Supply Chain Collaboration, Trailers Build Industry-Academia Ecosystem

According to the “2024 China Trailer Industry Development White Paper”, the proportion of customized demand in the domestic trailer market has risen to 47% in 2024, with the demand for cold chain transportation trailers growing at a rate of 32% and the demand for heavy-duty mining transportation trailers increasing by 28%. However, the traditional R&D model of a single enterprise, with a cycle of 6-12 months, cannot keep up with the 3-4 month iteration rhythm of end-user demand. At the same time, the cross-border integration requirements of new energy and intelligent technologies have also made the technical reserves of a single enterprise insufficient. Against this industry background, the trailer industry is breaking the triple boundaries of enterprises, industries, and disciplines with deeper collaboration, building a collaborative innovation ecosystem of “Parts Suppliers + Trailer Manufacturers + Logistics Users + Research Institutions”, and accelerating the implementation of core technologies and product iteration through the joint efforts of technology, scenarios, and data from multiple parties.

In the implementation of the collaboration model, the collaboration among all parties has penetrated into every link of the product life cycle, forming a replicable value creation chain:

Joint R&D of Core Components: Deep Binding from Supply-Demand to Co-R&D：Trailer manufacturers and parts suppliers have moved beyond the traditional model of “Party A puts forward requirements and Party B delivers”, and launched joint research from the conceptual stage of product design. Taking Yufei Special Vehicles as an example, it has not only built a road condition simulation laboratory with a leading tire enterprise to jointly develop special low rolling resistance tires for 12 typical transportation scenarios such as trunk highways, mountain winding roads, and mining muddy roads. By optimizing the bionic tread pattern and silicon-based rubber formula, the measured data of this tire in the mountain section of the Beijing-Kunming Expressway shows that the rolling resistance is reduced by 22%, the wear life is increased by 15%, and the fuel consumption per 100 kilometers is reduced by 3.2L. At the same time, it has cooperated with a domestic leading braking technology enterprise to develop an adaptive braking system, which can adjust the braking torque in real time according to the load, driving speed, and road friction coefficient of the trailer, shortening the braking distance on wet and slippery roads by 18%. In addition, the intelligent on-board system jointly developed with electronic enterprises can collect 17 operating data such as compartment temperature, tire pressure, frame stress, and brake pad wear in real time, and adjust the equipment operating parameters in real time through the edge computing module. For example, when encountering a traffic jam on a highway during cold chain transportation, the refrigeration power is automatically reduced by 15% to save energy while ensuring temperature control.

Scenario-based Customized R&D: Precise Transformation from Pain Points to Solutions：The integration of enterprises and logistics users has upgraded from “production according to demand” to “jointly defining products”. For the segmented scenarios of cold chain logistics, Yufei collaborated with a flower cold chain logistics enterprise in Yunnan to customize an intelligent cold chain trailer with zoned temperature control for the 2200-kilometer transportation route from Kunming to Shanghai, where the temperature fluctuates from 8℃ to 28℃ along the way and requires 3 transshipments and loading and unloading. The compartment is divided into two independent temperature zones: the flower storage zone (2-5℃) and the fresh-keeping consumables zone (10-12℃). The thickness of the insulation layer of the compartment is upgraded from 8cm to 12cm, and a thermal circulation sealing device for the door is installed. Finally, the temperature zone fluctuation is controlled within ±0.3℃ during the whole transportation process, the vase life of flowers is extended by 3 days, and the transportation damage rate is reduced from 7% to 1.9%. For the mining transportation scenario, Yufei cooperated with an open-pit coal mine in Shanxi to optimize the stress structure of the high-strength frame for the mining gravel road and the transportation route with a maximum slope of 12%: using a high-manganese steel reinforced beam instead of an ordinary steel beam, and installing a buffer bushing at the stress concentration point of the frame. Finally, the single batch transportation volume of the trailer is increased from 45 tons to 52 tons, and the maintenance cycle of the frame is extended from 6 months to 18 months.

Industry-University-Research Frontier Research: Rapid Transformation from Laboratory to Production Line：At present, 27 domestic leading trailer enterprises have established 22 “Intelligent Green Trailer Joint Laboratories” with 19 universities and research institutions such as the School of Automobile of Chang’an University, the School of Logistics Engineering of Wuhan University of Technology, and the China Logistics Science Research Institute. Taking the laboratory participated by Yufei as an example, three core projects are currently being promoted: first, a hydrogen fuel cell auxiliary power unit suitable for heavy-duty scenarios, which has completed 1000 hours of bench testing, with a power output stability of 95%, which can meet the power supply requirements of the refrigeration and intelligent systems when the trailer is idling or driving at low speed; second, the R&D of carbon fiber trailer side beams, which have been tested to be 35% lighter than traditional steel side beams and 22% higher in impact resistance, and small-batch trial production has been completed; third, the IoT remote monitoring and fault early warning system, which can predict more than 85% of potential problems such as frame stress abnormalities and refrigeration system failures 72 hours in advance. After a national logistics enterprise used this system in 2024, the waiting time for trailer fault maintenance was shortened by 60%, avoiding 12 major accidents such as frame fracture and refrigeration failure, and reducing losses by about 1.8 million yuan in a single year.

By the end of 2024, this collaborative innovation ecosystem has achieved results far exceeding expectations:

In the field of lightweight trailers: The steel-aluminum hybrid structure trailers jointly developed by the industry are 15%-20% lighter than traditional all-steel trailers. At the same time, the wind resistance is reduced by 12% by optimizing the gap between the tractor and the trailer (reduced by 15cm). A trailer with an annual operation of 80,000 kilometers can save fuel costs of 28,000-35,000 yuan and reduce carbon emissions by about 14 tons per year. The market share of this product of Yufei reached 19% in 2024;

In the field of intelligent temperature-controlled trailers: The average damage rate of cold chain transportation goods is reduced to below 2.1%, far exceeding the industry average of 8%-12%. After a seafood transportation enterprise in Shandong used it, the transportation damage rate of swimming crabs and salmon was reduced from 5% to 2.1%, saving 2.1 million yuan in losses in a single year;

Improvement of R&D efficiency: The collaborative R&D model has shortened the R&D cycle of new products from 6-12 months to 3-5 months. For example, the new zoned temperature-controlled cold chain trailer of Yufei only took 4 months from the user’s demand to mass production.

Insiders believe that supply chain collaborative innovation has become the core driving force for the high-quality development of the trailer industry. In the future, this ecosystem will deepen in more segmented directions: first, build a “Trailer Collaborative R&D Cloud Platform” to realize real-time sharing of inventory data of parts suppliers, transportation scenario data of logistics users, and test data of research institutions, which is expected to increase R&D efficiency by another 40%; second, promote the implementation of intelligent technologies. At present, Yufei has collaborated with an autonomous driving enterprise to conduct trailer platooning tests on the Beijing-Shanghai Expressway. The tests show that platooning can reduce fuel consumption by 20%, and the accuracy of the automatic parking function in logistics parks has reached 98%; third, accelerate the green transformation. Yufei plans to launch a cold chain trailer with a photovoltaic roof in 2026. The annual power generation of the photovoltaic panel can meet 15% of the power supply demand of the refrigeration system, further reducing operating costs and carbon emissions.

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