system, at the expense of the product variety, cost reduction is achieved. Honda on the other hand, planned its production on a batch basis. Even though it is still implementing the large lot mass production, it had developed a small batch production system. With the system implemented, the units are sent down the assembly line in batches in which each vehicle is exactly the same including its colors. Workers therefore execute exactly the same task for each batch. Components are delivered to the assembly line in batches which exactly match the vehicles they will be fitted into. The objective is to combine the advantages of large lot mass production (simpler logistics and quality control, less error, and easier to program schedule) and small lot production (ability to offer a wider range of products to customers and greater worker involvement and satisfaction).
本田成功的另一个例子是生产计划。与它的竞争对手不同，它完全采用“大批量生产”生产线系统，这意味着生产被组织成一行或一系列生产数千种相同或几乎相同的产品。在该系统中，以牺牲产品种类为代价，实现了成本降低。另一方面，本田计划批量生产。尽管它仍在实施大批量生产，但它已经开发了一个小批量生产系统。随着系统的实施，这些部件被分批送往装配线，每辆车都完全相同，包括颜色。因此，工人对每个批次执行完全相同的任务。部件分批交付到装配线，与将要安装的车辆完全匹配。目标是将大批量生产（更简单的物流和质量控制、更少的错误和更容易的计划安排）和小批量生产（能够向客户提供更广泛的产品以及更高的工人参与度和满意度）的优势结合起来。
Question 2 问题 2
A) Too much Debt and Risk of Bankruptcy 债务过多和破产风险
Mergers and acquisitions do not always benefits a company that initiates it. It will be very costly for a company if the decision of M&A is made wrongly. Let’s take Proton in Malaysia and QQ in China as an example; both are vehicle manufacturer in their respective country. QQ is not doing very well in China, but Proton is eyeing on the huge low cost vehicle will have in China market. Proton hopes to “get” into the huge low cost vehicle market in China by merging or acquiring QQ. The first obstacle could incur is the high legal expenses. Proton paid a huge amount of money for the legal expenses to acquire QQ and right after that the amount of debt that QQ is carrying will be transferred under Proton’s custody. Investment on R&D is the next step in order to produce the right type of vehicle for the low cost vehicle market in China which may take a long time to develop, and then followed by the advertising and promotion. All the steps that were mentioned earlier will require a big amount of funds that it is impossible for Proton to have. The only alternative is to seek back up from finance company. Adding up the debts that QQ is having previously and the exposure of Proton from the finance company, the debts are too much for Proton to handle. If the ROI was not realized as what Proton has forecasted, Proton will have a very high risk of being sued bankruptcy by the finance company or the debtors.
兼并和收购并不总是对发起兼并的公司有利。如果并购的决定是错误的，对一家公司来说代价将非常高昂。让我们以马来西亚的宝腾和中国的QQ为例；两者都是各自国家的车辆制造商。QQ在中国的表现不太好，但宝腾正在关注中国市场的巨大低成本汽车。宝腾希望通过合并或收购QQ，“进入”中国巨大的低成本汽车市场。可能产生的第一个障碍是高昂的法律费用。宝腾为收购QQ支付了巨额法律费用，之后QQ所背负的债务将由宝腾保管。研发投资是下一步，以便为中国的低成本汽车市场生产合适类型的汽车，这可能需要很长时间的发展，然后是广告和促销。前面提到的所有步骤都需要大量资金，而质子公司不可能拥有这些资金。唯一的选择是寻求财务公司的支持。加上QQ之前欠下的债务以及金融公司对宝腾的风险敞口，这些债务对宝腾来说太多了。如果投资回报率没有如宝腾预测的那样实现，宝腾将面临被财务公司或债务人起诉破产的极高风险。
B) Potential for Product Synergies 产品协同效应的潜力
It has long been viewed that product market synergies are key drivers of mergers. Mergers are a quick way to potentially increase product offerings if synergies arise from asset complementarities. One important dimension of synergies is the ability of merging firms to create new products and differentiate themselves from rivals when merging firms have complementary assets. Rhodes- Kropf and Robinson (2008) model similarity and asset complementarities as a motive for mergers but do not present direct evidence of their importance. In competitive markets, mergers are a quick way to potentially increase product offerings to increase product differentiation if synergies are important. Thus, firms may have incentives to merge with _firms that have different skills or technologies that increase the ability to introduce new products through synergies. However, because acquirers may be better at ma
