It will take time for the overall weakness of the machine tool industry to recover

On December 6 last year, the China Machine Tool Industry Association held a meeting in Beijing. Wang Liming, executive vice chairman of the China Machine Tool Industry Association, said at the meeting that the macroeconomic growth in China began to show a downward trend since the beginning of last year. The tightening of investment in the industry, weak demand, and the impact of international financial crisis, debt crisis in Europe and other factors have caused the severe situation in the machine tool industry today. In the downturn of the domestic market, companies are concerned about the international market. Exports have maintained a certain growth in the first ten months, but the rate of increase has been narrowing month by month.

The drop in orders caused the manager to suffer headaches not only because of the rapid rise in raw materials, but also caused his orders to decline.

“We can clearly feel the decline in orders, and we can clearly see from the profit and the amount of start-up that the same machine tool that was originally produced with the same material and time, was lost to different orders. Last year we were seven. The machine tools produced in August have not yet been sold." Yu told the reporter.

However, behind the decline in orders is the shrinking profits, accompanied by increased competition between industries.

According to the manager, less orders also mean a reduction in upstream customer demand. In this case, the upstream customers push down on each other's prices. As the saying goes, “shopping for three” and “upstream customers will certainly not follow your previous cooperation price. In cooperation, if the price is not too low, and we don’t default on payment, we will endure to cooperate with them. In the face of price, the quality of the machine tool often determines nothing. This is our sadness, because the price is no longer determined by the quality. It's up to the market."

All along, domestically produced machine tools are mostly low-end products, while high-end products are less involved, mostly occupied by foreign products. The low value-added product is the biggest problem in the entire machine tool industry. With the continuous influx of emerging manufacturing companies, the market competition in the entire industry is further aggravated.

“Many manufacturing companies in China, due to the lack of decisive breakthroughs in technology, coupled with the rapid expansion of many companies led to excess capacity, so that the current price war on the machine tool market everywhere, the company's profits shrink dramatically. At the same time, in the recession of the market environment In the future, the rise in production and labor costs will undoubtedly worsen the machine tool industry,” Yu said.

Chen Huiren, deputy secretary-general of the China Machine Tool Industry Association, believes that the current status of China's machine tool industry companies is that the total demand has decreased substantially and the demand structure has been accelerated. Affected by this, the major economic indicators of China's machine tool industry declined, the new orders significantly decreased, the production and sales levels fell significantly, the capital occupation increased sharply, a large number of manufacturing resources idle and the contradiction between supply and demand become more prominent, becoming the industry's current operating characteristics.

Chen Huiren also believes that, at the same time, the contradiction in the industry's inherent imbalance in the production capacity structure is even more pronounced, and the already severe homogenization market competition is further aggravated.

According to the data, during the 10 years of the “10th Five-Year Plan” and “Eleventh Five-Year Plan”, China's machine tool industry achieved a sustained rapid development. Until the first half of 2011, the demand was still very strong. Most machine tools companies were in production and sales. Wang's excited state. However, since the second half of last year, the demand growth has slowed down significantly, new orders have fallen sharply, the economic situation has gradually become severe, and the profit rate has continued to decline.

Intensified competition due to shrinking market of middle and low-end CNC machine tools and excess production capacity, coupled with the influx of foreign products at low prices, market competition will further intensify. While high-end products have long been dependent on imports, domestic products are also facing the severe challenges of international competition.

The manager admitted frankly that although China's machine tool industry has maintained sustained and rapid development for many years, the phenomenon of unreasonable industrial and product structure still exists. The entire industry is large but not strong, and high-end products also rely heavily on imports.

"We couldn't do some of the previous orders. Why can't we do it? It's because our raw materials are not of good quality. What's more, our technology is not. But if we want to learn and master advanced technology, we will need time and expense." If neither of these is available, what advanced technology is it?” said Yu.

At present, although the domestic market share of domestic machine tools has been somewhat improved, but the high-end CNC machine tools, core functional components in the domestic market share is still very low, the potential for the industry to replace imports is very great.

Looking back at the market, relevant data show that China's imports of machine tools from Japan and Germany have exceeded 60% in total in the past two years. From the imported models, the demand for precision production, high-efficiency and high-speed medium-to-high-end CNC machine tools has increased significantly, and the demand structure of China's machine tools has undergone major changes.

