[November 6, 2024, Xi'an] The 2024 BBAC Supplier Conference was held in Xi’an, with the theme of “New Quality Productive Forces Shape a Star Future”. Over 600 representatives from suppliers mainly in China but also around the world gathered to celebrate their achievements together with BBAC as well as discuss their plans for future development and win-win cooperation.

At the event, twenty-five outstanding local and global suppliers were honored with awards in seven categories. The awards recognized the efforts made by suppliers in promoting the high-quality development of BBAC in the past year across seven key aspects: quality assurance, innovation and transformation, technology-based efficiency improvement, safety management, integrity and compliance, sustainable development, and supply chain assurance.

“BBAC has always upheld the philosophy of ‘Made in China, for China’, consistently dedicated to building excellent products with the standards of Mercedes-Benz,” said Jörg Bartels, President & CEO of BBAC. “By continuously producing high-quality vehicles, we are addressing the unique needs of the Chinese market — a feat made possible by the unwavering support of BBAC's suppliers and partners. Looking forward, BBAC will strive to build more desirable luxury vehicles for Chinese customers.”

Zhang Zhengye, Party Secretary and Senior Executive Vice President of BBAC, said: “Thanks to the strategic guidance of both shareholders, as well as our established brand strengths and robust support from our supplier partners, this year we have achieved the milestone of our cumulative vehicle output reaching 5 million units. As we move ahead, BBAC will accelerate the strategic transformation, collaborating closely with suppliers and partners to build a ‘Star Community’, enhancing the sustainability of our cooperation model and promoting the high-quality development.”

Concerted Efforts for Excellent Quality

Over the years, Mercedes-Benz vehicles built by BBAC have won numerous awards and honors in the automotive industry for their excellent product performance and quality. Most recently, in the evaluation results released by J.D. Power and 12365auto.com in September 2024, E-Class L and C-Class L ranked first in the medium-sized luxury sedan and luxury sedan segments respectively. These achievements were made possible not only by BBAC’s stringent quality management system, but also by the support and efforts of major production and supply partners in quality control and our strong supplier network in China.

By upgrading their production lines, introducing advanced digital management systems and optimizing their quality management systems, suppliers have helped BBAC achieve whole-process optimization in the traceability of parts and components used in locally-produced Mercedes-Benz vehicles. These efforts have improved the consistency of quality of the complete vehicles.

Technologies Empowering Joint Transformation and Upgrading

In recent years, BBAC has been promoting the comprehensive application of Mercedes-Benz’ MO360 digital production ecosystem for passenger vehicles to make the entire process of managing R&D, logistics, production, quality control, and technical maintenance more intelligent. Furthermore, BBAC has actively pursued digital transformation, exploring new applications of AI, digital twin and other technologies in production, while proactively cooperating with partners in the supply chain to achieve collaborative innovation.

BBAC’s supply partners are also improving their digitalization levels. By integrating digital manufacturing, intelligent energy control, intelligent security and other platforms, they have achieved digital interaction across the full process of order management, inventory management, logistics & delivery, thus helping BBAC effectively improve production efficiency, and further accelerating the digital transformation of BBAC’s supply chain.

Safety, Integrity and Compliance: Cornerstones of Development

For BBAC and its suppliers, safety, integrity and compliance are the cornerstones of development. Over the past 19 years, BBAC has continuously improved its own safety management systems, both internally and across its supply chain. This progress spans various areas, including organizational structure, division of labor for management, implementation of roles and responsibilities, introduction of incentive mechanism, digitization of safety management, and the strengthening of personnel capabilities.

At this year’s supplier conference, BBAC released a newly upgraded safety management mechanism, promoting a new experiential safety training model to suppliers to help improve their safety management capabilities and jointly improve the overall safety management level of the supply chain. The conference also included a Forum on Integrity and Compliance, in which suppliers joined BBAC management to discuss the importance of building a robust integrity and compliance culture and supporting systems, committing to jointly building a fair, equitable and open business environment.

Low Carbon and Environmental Protection for a Shared Future of Sustainable Development

Under the guidance of Mercedes-Benz’s “Ambition 2039” and BAIC Group’s “BLUE Plan”, BBAC has formulated the Supply Chain 2039 Carbon Neutral Action Plan to proactively promote sustainable development. As a state-level sustainable supply chain management enterprise, BBAC highly values its social responsibility and its duty to uphold the business ethics of the supply chain, vigorously promoting leading sustainable projects such as low-carbon green steel, low-carbon aluminum, and closed-loop battery recycling. In these efforts, BBAC aims to work with supply partners to build a sustainable supply chain and promote the decarbonization of the production process.

BBAC has also signed the “Ambition Letter” with the majority of its suppliers, making it a prerequisite for contractual partnerships, and provided sustainability-related training to suppliers via the Drive Sustainability Platform. By promoting the proactive practice of low-carbon emissions in the fields of infrastructure, energy management, manufacturing technology and material use, BBAC aims to jointly build an eco-friendly and sustainable supply chain. With the support of BBAC, many suppliers have passed the national or provincial “sustainable factory” certification.

Deepening Cooperation to Build a Star Community

Over the years, BBAC has worked hand in hand with its suppliers to lay out a path of resilient and high-quality supply chain development. While strictly implementing standards for supplier quality management, BBAC has increasingly worked to build a relationship with suppliers based on cooperation. BBAC introduces excellent supplier talents and provides resident suppliers with many same benefits enjoyed by BBAC employees during its major milestones, building a “Star Community” of mutual trust and mutual benefit.

This year’s BBAC Supplier Conference has further deepened the cooperation consensus and development confidence of BBAC and its suppliers. Going forward, BBAC will further strengthen overall quality management and expand its innovation capacity along the whole supply chain to speed up the strategic transformation towards “electrification, digitalization and low carbonization” in coordination with its suppliers. Guided by “We are BBAC! Striving to build the best vehicles in China!”, BBAC will help shape a high-quality development future for the automotive industry while continuously building excellent vehicles.