Exploring Tesla’s operating model

The era of Industry 4.0 poses new challenges to enterprises:

• Timely response, user-friendly: New products obtain demand from the market, incorporate it into the R&D plan, go to market verification, then test, iterate, and verify. This entire process needs to be controlled in the shortest time and respond to demand as quickly as possible in order to adapt to the rapid and rapid market. Changing landscape; in order to obtain high customer satisfaction, user needs need to be constantly met, which poses greater challenges to product delivery.

• Exponential progress in technology : Moore's Law in the technology world requires higher technology improvements. Under the new automotive electronics architecture, computing power requirements are constantly increasing. While satisfying performance, it is also necessary to take into account the flexibility, security, and cost-effectiveness of the architecture. Due to various factors, the demand for hardware customization is increasing, and upper-layer software continues to improve ease of use and compatibility. As the OTA upgrade concept is brought into the E/E architecture, cloud services are also included as an important part of the automobile manufacturing industry as infrastructure.

• High degree of concentration of resources: Affected by the centralization of business models, resources are increasingly concentrated in the hands of giants, and it is increasingly difficult for resource endowment advantages to be reflected across industries. Enterprises have more concentrated product production technologies, analyzing from the perspective of ecological chains. , more and more enterprises have spread to the upstream and downstream, forming a huge self-sufficiency situation

  
  

Tesla's overall three-level model, from external drive to internal drive, uses "human-machine learning" as the core to drive the overall operation.

External driving force mainly comes from the energy obtained from outside the market. Through the three external relationship processes of enterprise-consumer, enterprise-enterprise and enterprise-environment, the business model is realized in the value-added project, thereby creating external conditions for enterprise profitability.

The internal driving force mainly comes from the company's digital production, which enables the improvement of production line efficiency, maximizes people, finances, and materials, and uses data analysis to open up information between internal modules, integrate work processes, and improve communication among different modules. Communication, using various tools flexibly in technology-driven research and development to improve the company's technical strength.

1. Cross-integration: Focus on the value chain, eliminate barriers between majors, and help the ecosystem grow

• Strategic vertical integration: digital collaboration in the same field shortens downstream joint debugging and is closer to users; integrates upstream purchasers and manufacturers respond quickly

• Horizontal integration in the organization: breaking down data barriers between internal disciplines

• Technical cross-border integration: Integrate multiple talents across borders and utilize rich knowledge backgrounds

• Marginal integration of social environment: harmonious coexistence of production and environment, self-sufficiency

2. Story making : Create stories to inspire companies to move forward by sorting out role models.

• Plan a promising future for the business and conquer the market through leaders’ comprehensive commitment

• Motivate people in inspiring ways for customers and investors

• Always maintain a highly transparent communication mechanism and comprehensive channel supervision and control

3. Tentacle-driven : Cross-industry “tentacles” approach the market and build a networked business model

• Tentacle drive “disintermediates” the relationship between producers and consumers, achieving faster growth than traditional markets

• Users participate in the financing process of future product innovation, and products continue to be optimized.

• Platform logic is network effects, industrialists have no intention of benefiting from this approach, but leveraging network effects is crucial

1. Software integration : improve system efficiency through digital technology and expand production efficiency in each link

• Design process: intuitive user experience, fast iteration, reduced testing time, and more flexible design

• Production process: speed up production efficiency, optimize production, improve operational efficiency through AI analysis data, and reduce quality problems

• Customer relationship: Start with sales-maintenance-version upgrade, and expand the customer circle after stabilization

• The entire production chain: avoiding intermediate links without significant added value

2. Super production : Improve industrial systems to be more frugal, flexible, customizable, and rich in synergistic value

• Frugality: reduce carbon emissions, produce with low consumption, use more new energy, and strengthen recycling

• Flexible: realize development-commercialization-improvement-maintenance through technology, and continuous improvement throughout the life cycle

• Collaborative value: break data silos, reduce duplication of work, and balance the use of resources

3. Start-up leadership : Encourage initiative and promote innovative development

• It is both a system and a management attitude

• Improve the team's awareness of responsibility and stimulate creativity, enthusiasm and collective wisdom

• Transform management systems and management behaviors to give teams more responsibilities

Human-machine learning: achieving a high degree of integration of human intelligence and machine intelligence

• Intelligent industrial systems require three major capabilities to drive: the ability to develop themselves, the ability to quickly take advantage of opportunities, and the ability to make full use of machines to accelerate the automation process.

• Learning is lifelong, and the "test and learn" method helps generate a mindset that enables companies to quickly benefit from short cycles and collective learning.

• Learn from your mistakes and pivot quickly to avoid dead ends or other obstacles

Whether in manufacturing or other industries, management methods can be inspired by the Tesla model. Under the multi-layer model architecture, each module can be reused in the enterprise and applied as a tool in enterprise management transformation.

From an external perspective, companies need to grasp external customer needs and drive internal production and management work with user economics. From Tesla's external management approach, we can start from the following parts :

• Is digitalization used to promote data sharing and achieve collaboration among various departments of the enterprise?

• In terms of human resources, are we actively recruiting multi-talented people?

• Are there strategic parts further up the value chain that can be integrated?

• Are you trying to build a customer data network for your customers to help improve product design and development?

• Join forces with competitors to create value-added services for customers?

• Is the vision inspiring enough to attract good talent to join the “fan base”?

• Are there channels for timely response, conveying information quickly, and collecting first-hand feedback from employees?

From the internal management analysis, we try to scale, complicate and connect the information system structure, take everything into our own hands, have our own test points, and achieve business integration (through acquisitions and investments), from Tesla's In enlightenment, we can start from the following parts:

• Are innovative software solutions integrated through intrinsic skills (digitalization)?

• Does my team make full use of digital collaboration tools during development, industrialization, and horizontal management of the supply chain?

• Does my development team utilize assistive development tools?

• Do operations staff use digital tools for schedule management, work advancement, project tracking, and problem resolution?

• On the organizational side, do you promote mutual assistance and transparency in daily work?

• Can my team solve problems quickly and fundamentally?

• Are “new technology” training organized to gain more new knowledge and communication opportunities?

• Have I personally tested products and solutions and focused on real-life user experiences?

• Is my product flexible? Can it be customized?

Human-machine learning is the core driving force of enterprises. In the process of breaking the boundaries of Industry 4.0, it serves as infrastructure to continuously empower enterprises. When trying new tools, it can also be introduced from the following aspects:

• Are teams encouraged to try new innovative tools (MOOCs, online learning)?

• Are partners sufficiently connected to develop shared training shortcuts that build future skills?

• Are automated collaboration tools (bots) used?

• Have you planned for the talent vacancies that will be needed in the next few years?

• Are work and living spaces constantly optimized to improve work efficiency?

Above, Tesla is a legend, and we can extend our strength from it. Industry 4.0 has begun, and competition in the digital era has intensified. If you want to win, you must continue to innovate.

Tesla did it: Only by being your own sun can you become the light of others.

references:

1. From Toyotaism to Teslaism, Elon Musk’s Industrial Disruption, Michaël Valentin

2. Toyota Way: 14 Management Principles of Lean Manufacturing, [American] Jeffrey Liker