Enterprises Fought the “Epidemic” 丨 Vice President of Liby Group Xu Xiaodong: The Disinfection Need for Epidemic Prevention Increased Sharply and the Most Urgent Need Was to Boost Production
From 165t/day to 375t/day, the output of 84 Disinfectant produced by Liby Group doubled after the outbreak of COVID-19.
During the Spring Festival, Liby Group, a domestic daily chemical enterprise with annual sales of above 20 billion Yuan, prepared to recall workers of the production line of disinfectant, increase production bases, coordinated material supply and stepped up production of disinfection products needed for epidemic prevention. Bottles of 84 Disinfectant were loaded to trucks immediately after discharged from the production line. Some were delivered to designated hospitals and some were delivered to warehouses of supermarkets and e-commerce platforms.
The unexpected epidemic tested the ability to deal with emergencies and stabilize operation. As a daily chemical enterprise ensuring supply of daily necessities, what wsa the influence of the epidemic? How did enterprises quickly respond to ensure supply of disinfection products for prevention and control of the epidemic? Lately, reporter of National Business Daily interviewed vice president and chief news spokesman of Liby Group Xu Xiaodong.
Vice president of Liby Group Xu Xiaodong (left) instructed to deliver disinfection materials donated to the epidemic area (picture provided by the Company)
Sales of disinfection products increased
Household cleaning and disinfection products have been major products of Liby Group, a domestic leading daily chemical enterprise. To prevent and control the epidemic, no go-out and no dining together severely impacted such industries as catering and tourism, but the rising awareness of disinfection and sanitation pushed disinfection products to the frontline of supply of prevention materials.
Early in the Spring Festival, Liby Group donated disinfection and cleaning materials valued 200 million Yuan to designated hospitals across the country, including 84 Disinfectant, sterilizing package, laundry detergent and washing power, and so on.
Outside the epidemic area, market demand for disinfection products continued to soar and even disinfection products were out of stock. The report released by Kantar Worldpanel lately displayed the FMCG market size declined by nearly 12% within four weeks around the Spring Festival, among which drinks, beverages and other products necessary for gather-together declined by above 40%. Most consumer budgets were used for necessities for epidemic prevention and fresh products.
Online data of e-commerce big data platform Magic Mirror cited by Kantar Consulting showed a sales growth rate of sterilizing spray of 743%, sterilizing soap of 106%, disinfectant of 602%, 84 Disinfectant of 917% during the Spring Festival and relevant commodities marked with such keywords as “Disinfection”, “Sterilization” and “Immunity” of 267%, 143% and 123% respectively.
When interviewed by reporter of National Business Daily, Xu Xiaodong thought the epidemic had a little impact on the daily chemical industry, saying: “Daily chemical enterprises produce daily necessities, so the market remains stable and is less affected than offline service industries on the premise of omni-channel distribution.”
“In my opinion, the epidemic brings opportunities to the daily chemical industry and epidemic prevention and control is a course of consumer education, which raises consumer’s awareness of household cleaning, sterilization and disease prevention. Consumers values cleaning more after the epidemic and sales disinfection products will grow steadily in future.” Xu Xiaodong said.
Developed new production bases and suppliers
84 Disinfectant production of Maanshan factory of Liby Group (picture provided by the Company)
To satisfy the rising need for disinfection products, all production lines of Liby Group have resumed work: On the 6th day of the lunar year, Maanshan base resumed production. On the 8th day of the lunar year, Xinxiang, Panyu, Meishan and Siping bases resumed production successively. On the 17th day of the lunar year, Tianjin Lantian, Liby Daily Chemical and Kunming Daily Chemical bases resumed production.
“Disinfection products of Liby Group were produced mainly in Maanshan and Panyu before. For urgent need of plenty of materials, we transformed the production line of other products such as cleaning products and put them into production of disinfection products and increased Meishan, Xinxiang and Siping production bases.” Xi Xiaodong introduced.
