On April 8th, the front page of Zhejiang Daily published an article titled "Starting a Long Run amidst External Worries and Internal Rumors - Zhejiang Machine Tool Industry has reached a Critical Moment towards the Middle and High End", focusing on the current development status of the province's machine tool industry and analyzing the future trends of Zhejiang's manufacturing industry. The full text is as follows:
Starting a long-distance run amidst external worries and internal competition
Zhejiang's machine tool industry has reached a critical moment towards mid to high end development
One evening at the end of March, at a wedding banquet in Wenling, several leaders of machine tool equipment enterprises in the province sat at a rare table.
They are all old experts in machine tools who have been working for a lifetime. After greeting each other, they get straight to the point: "How much is the order?" "What is the price?" "How is the export?" "How many exhibitions have we attended?" As they chatted, they forgot about the delicious food and didn't smell the aroma of the wine. After the wedding banquet, "everyone didn't drink a drop of wine." Afterwards, a master sighed.
It is said that when the economy recovers, the machine tool industry, which supplies the "industrial mother machine" first, is the "duck" that first feels warm in the spring river. However, after some conversation, everyone generally felt that the warmth was not obvious enough. Just like early spring, warm at first and cold at last.
After all, they are the tested "old rivers and lakes". Although they may have anxiety, they are not idle for a moment - running domestic and foreign exhibitions, visiting new and old customers, and launching new products. For the future, they also have clearer plans.
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All domestically produced
April 10th is a big day for many machine tool companies, and the biennial China International Machine Tool Exhibition will open in Beijing.
As one of the world's four major machine tool exhibitions, well-known domestic and foreign machine tool equipment companies will bring their "trump cards" to Beijing to participate in the exhibition. This is an important moment for "showing off muscles" and making new customers.
In the workshop of Wenling Volkswagen Precision Machinery Co., Ltd., staff are conducting the final debugging of the dual spindle inverted CNC lathe.
"This is one of the products we will be exhibiting in Beijing, with a small footprint, high efficiency, and nationwide production." The chairman of the company, Ruan Siqun, introduced that the three machine tools exhibited this time are all independently developed by the company, and "nationwide production" is their biggest selling point.
As a veteran who has been working in the industry for over 20 years, Ruan Siqun is well aware that machine tools are durable consumer goods in the mechanical manufacturing industry. Due to industry scale limitations, only by continuously developing and upgrading products can there be new growth opportunities. "We have already developed 40 to 50 new products before, and our future goal is to replace imports!" Ruan Siqun's tone was very firm.
Zhao Xiaogang, the general manager of Taizhou Eastern CNC Equipment Co., Ltd., is also busy with the exhibition. At this year's Beijing exhibition, Eastern CNC secured a 50 square meter exhibition area, which is the largest in the company's history. Nevertheless, only three devices can be put down. He chose the latest developed turning and milling composite machine tool to test the water quality.
Zhao Xiaogang calculated with his fingers, and in just March, the company participated in more than ten exhibitions. The Russian Machine Tool Exhibition in May and the Hanover Machine Tool Exhibition in Germany in September are also being prepared. "I have to attend all the exhibitions that I can attend this year," he said.
"Our own products will all be brought to Beijing for exhibition this time," Fan Yonglian, the person in charge of Dayan Cutting Tools, told reporters. The company focuses on hole processing products such as U-drills and precision boring cutters, which are supporting tools for machine tool production.
Shao Jiandi, Chairman of Lifeng Precision Tools (Zhejiang) Co., Ltd., plans to make a special trip to the School of Materials Science, Tsinghua University during the exhibition period. Previously, both sides had preliminary cooperation on improving the lifespan of cutting tools. The latest experimental results showed that the lifespan of some cutting tools has been extended by about 20%, but some effects are still not significant. "I want professors to find the reason and solve this problem."
During the interview, the reporter found that as soon as they started talking about what they were doing, the leaders of these machine tool equipment industries would have their eyebrows relaxed and their eyes lit up, truly fulfilling the sentence - thinking is difficult, doing is all about solutions.
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Breaking through the darkness
The reason behind this is that a large number of enterprises are gathering in the mid to low-end machine tool market, competing in a homogeneous manner. Especially when the market is not good, it is difficult to extricate oneself from price wars.
On the other hand, due to the significant gap between domestic machine tool enterprises and advanced foreign enterprises in core technology and components, they are trapped in the industry dilemma of being "controlled by others".
