Shanghai Fleetguard Filter Co., Ltd. was set up in July, 1996, jointly invested by Dongfeng Motors Company and US. Fleetguart Inc. (US. Cummins Engine Company now), and gained overall profit in April, 2000. The policy of Shanghai Fleetguard Filter Co., Ltd. is: quality-oriented administration, customer-oriented marketing, optimization-oriented use of resource, and people-oriented development. Kinds of motor filters as its mainstay products, Shanghai Fleetguard Filter Co., Ltd. has realized the gross sales of over 200 million RMB by now, a remarkable achievement among the competitors. In 2003, Shanghai Fleetguard Filter Co., Ltd. was honored with “Model Civilized Unit” by Pudong New District.

1. Sparing no efforts to expand business by grasping market

It’s not easy to reach the grand goal of basing itself in Pudong, keeping its position in Shanghai, serving the whole country, and stepping toward the world. In the lead of general manager, all the employees train themselves and improve their qualities so as to launch the campaign that integrates sale, production and supply headed by marketing.

Shanghai Fleetguard Filter Co., Ltd. focuses on three aspects:

First, it expands sales to take up more space in the market. Shanghai Fleetguard Filter Co., Ltd. aims to make itself known to all the clients and their products enter into extensive households and families. The difficulty that confronted it then was though the products of US Fleetguard Inc. had entered into the market in South China, most of the market was covered by the products of other companies in the same trade. General manager himself led sales staff to investigate the market for the development tendency from East to West, from South to North, and decidedly set up three offices in Northeast, Northwest and Southwest, which became the outposts for the company’s sales. The fact later proved that the three offices were greatly effective to help establish local sales network, which enhanced the rapid increase of the company’s sales.

Secondly, Shanghai Fleetguard Filter Co..Ltd constantly develops new products. The expansion of market led to the innovation of products. Especially, new products frequently appeared in the car market, such as GM Sail, Guangzhou Honda, Nissan Blue Bird, Yueda Kia, etc. In regard of the imminent coming of new home cars into market, the sales staff extensively collected information of cars and introduced the company into the car manufacturers in kinds of ways, becoming the supplier for car manufacturers by the company’s quality.

Third, Shanghai Fleetguard Filter Co., Ltd. managed to decrease the cost of production. It is very important to lower the cost in the initial days of construction when the put-in and expense were extremely high. What the clients demanded were not only the high-qualitied filters, but also the filters with low price, good quality, and overall service. Shanghai Fleetguard Filter Co., Ltd. succeeded in technologically lowering the cost without influencing the quality of products. The company explained it to its suppliers and established the long-term solid alliance of interests with them. In this way, the company greatly improved its production benefit.

Such efforts greatly paid back. The sales network got increasingly expanded with more and more sales and clients. The sales index increases by 20% each year in the fierce market competition due to the great efforts by the company. The annual achievement won the praise of both the superior company and US company, and made Shanghai Fleetguard Filter Co., Ltd. one of the largest enterprises in paying customs duty to Pudong Local government.

2. Introducing new technology, developing new products

As a Sino-US joint venture (each party holds 50% of the share), Shanghai Fleetguard Filter Co..Ltd earnestly takes in and adopts new technology and products, so that the constant innovation advances technology and enhances the business achievement of the company.

To taking in new technology is the first step for joint venture. The company introduced three production lines respectively for revolving filter assemblage, air filtration assemblage and components production as well as the advanced manufacture technology in US then. Working together with American engineers, engineers in the company learned a lot from them, which enhanced the friendship between them during work.

The engineers in the company spent a lot of time digesting the US advanced technology and transferring it to be their own technology. They exerted great efforts to learn about the foreign equipment and made them work, so as to guarantee the operation of the large scaled production by assembly line.

Innovation is the soul of the company. The construction of production line adopted a large amount of technology and workmanship. The application of imported equipment and new workmanship is constantly improved in practice, because the equipment and workmanship in foreign countries didn’t fit in with the production operation in China at the very beginning. Our engineers decidedly innovated in the application of those technology and workmanship so as to make them best serve the manufacture in China.

Engineers made the plastic outer covering for the air filter of Citroen, which is beautiful and economical, well accepted by customers. The design for whirling pipe of air filter enables cars to get enough fresh air for the engine in bad conditions, which is approved by State Patent Bureau.

Shanghai Fleetguard Filter Co..Ltd pays much attention to make its products localized in China. The rate of product localization has risen from 0 to above 90% in the past several years. Its products not only meet the need of US Cummins engines, but also accord with the standards of US Fleetguard Filter Inc. Shanghai Fleetguard is positioned on the high level in the global appraisal of Fleetguard filters and filtration systems.

Due to the powerful productivity and advanced manufacture workmanship, Shanghai Fleetguard Filter Co., Ltd. takes up more and more space in the market with an increasing number of clients. Its business also extends to world market. At present, the monthly production by screwing assemblage reaches over 700,000, the monthly production of the air filter cores reaches over 140,000; the catalogs of products count over several hundred, which greatly outdoes other companies in the same field in China.

The advanced technology of Shanghai Fleetguard Filter Co., Ltd. thoroughly meets OEM clients’ need demand for technology. Ever since the company’s establishment, Shanghai Fleetguard Filter Co., Ltd. has provided kinds of filters to over 50 OEM clients. The company is equipped with the advanced testing facilities for engine filters, fuel filters, motor filters, and air filters. Its laboratory got ratified by CNACL and US Cummins Inc., which insures the research and development of new products. The company also got authorized as “advanced-technology enterprise” by Shanghai Municipal Foreign investment Commision.