Presently, bases all over the country focused on producing disinfection products. Then, how to ensure supply of other main products? Xu Xiaodong told reporter: “Other products such as cleanser essence, laundry detergent and washing powder are mass consumer goods featured by stable market, adequate stock and stable supply.”
He said that the Group offered superior resources to disinfection products and disinfectant was produced by three shifts within 24h instead of one shift (8h) as before.
Although the Group accelerated production to ensure material supply, it was hard for upstream and downstream enterprises to stay abreast. What deeply impressed Xu Xiaodong was that in the critical period of epidemic prevention and control, packing material suppliers had difficulties in supply of packing materials, even thought Liby Group resumed production in advance.
“During the Spring Festival, the government encouraged to resume production of epidemic prevention materials, but plastic bucket and other packing materials had no priority of production.” Xu Xiaodong said, “But our disinfectant must be packed. Therefore, we assisted packing material suppliers in communicating with government sectors.” With the help of Guangzhou Bureau of Industry and Information Technology, Liby Group finally helped two suppliers in Nanhai District of Foshan City resume production and supply of packing materials of disinfectant.
Furthermore, in order to better satisfy the extensive need for disinfection products, large packing materials underwent volume production, which challenged the supply chain suitable for loose package. To solve undersupply of upstream enterprises, Liby Group started to develop new suppliers.
“Some packing material factories cannot satisfy the need for packing materials fo large barrels. For example, Siping production base, local packing material suppliers were unable to produce 20kg packing materials, so we developed packing material suppliers in Hebei to deliver packing materials to Jilin.” Xu Xiaodong said.
The most urgent need was to boost production
Under concerted efforts of the Group, capacity of Liby disinfection products improved greatly and that of 84 Disinfectant rose from 165t/day in the beginning of the epidemic to 375t/day, doubling on the whole. For Xu Xiaodong, it far satisfied the market need: “Capacity increased certainly but it was far from market need.”
Reporter of National Business Daily noticed that facing shortage of disinfection products, many leading enterprises and listed companies were motivated by the government to increase disinfection products. According to incomplete statistics, more than 10 listed companies such as ER-KANG PHARMACEUTICAL, ZHIXIN PHARMACEUTICAL and RINGPU BIOLOGY have urgently applied for Hygienic License of Disinfection Products Manufacturing Enterprises since the Spring Festival.
According to data released by the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology in the press conference on the joint prevention and control mechanism called by the State Council on February 13, there were 563 manufacturing enterprises of disinfection products in China, including 171 84 Disinfectant manufacturers with daily capacity of 5895t, daily output up to 4597t and operation rate of nearly 80%.
Presently, more than 2000 workers of production bases of Liby Group across the country have returned to work with rework rate of about 60%-70%. With Panyu base as an example, more than 200 workers returned to work on the 8th day of the lunar year and more than 500 workers out of over 700 workers have returned to work until now.
Xu Xiaodong analyzed: “Not all workers returned to work because of strict traffic control. Roads were closed to traffic in some areas. Besides, migrant workers should be quarantined at home for 14 days according to the Company’s epidemic prevention measures.”
However, Xu Xiaodong spoke highly of employee’s enthusiasm for rework. “During the Spring Festival, many employees overcame difficulties to return to work in order to respond to the Company donation to the epidemic area and ensure market supply.” He mentioned that an employee walked with lungage to the factory for 9km because there was no bus. Another employee chose online car-hailing for a distance of 300km from eastern Guangdong to Panyu of Guangzhou due to outage of public traffic.
“Presently, consumer need for disinfection products skyrocketed and enterprises were confronted with undersupply. For us, the most urgent need was to continue boosting production and ensure market supply as quickly as possible.” Xu Xiaodong said, “Facing undersupply, Liby Group will resolutely assist the government in stabilizing the price of goods and we officially notified stores and dealers all over the country early on January 22 against a rise in the price of disinfection products.”
Originated from National Business Daily