Some people say that adding "external worries" to "internal competition" now means "darkness before dawn".
The Zhejiang machine tool industry has reached a critical moment of moving towards the mid to high end, where low-end products are difficult to survive and technology is also difficult to survive under human control. To survive and live well, one must move towards the mid to high end and towards independent innovation.
The machine tool companies at this critical juncture are in great pain and even need to undergo a complete transformation. The reporter saw their pain, but also saw their resolute determination after reflecting on it.
At Beiping Machine Tool (Zhejiang) Co., Ltd., Chairman Yu Ronghua led reporters to visit the company's top machine tool experts one by one. "This year, we have introduced six top talents in the industry," he said.
Engineering and technical expert Cai Baohua walked over with drawings of machine tool components. As an expert in the machine tool industry, Cai Baohua has nearly 30 years of work experience and has just joined Beiping Machine Tool for just one year.
"The most important thing this year is to build an innovation system." Yu Ronghua said that in addition to introducing experts, it is also necessary to realize the autonomy and controllability of core components. In the company's innovation laboratory, he pointed to a row of machine tool engines and proudly said, "This is the core component made with our own machine tools."
In the workshop of Beiping Machine Tool, the average value of a single machine tool is around 500000 yuan, with the highest value reaching 2 million yuan. "Each one is a Mercedes Benz or BMW," Yu Ronghua joked.
In a factory located in a coastal mountain valley, Shao Jiandi, dressed in factory clothes, gave an interview. When it came to emotional matters, he revealed his long-standing wish - to set up a research and development center in Europe when the company's annual output reaches 600 million yuan. Last year, the company's output value was 266 million yuan. He and his companions need to put in more effort.
"Europe is the holy land of the cutting tool industry," said Shao Jiandi. He, who dreams of making top-notch cutting tools, hired a top industry expert as a technical consultant in Europe five or six years ago to drive the company's product transformation.
Targeting cutting-edge innovation in the industry and meticulously cultivating in segmented industries, Lifeng Precision Tools has tasted the sweetness. In recent years, they have been developing metal ceramic saw blades, which will gradually replace the traditional grinding wheel market due to their better wear resistance and smoothness.
Last year's newly launched saw blades saw a rapid growth, with an output value of 20 million yuan in one go. "The growth rate of this segmented market far exceeds imagination, and it is expected that the output value will double this year," said Shao Jiandi.
There is also Fan Yonglian, who specializes in researching cutting tools, who points to Europe as his dream sword. "We are not inferior to our foreign counterparts in terms of quality parameters and have a higher cost-effectiveness. We believe that our products will be very competitive in the international market. Therefore, this year's focus of the company is to expand overseas markets." He ambitiously stated that they do not want to miss any of the foreign tool exhibitions this year, especially the Hanover Machine Tool Exhibition in Germany.
"A small number of orders is a great opportunity to practice hard," said Zhao Xiaogang from Eastern CNC, who is currently focusing on developing new products to enhance their market competitiveness. A car milling composite machine tool that was launched last year had a price double that of traditional products, but it defeated many foreign counterparts as soon as it was launched.
"In the future, we will focus on the research and development of high-speed and high-precision turning and milling composite machine tools, promoting products from the low-end to the high-end," said Zhao Xiaogang.
Of course, our domestically produced machine tools still have a long way to go to completely surpass advanced foreign products. But during the interview, the reporter has felt the determination and belief of machine tool equipment enterprises to break through. As Yu Ronghua said, "I don't value short-term data, but rather focus on the long-term. This is a long run."
Yes, the new long-distance race made in Zhejiang has just begun.
As the race for innovation in Zhejiang's manufacturing sector enters a new chapter, a range of exciting products are making their mark. From high-tech Electric roller shutter door accessories to sophisticated High speed door accessories and High speed rolling shutter door accessories, the province's manufacturers are leading the way in creating cutting-edge products that are transforming industry.
These innovative products are not just meeting the demands of the market, they are setting new standards in quality, efficiency, and durability. With their advanced features and sleek designs, they are revolutionizing the way businesses operate, offering unprecedented levels of security, convenience, and performance.
The future of Zhejiang's manufacturing sector looks incredibly bright, with even more innovations on the horizon. As the demand for these advanced products continues to grow, so too does the potential for even more groundbreaking achievements. With such a dynamic and forward-thinking approach, it's clear that the best is yet to come from Zhejiang's manufacturing sector.