The automobile industry can compress the cost of domestic machine tools
In the automotive industry to control production costs and reduce product ex-factory prices, what are the opportunities for China's machine tool industry?
At the 3rd Automotive and Parts Manufacturing Technology Forum held on August 14, 2008, he had worked in the Chinese machine tool industry for a long time. Later he was transferred to the China Automobile Engineering Society. Chen Changnian, Minister of Equipment, made a speech according to his own experience. .
Automotive Pressure Machine Opportunities
Chen Changnian said that in the past decade or so, China’s automobile industry has become the main consumer of machine tools, and it has consumed about 40% of the machine tools of the entire society. At the same time, more than half of the investment in the automotive industry was used to purchase manufacturing equipment. The amount of imported machine tools accounted for about 70% of total machine tool purchases. This is the main reason for the rapid growth of China's machine tool imports.
During the "10th Five-Year Plan" period, the investment in fixed assets of the Chinese auto industry reached 235 billion yuan, and it is expected that the "Eleventh Five-Year" investment will be about 400 billion yuan. During the “Tenth Five-Year Plan†period, the total amount of funds for the purchase of equipment by the auto industry reached more than 160 billion yuan, and it will exceed 250 billion yuan during the “Eleventh Five-Year Plan†period.
The survivability and international competitiveness of auto companies increasingly depend on the cost of manufacturing. In the three major costs of automobile production, material and labor costs continue to soar, and brutal market competition has forced the price of cars to decline. Therefore, relying on imported production lines to manufacture Chinese cars has been difficult to continue.
Chen Changnian believes that domestic equipment has the advantage of price, so under the pressure of inflation, the development of the Chinese automobile industry has brought opportunities to the domestic machine tool industry.
Take Shanghai Huapu Engine Co., Ltd. as an example. This company with world-class equipment has begun to seek cooperation with domestic equipment manufacturers on certain equipment in order to reduce costs. The company’s chief engineer, Zhu Xuan, stated that the company currently requires two high-performance, stable, and reliable flexible machining lines for the production of cylinder blocks and cylinder heads. If you purchase domestic equipment, the price will be 1/3 to 1/2 of the imported equipment.
In addition, the company has jointly applied with the China National Machinery Research Institute for a key project in the advanced manufacturing technology field of the National 863 Program. It hopes to jointly tackle the issue of “Online Measurement System for Trains, Automotive Parts, and Assembly Lines†in this project. .
According to Zhu ultrasound analysis, if the independent research and development is successful, the price of these online automatic detection devices and systems with high precision will also be 1/3 to 1/2 of the introduction of foreign devices.
Technological backwardness faces challenges
While discussing that the Chinese auto industry can provide a large market for the Chinese machine tool industry, Chen Changnian is also very worried about whether domestic machine tool companies have the strength to eat this “big cake†of 280 billion yuan. He said: "Over 70% of auto manufacturing equipment has been dependent on imports."
According to statistics, in the 21st century, China’s annual automobile production will increase by about 1 million vehicles, and machine tool imports will increase by about one billion US dollars. Imported equipment still occupies a considerable proportion in the automobile production industry.
A survey of domestic processing centers showed that the reliability of home-made machining centers, especially the reliability of numerically controlled knives, was significantly lower than that of imported equipment. As a result, some users were afraid of the poor reliability of machine tools, resulting in huge downtime (production) losses. Maintenance costs, so I would rather spend high prices on imported machine tools with high reliability.
Chen Changnian said that the machine tool industry itself also faces hardware, software and service issues. As far as hardware is concerned, domestically produced machine tools cannot meet the needs of modern cars for accuracy, accuracy, reliability, and long life. In terms of software, integration technology is poor, and there is a lack of integration of process systems, logistics systems, and information systems into manufacturing units. Or the technology of the flow production line; in terms of service, it stays at the A/S (after-sales service) stage, and the automotive industry generally requires the provision of T/S (integrated solution) services.
Cope with challenges and develop together
In this regard, Chen Changnian suggested that machine tool companies should design a new generation of flexible automatic lines based on lean and agile concepts. He believes that modern machine tool manufacturers must be familiar with modern auto parts manufacturing processes and be able to master a variety of modern manufacturing technologies (such as digital technology, flexible automation technology, high-speed machining technology, simulation technology, green manufacturing technology, etc.) and have Technology integration capabilities. Can provide customers with turnkey projects.
He said that the mass production of the automotive industry also requires a lot of efficient special-purpose machine tools and special automatic production lines. The basic requirements for this machine are high stiffness, high speed and high power. The basic features of high-efficiency dedicated machine tools are tailor-made, that is, personalized products are provided according to the needs of users.
At the same time, the development of the automotive industry has also led to an increase in innovation capabilities in the machine tool industry, such as the use of agile fixtures (flexible fixtures), smart tools (a series of controllable, adjustable and dedicated high-efficiency tools for specific parts processing) and so on.
He revealed that by 2020, the goal of China's auto manufacturing equipment is to reduce foreign dependence to less than 30%, which provides a great opportunity for the Chinese machine tool industry. To this end, he hopes that both the machine tool industry and the automotive industry will seize opportunities, meet challenges and achieve common development.