Thinking about the future development of machine tool industry

China's machine tool industry has undergone fundamental changes due to the combination of global economic rebalancing and China's economic slowdown and other comprehensive factors. The industry is facing and undergoing a severe test of adjustment and transformation, and it is also full of potential growth opportunities. From the perspective of the operation of China's machinery manufacturing industry in 2013, the industries that are closely related to informatization, automation, and intelligent transformation and upgrading are growing faster than traditional manufacturing industries. In the following, we will discuss the future development of the machine tool industry together with the characteristics of the 2013 industry operation.

I. Overall characteristics of the operating characteristics of the Chinese machine tool industry in 2013: The machine tool industry is in a low-level, operating state; the utilization rate of the machine tool is low, and the market size has been shrinking; the market competition is fierce; the profit rate continues to decline; the machine tool export has not seen any significant improvement and has remained for a long time. The growth of imports has also dropped significantly.

Machine Tool Production: In 2013, machine tool output continued its declining trend in 2012, but the decline narrowed month by month. From January to December 2013, the output of metal cutting machine tools was 725,900 units, a year-on-year decrease of 1.54%, of which the number of CNC machine tools was 209,300 units, a year-on-year increase of 2.16%. From the trend, the growth rate of CNC machine tools production in the second half of 2013 was higher than that of gold-cutting machine tools. , mainly due to the previous year's base.

In 2012, the size of China's cutting tool market was reduced from 40 billion yuan in 2011 to 34 billion yuan, and tool imports fell from 13.5 billion yuan to 11.5 billion yuan. The two data were all reduced by 15% year-on-year, and cutter exports declined from 8.5 billion yuan. To 7.6 billion yuan. Although the amount of imported cutting tools from January to November 2013 decreased by 0.49% year-on-year, it still reached US$1.25 billion. As a whole, imported tools showed a downward trend.

Looking back at the import and export data, in 2013, 73,933 Taiwan-made metal processing machine tools were imported, which was a decrease of 25.37% year-on-year, and the average import unit price was US$135,800. Among them, the processing center imported 20,741 units, which amounted to US$3.382 billion, a year-on-year decrease of 40.14%; CNC machine tools imported 15,937 units, US$4,169 million, a year-on-year decrease of 11.71%.

The above data fully shows that China's machine tool market is undergoing a very significant change, the outstanding feature is: the total demand decreases, the demand structure increases, the imported machine tools tend to high-end products.

Second, some reflections on the machine tool industry From a macro perspective, the recent Central Economic Work Conference has clearly conveyed a policy signal requiring “stability for progress”, so the national economy is expected to maintain steady growth in 2014; Although emerging economies are relatively difficult in the economic environment, the developed countries are slowly recovering. Overall, we believe that in 2014, the machinery industry can continue to maintain steady growth while the structure has been adjusted.

Affected by the large environment, the output of machine tools and mainframe products has fallen significantly since the previous year. In general, the machine tool host companies are still in decline in 2014, or they may face problems such as overcapacity, insufficient orders, excessive competition, and falling prices. The performance of low-grade machine tools and heavy-duty machine tools is even more prominent.

The use of modern and efficient tools needs to be promoted. According to statistics, the annual tool consumption in developed countries is about 50% of the machine tool consumption. It is much higher than the proportion of tool consumption in China's manufacturing industry. From a global perspective, in 2008, machine tool consumption reached a level of 85 billion U.S. dollars, and tool consumption also hit a record high of 21 billion U.S. dollars. The global average level of tool consumption and machine tool consumption is about 25%. In China, consumption of machine tools has been ranked first in the world for seven consecutive years. In 2008, it reached a record level of 19.44 billion US dollars. China’s tool consumption also exceeded the major developed countries for the first time, reaching US$4 billion. However, compared with the huge scale of machine tool consumption in China's manufacturing industry, tool consumption is still very low, only 20% of machine tool consumption. This proportion is not only far lower than that of developed countries but also lower than the world average. This shows that in China's tool consumption, cheap and inefficient traditional tools still dominate the market. Machine tool functions are far from being fully realized. The potential for manufacturing to increase labor productivity is huge. This is not only the gap between China's tool industry, but also the use of China's tool industry.