In recent years, due to the impact of the international financial crisis, machine tools companies in Germany and Japan have recovered rapidly, and they have entered China with low-price, mid-end machine strategies. The market responded well to this, which also brought about the development of China's high-end CNC machine tool industry. Huge competitive pressures. At the same time, mid-range machine tools from the Taiwan region and South Korea are also forces that cannot be ignored. Industry giants Mazak and Demaghe used high-tech production of low-priced mid-range machine tools, especially in China.

The manager told the reporter that “In the past few years, a technician was only required to pay a salary of RMB 2,000 or higher. Now there is no person to do a job for a technician. There is no person to do it. The cost rises too fast. Let’s just do it. The foundry's enterprises are struggling. People who have strength are fighting for technology, but we are not moving to protect ourselves. What do you think about the gap?"

The manager bluntly pointed out that most of the medium and high-grade metal processing machine tools currently produced in China are still equipped with imported functional components, reflecting that China's independent innovation capability is not strong, and key and common technologies of the foundation are not yet fully understood. The development of functional components still lags behind the development of the host computer. Reality.

Accelerating the transformation and upgrading is imminent. “The low added value of products is the biggest problem in the entire machine tool industry.” Yu said.

At present, China's machine tool industry as a whole is still at the middle and low end of the industrial chain. The past high-speed growth has relied more on the strong pull of domestic market demand and labor cost advantages. Today, the traditional development model is rapidly losing its foothold, and the machine tool industry has to make "upgrade" decisions.

Low-quality, low-efficiency, and low-end are the current status of China's machine tool industry. The purpose of transformation and upgrading is to become high-quality, high-efficiency, and high-end.

Wang Liming stated that in the face of the new market situation, the machine tool industry must actively accelerate the adjustment of the industrial structure and take the initiative to eliminate low-value-added backward products. Enterprises should also insist on improving the market competitiveness of medium and high-end products as one of the core goals of transformation and upgrading, and accelerate breakthroughs. The core technology enables the product's accuracy to be truly recognized by users in terms of maintainability, stability, and reliability. In particular, by accelerating the industrialization and commercialization of technical innovation results, it is completely resolved that domestic high-end machine tools are similar to imported machine tools. Not like the problem, to promote the industry into a sustained, rational and stable growth phase.

After this "winter" period, some low-value-added, high-pollution, high-energy-consuming enterprises will be eliminated from the market for a new round of economic growth, and will put forward higher levels of product structure, enterprise automation and development levels for machine tool companies. Claim. “The market requires products that are more professional, more elaborate, and more special, and only companies that take the “professional, refined, and special” path can survive.” Yu said.

According to an industry source, the overall machine tool industry is still at the middle and low end of the international division of labor and the industrial chain. The past high-speed growth has relied more on the strong pull of domestic market demand, and the development energy released by the transformation of enterprise institutional mechanisms. The relative strengths and strong support of national industrial policies. The slowdown in economic growth at the current stage is not a simple cyclical downturn. It has a complex background. To a greater degree, the country is still at the expense of a lower growth rate in exchange for an economically active choice to achieve transformation and upgrading.

"For machine tool companies, if they have capabilities, they will strengthen technology research and development, and seize the market with new products. If they cannot be transformed and upgraded with innovation in a short period of time, they will increase the cost-effectiveness of their products, improve their precision and reliability, and improve their appearance and internal components. Changes in the aspects will enable companies to get hot in the face of the off-season.” The above experts said.

According to the manager, "Darwin's evolutionary theory has been best demonstrated in the current machine tool situation: the survival of the fittest and the elimination of the unfit. Smart companies understand that 'the off-season market will be sold during peak season'; the stupid company will only ' Sales will be done in the off-season, and the market will be the peak season."

On January 28th, CIC Advisors pointed out in the “Investment Intelligence Analysis and Evaluation of High-end Equipment Manufacturing Industry” that the current status of machine tool manufacturing is the epitome of the entire machinery manufacturing industry. It can be expected that China’s machinery manufacturing industry will enter an important transformation. period. High quality, high efficiency and high end are the direction of transformation. Among them, the manufacture of high-end CNC machine tools is the basis for the development of high-end equipment such as marine and aerospace, and increasing investment in its capital and manpower is an important part of the entire machine tool manufacturing industry.