Research On Automotive R&D Cooperation Under Modularization

As an effective way to solve complex problems, modularization now has been increase-ingly applied to various industries, including automotive industry, finance, construction, andinternet communications. We have entered into a big development period of modularization.Under the conditions of modularization, the trend of modularization in automotive industrybecomes more and more obviously. More and more vehicle manufacturers and spare partssupply enterprises outsourcing their non-core businesses and focusing on their R&D and theproduction of the core module. The development of modular accelerates the pace ofinnovation of automotive and intensifies the competition between companies. In order toimprove the competitiveness of enterprises, and actively respond to this intense competition,the auto companies began to cooperate on a global scale research and development, to reducethe risk of innovation and speed time to market.The R&D network of modular organization is different from the forms of organizationof “integration” which taking capital as a link. Its performance of innovation comes from theefforts and the cooperation between the enterprises in the organization. During the process ofcollaborative R&D between the auto companies, the relationship between integrators andsuppliers and the one between the suppliers are the most important relations. On the basis ofdomestic and foreign automotive production and R&D Status, this paper summarized andanalyzed the motivation, characteristics, patterns and its impact factors of the collaborative R&D between auto enterprises under the modular condition, and made gaming analysis forstrategic behavior of the R&D cooperation of auto enterprise. We think that integrators andsuppliers build their long-term collaborative R&D relationship in the form of commission.Research and development of cooperation between the supplier proceed following threemodes: when there is a big technology gap between the two sides, they choose thecommissioned collaborative R&D mode; when the technical strength of both sides areconsiderable, they choose to contract R&D cooperation; when there is a strong complement-tary, they choose the cooperative research and development mode of shareholding.We also believe that under the condition of modularization, China’s auto enterprisesshould pay full attention to the R&D cooperation between the international and domesticauto companies, and select the appropriate R&D model to create more learning conditions inthe fierce competition. And be able to drive a comprehensive upgrade and development of theautomotive industry while creating profits, and to make the breakthrough of "Made in China"to "Created in China".