From the enterprise level, after more than two years of market testing, many companies have already responded passively to changes in the market and gradually turned to actively adapting to change, taking the initiative to conduct product market positioning, and seeking market opportunities based on the characteristics of the company itself. Under the current situation, industry companies must completely abandon their expectations of the government's further launch of a strong economic stimulus plan and give up the desire for a strong rebound in demand in the low-end market. These expectations and hunger are unrealistic and must be self-adjusted.

Comprehensive and deepening reforms and innovations will inevitably create more potential development opportunities. For instance, the phenomenon of “machine substitution” in various places is creating an unprecedented favorable upgrade market for the machine tool industry. The core of “machine substitution” is to upgrade backward manufacturing methods to more efficient, more environmentally friendly, more reliable, and more conducive to improving the competitiveness of manufacturing methods, which is conducive to improving the income and quality of life of workers. The trend is irresistible. The machine tool industry must seize this opportunity.

Third, the direction of the efforts of the machine tool industry (1) is to strengthen the construction of experimental conditions for research and development, increase investment in research and development activities. In order to improve the reliability and accuracy of machine tools, to change the common diseases of domestically-made machine tools, and to create necessary R&D facilities; to consistently create a high-quality image of Chinese machine tools.

(II) Actively respond to the processing requirements of different users, actively carry out experimental researches on processing technologies, accumulate data, improve products, improve the ability to provide users with “complete solutions”, and improve themselves in the process of improving quality and efficiency for the majority of users. Added value.

(III) It is the next major force to break through the weak links such as numerical control systems and functional components, cultivate competitive basic supporting industries, get rid of bottlenecks in the development of the machine tool industry due to weak foundations, and provide strong support for the upgrade of the host to the high end.

(IV) Taking the digital, automation, intelligence, networking, and greenization as the main targets, actively planning the upgrading of traditional machine tool products, bringing a place for the Chinese machine tool industry in the competition of high-end products of future world peers and upgrading the future of China's machine tools Prepare for high-end market share.

(E) is to take the "special and strong" modern tool companies on the road China's tool companies to develop modern and efficient tool technology, should implement the "special and strong" guidelines. We must promote "strengthening" instead of promoting "bigger" blindly. Modern high-efficiency cutting tools are "high-precision, high-efficiency, high-reliability and special-purpose" tool products developed to meet the specific needs of the manufacturing industry. The competitiveness of modern tool companies is not reflected in the cost-effectiveness of their products, but rather in the ability to provide manufacturing companies with "integrated solutions" that increase efficiency and reduce costs. Therefore, to develop from a traditional tool enterprise to a modern tool enterprise, it is necessary to turn experts from “all things”.

In the current market environment, machine tool companies must shift their efforts to pursue the “scale efficiency” of products that can be produced by many peers and turn every possible means to help users acquire “scarcity benefits” that are supported by their own unique advantages and obtain them in the process. Its own development opportunities.

“Scarcity benefits” comes from: superior quality and cost-effective products; talented craftsmanship; leaner management than peer companies; marketing skills with brand marketing and international marketing extraordinary returns; , outstanding quality, visionary talent team. To this end, machine tool companies must change their habitual thinking of expanding and expanding, and commit themselves to nurturing their own unique core competitiveness. Increase investment in R&D, attach importance to construction of test conditions and investment in human resources, improve the innovation capability of products and processes, actively promote the in-depth integration of informatization and industrialization, pursue the green and internationalization of products and production processes, and increase the production and marketing of enterprises. The lean level of management.

Finally, we hope that industry companies can strengthen their confidence, seriously plan their own "strategic" strategies and ways to achieve, make good use of the force mechanism, change pressure as the driving force, tap the dividends of reforms, cultivate innovation-driven capabilities, identify breakthroughs, and clearly focus on The point is to turn passively into initiative and achieve new breakthroughs in the new round of development phase of the Chinese machine tool industry.