3. Persevering with strict administration, striving for perfect work

Besides the efforts on expanding market and developing new technology and products, Shanghai Fleetguard Filter Co..Ltd attaches great importance on the administration with the company. It enhances the production and business work by strict administration in order to fully satisfy the request by clients. The company pays special attention to the following aspects:

 (1) High standard for quality

In the administration of quality, Shanghai Fleetguard Filter Co..Ltd adheres to the conception of “persistent improvement”, in belief of developing the enterprise by high-standard administration. Since 1996, the company implemented the integrated administration system to insure the quality of products during the whole production process. In 1997, the company was the first one to be certified by ISO/9001 in the filter business. In 1998, the company got certified by QS 9000, and last year passed the quality appraisal by ISO/TS16949. All the employees’ sense of quality developed from the initial one “Examination leads to good quality of products”, to the one “Design and manufacture bring about good quality of products”, and the present one “good administration brings about good quality of products”.

Quality of products is the life of an enterprise, so that the company pays particular attention on the quality. Senior leaders of the company often make inspection in workshops, learn about kinds of situation during production, and take in suggestion from clients. The company strictly requires that the hidden trouble of quality would be sternly examined once discovered. As a result, the conception that “quality is all” gets deeply into employees’ mind. By the efforts of all the employees, the company’s administration improves year by year, the sense and conception of quality constantly develops, the waster rate of products and PPM decreases, and annual sales advance tremendously.

 (2) Improving and advancing productivity

Despite the remarkable business performance in the intensive competition of market with more and more clients, the amount of production of the company cannot totally fulfill clients’ need. Sales staff got anxious that many clients had to wait for picking up goods with their trucks.

With policy of fully satisfying clients’ need, Shanghai Fleetguard Filter Co..Ltd found out that it must improve the present productivity rather than extend working hours on production lines so as to improve the passive situation of sales.

Administrative staff, engineers, and operation staff formed an alliance to research on production lines. With the aim to improve production capacity, they tested the speed parts, branch equipment of each production line, and found out the “bottle neck” which restricts the efficiency of the whole production line. Then they adjusted integrated those parts and equipment without influencing the normal production, and thoroughly reconstructed the equipment which slowed down the production speed. Besides, they made the same copies of key equipment so as to make up for the capacity of the original machines; as a result, the filter products “flowed” out continuously from the production line.

With the improved productivity of production line, the production of the screwing filters reaches 8000, twice as the initial number, which fully satisfies clients’ request. However, the increasing demand of market calls for further advancement of production efficiency. Now, the monthly production of air filter reaches 140,000, and that of screwing filters reaches 700,000, which respectively develop towards the goal of 180,000, and 800,000.

In addition to improving production efficiency, Shanghai Fleetguard Filter Co..Ltd pays great attention to the administration of the company. General manager emphasized that the company should pay attention to the administration of employees in each department, strengthen the perfection of the technological process, and improve the general work efficiency of the whole company. Every year, the company carries out the appraisal of technological process from different perspectives, such as that centered with employees, or with the financial policy as point of departure, and that of result-oriented, etc. and constantly improves the system of technological process. The company enhances the operation efficiency, lowers the cost of process by controlling the technological process, and greatly advances the production efficiency by thoroughly developing the internal potential and making use of potential resources.

(3) People-oriented administration to strengthen the cohesion of the enterprise

With people-oriented policy, the company formulated a series of human resources strategies related to immediate interests of employees and put out a better appraisal system of employees’ performance. On one hand, the company constantly improved the system of welfare for employees to give concrete returns to employees, by which the company strengthens its unification. On the other hand, the company, based on the performance appraisal, promoted the development and succession plans for employees, optimized employees’ quality, led them to realize self value from a higher level. The company praised and awarded those employees who made special contribution to the company, propagandized their exemplary deeds, and called everyone model themselves on those advanced individuals.

The company enjoys a beautiful environment with a large area of meadow and a square artificial fountain. Employees can have a walk and take in fresh air there after work.

The Party organization of Shanghai Fleetguard Filter Co., Ltd., in accordance with the company’s production and business, carried out a series of activities, such as quality competition, technological ability competition, security training, providing reasonable suggestion, etc., and accordingly held after-work events to enrich employees’ culture life. Concerned about employees, the Party organization also help them solve kinds of problems in life, which stabilizes the group of employees, arouses everyone’s enthusiasm, strengthens the company’s cohesion, and benefits the smooth operation of production and business.

Ever since this year, though confronted with more and more competitors, Shanghai Fleetguard Filter Co., Ltd. has constantly advanced its business achievement. In the battle field of motor components market, Shanghai Fleetguard Filter Co., Ltd. powerfully fights with overall knowledge of all of their competitors, with the aim to completely fulfill clients’ demand. The sale target in the first half this year is 51%, 21.7% more than that of last year. It’s estimated that the company would successfully accomplish this year’s sale target.

    The company feels that the back operation of production is not able to fully support the continuous extension of sales market, so that it has worked out new plans, purchased new equipment, advanced its productivity to realize the goal in next year. As environment protection products, the air filters for motors would be more and more popular with car-owners, when more and more families buy cars. The company’s grand goal of basing itself in Pudong, keeping its position in Shanghai, serving the whole country, and stepping toward the world would surely to be realized in a near future.