What is the gap between domestic machine tools and foreign products?

China is now a well-deserved machine tool country. After spending and import value ranked first in the world for nine consecutive years, in 2009 and 2010, the output value also became the world's largest, surpassing Germany and Japan. In the eyes of the industry and foreign counterparts, what kind of image does the newly-emerging Chinese machine tool industry have? What is their evaluation of these firsts?

Among the major science and technology projects for "high-end CNC machine tools and basic manufacturing equipment," it is clearly proposed that seven key CNC systems, 17 functional components and key components should be developed. And juxtaposing this with the eight major categories of 57 mainframe products that have been developed in focus, this shows that special attention is paid to the functional component industry.

What is the gap between domestic machine tools and foreign products?

In the "12th Five-Year Plan" machine tool industry development plan, a major goal is to promote the industrialization process of CNC systems and functional components.

Wu Bolin, executive vice chairman of the China Machine Tool Industry Association, also admitted that functional components and numerical control systems are the two “shortcomings” of the current industrial structure of the machine tool industry. Therefore, the next step in the industry's work is to establish an organic combination of mainframes, numerical control systems, and functional components with government support. At this point, some companies have already made some initial attempts. For example, Huazhong CNC and Beijing No. 1 Machine Tool Plant, Dalian Machine Tool Plant, Wuhan Heavy-duty Machine Tool Plant, etc., took a stake in CNC system technology and formed a number of companies.

Compared with the “Eleventh Five-Year Plan” period, China’s numerical control system has made great progress in its application. At this exhibition, the reporter also saw a number of prototypes equipped with domestic CNC systems. In spite of this, some OEMs still said that domestic systems are also good, but the stability still needs to be improved. At the same time, we have seen many Siemens and FANUC figures in the list of CNC systems and functional components purchased at some major domestic OEMs. It is understood that Beijing No. 1 Machine Tool Plant will import 230 systems from Fanuc every year and 50 systems from Siemens.

Has the gap narrowed?

In the survey “Do you think the gap between domestic machine tools and foreign machine tools is increasing or shrinking?”, the proportion of respondents with different degrees of reduction is nearly 70%. Among them, respondents who think that the gap has decreased a lot are 17.5%, and those who believe that the gap is narrower are 50%. This shows that after nearly a decade of efforts, home-made machine tools have indeed narrowed the gap with foreign products. This has already been recognized by industry professionals.

At the exhibition site, a person working for a foreign digital control system company told reporters that for many years he had been engaged in sales of CNC systems and understanding of this subdivided industry, he personally believed that the gap between domestically-manufactured CNC systems and foreign countries was not reduced. It's getting bigger and bigger.

How effective is the national policy support?

What is the gap between domestic machine tools and foreign products?

The survey report shows that the gap between Chinese and foreign machine tools is mainly reflected in three aspects: machining accuracy (25.2%), reliability (18.8%), internal electrical, gas, and control configuration (16.5%). This survey result is basically consistent with the opinions of industry experts. They repeatedly emphasized that the gap between Chinese and foreign products mainly comes from the product itself many years ago, and listed these factors, and at the same time called on domestic companies to improve these parameters of the product to win More market share.

In narrowing the gap and catching up with the world's advanced counterparts, the state has given considerable support to the machine tool industry during the “11th Five-Year Plan” period. Since 2006, the state has begun to pay attention to the equipment manufacturing industry. In 2009, 16 major technology projects were launched, and “high-end CNC machine tools and basic manufacturing equipment” were among them. The total investment in the special program is 22.1 billion yuan, of which the central government has directly invested 10 billion yuan. Judging from the situation in 2009, the special project has a total funding of 7.2 billion yuan and 194 projects. After two years of implementation, it has achieved remarkable results.

In the survey of "high-end numerically-controlled machine tools and basic manufacturing equipment" major special projects, it was considered that "a great deal" reached 69.4%. This shows the industry's support for the country as well as its special recognition.

However, for the specific implementation, the respondent made a number of recommendations, mainly in the following three: "acceptance means should be more stringent" (38.0%), "the reporting process should be more simplified" (29.8%), "the information submitted should be More open (28.7%). Some experts pointed out that the development of special projects is actually an investment of the tripartite alliance of the state, local governments, and enterprises, in which the proportion of the state and local governments is greater. Since it is an investment project, it needs to have corresponding investment benefits. Special acceptance is a process of demonstrating investment benefits. The fairness of the results is related to the responsibilities of investors, the normal development of projects, and the further development of the industry. Whether the special item has a demonstration effect, how popular the value is, and when the special results are industrialized is the most concern in the industry.

The survey also provided us with a new perspective. In another questionnaire for foreign exhibitors, about half of the (46%) foreigners surveyed said that “China’s supportive policy has an impact on foreign-invested enterprises”, China’s related support policies do not affect its Investment and development in the Chinese market. In the past two years, the state has given great support to the industry, and many companies have also benefited from special projects. The foreigner’s answer as an international competitor has given us a new perspective to understand and look at these support and benefits. Is the support of the state the whole of the industry development, and can the industry development path be more diversified? If we can deepen our thinking on these issues, we may be able to promote the development of the industry to a greater extent, and at the same time help to shrink the advanced counterparts abroad. difference.

How to reduce the gap between domestically-made functional components?

It cannot be overlooked that one-third of respondents believe that China, as a "power tool country," has not narrowed the gap with its foreign advanced counterparts. The 30% of the respondents were subdivided into three levels: 15.6% considered that "the gap was not significant", 14.4% believed that the gap was increased, and 2.5% considered that the gap was increased much. . Although there are only a few people who hold similar views in this survey, there are no lack of data support and case demonstrations in some segments of the industry and product sectors. In 2010, China's total import of machine tool products was US$ 15.72 billion, which was a year-on-year increase of 62.0%, and it was 27.8% higher than the highest record in 2008. Since 2000, the deficit in the import and export trade of China's machine tool products has increased year by year. Narrowing the deficit and expanding the market share of national products is an inevitable process of revitalizing the machine tool and equipment industry. However, the rebound in imports of the machine tool industry in 2010 made us deeply feel the strong market appeal of foreign products.