software simulation. It allows card and bus manufacturers to apply different effects of ESC without having to do a lot of vehicle physical tests.

The second reason for optimism comes from Asia. Now, Asia is WABCO's second largest market. From the data in the second quarter of this year, China National Heavy Duty Truck has already become WABCO's second largest global customer. Sinotruk is China's largest heavy truck manufacturer. The relationship is a good consolation for WABCO, who wants to deepen its home market.

WABCO's cooperation with China National Heavy Duty Truck started in 1997. The scope of cooperation began with the development of air management products, anti-lock braking systems (ABS) and other brake systems and transmission control systems, and the development of electronically controlled automatic transmissions (AMT). ).

In 1999, after more than two years of cooperation in the field of air compressors and ABS, two companies that had established good cooperation and understanding of the foundation decided to extend cooperation to AMT. This OptiDrive automatic transmission control system was assembled in 2008 on the high-heavy truck HOWO A7 of China National Heavy Duty Truck Group. It uses electronic control to select the best timing and precise shifting to improve fuel economy. After the European professional agency experimental identification, WABCO's AMT product can save about 3%.

Moreover, Sinotruk is the first vehicle manufacturer in the world to use WABCO's next-generation modular automatic transmission (AMT) system. For WABCO, which has 20 years of AMT R&D experience, the Chinese heavy truck market is new to China. The desire for technology and potential demand make it more optimistic to expect an increase in local income.

Modularization is an important strategy for WABCO to attract new customers. One of the advantages of this AMT modularization approach is that under the background of the financial crisis, the cooperation and development cycle between parts companies and OEMs can be greatly reduced, while also saving most of the costs. Liu Liang, President of WABCO Asia Pacific explained: “Modularization means that when we design AMT, we do not need the OEM to redevelop a new transmission. If we add a device to the existing manual transmission, we can achieve automatic Shift gear.;

On the other hand, WABCO also caters to OEMs' requirements for new products by reducing the number of system accessories and increasing reliability, such as disc brakes, which will be locally produced in China this year, through unique single-putters. Technology to reduce the number of system parts.

“Waewke’s decision to come to Asia when a new product was introduced was not to take it directly from Europe but to form a key team and re-examine it according to the local market. Liu Liang told the Automotive Business Review.

Liu Liang did not use concrete figures to express his expectations for the future. In his opinion, the rise of the Chinese market, or the developing market, was something WABCO expected. "The potential of the Chinese market is very large. In the future, the Chinese market may become the world's largest commercial vehicle market. The financial crisis has indeed affected the commercial vehicle industry, but in our view, the capacity of joint ventures in China is also an advantage for us.

Currently, WABCO has six production sites in Asia, three in India, one in South Korea, and two in China, all in Shandong Province, a joint venture plant in Jinan, and a wholly-owned factory in Qingdao. The former was established in 1996 and the latter was established in May 2005 to produce ABS and other advanced brake system products. Now, the Qingdao plant has become WABCO's global Six Sigma lean production concept model unit. In addition, WABCO has recently established a joint venture plant with Fuhua, the world's largest manufacturer of commercial hanging shafts, to produce air brake disc brakes in Taishan, Guangzhou.

However, the production capacity of low-cost countries is not the most important part of WABCO. Liu Liang also hopes to see a continuous increase in the value of bicycles. "A few years ago, our bicycle parts sales in China accounted for around $100, which is now around $300. This figure is about $3,000 in Europe. He said.

With huge market space, WABCO dared not take it lightly. In order to maintain the current good momentum of growth in the developing market, WABCO had a lot of initiatives in the first half of this year. It first signed a strategic supply agreement with China National Heavy Duty Truck and will supply The deadline was extended to 2016. This cumulative contract of several hundred million U.S. dollars also ensures that WABCO is the sole supplier of heavy truck AMT systems.

In June of this year, WABCO increased its stake in WABCO-TVS, a joint venture company in India, from 39.2% to 75%. In July, it cooperated with Kamaz, Russia’s largest producer of heavy trucks, buses and trailers, to provide ABS systems and pneumatic disc brakes.

Perhaps, soon Asia will become WABCO's largest global sales market.