Exploring the "big but not strong" dilemma of the mechanical parts industry

In the first year of the Twelfth Five-Year Plan, mechanical parts and components became the focus of the industry. The "Twelfth Five-Year Development Plan for China Construction Machinery Industry" formally released on July 31st proposed to adjust the development focus of the construction machinery industry, and put policy, capital, management, and human resources on basic components and basic manufacturing. The "three bases" of technology and professional basic materials are tilted to cultivate a batch of specialized, refined and special industrial bases. In late August, the first domestic fair, with the theme of supporting parts for construction machinery, was held in Changsha.

All indications indicate that more and more people are beginning to attach importance to the development of the machinery industry component industry. In recent years, there has been a consensus that "China is a manufacturing country, not a strong country." The key component parts are heavily dependent on imports. This is a very important reason. The question is, what is the gap between China's machinery industry's spare parts industry and the international community? How can we shorten this gap in the next five years? The Ministry of Industry and Information Technology has issued the "12th Five-year Plan" for the development of the mechanical parts and components industry. "("planning"). In reviewing the issues concerning the development of the parts and components industry of the machinery industry during the “11th Five-Year Plan” period, the plan mentioned such a phrase “the industry is large but not strong, and the structural contradictions are prominent”.

The structural contradiction is that the industrial structure is irrational. Liu Yuanjie, Honorary Chairman of China National Machinery General Parts Industry Association, said when talking about the development of the mechanical parts and components industry, “The production capacity of middle and low grades is too high, the capacity of high-end products is insufficient, and the proportion of high-end products is about 10%. The industrial concentration is low, CR10 is about 30. The products have a short life span, and production efficiency, energy consumption, material consumption, emissions, and environmental protection are all very different from similar foreign products."

In 2010, the machinery parts and components industry imported 13.5 billion U.S. dollars, exported 7 billion U.S. dollars, and suffered a trade deficit of 6.5 billion U.S. dollars. The core technologies such as automotive automatic transmissions and high-speed train transmissions were heavily imported. In 2010, gear imports were 10.4 billion U.S. dollars, a deficit of 8 billion U.S. dollars. In terms of fasteners, China is a big exporter, but the spread between imports and exports is as high as 6-8 times.

Because of this, "high-end innovation" has been used as a key project to spend a lot of money in planning. The plan points out that there are still 10 to 15 years gaps in the manufacturing technology of high-end parts and components of China's machinery industry compared to the advanced level in foreign countries. The “Twelfth Five-Year Plan” is a critical period for the development of high-end parts and components. We must aim at the world’s advanced technology and strive to achieve high-end development. And put forward six key innovation and development tasks, one to start a specific description.



Recently, Ming Cuixin, Secretary-General of the China Machinery General Parts Industry Association’s gear branch and researcher of the Machinery Research Institute, recently spoke with the “Mechatronics” reporter about the development of the Chinese machinery industry’s parts and components industry: “It is undeniable that domestic components The fact that the industry is big but not strong can be said to be to a certain extent caused by the consumption mechanism and consumer psychology of Chinese society; but fundamentally speaking, it is because domestic parts and components are inferior in overall quality."

With regard to the consumption mechanism and consumer psychology of Chinese society, there is almost a consensus in the industry. To put it simply, when people buy machinery products, the more they end up, the more they believe in imported goods, while buying imported goods means less risk of liability. Ming Cuixin said: "People often say that the quality of domestically produced parts is poor, but in fact there is no bad enough for them. There are also many domestic brands with excellent quality; but when they actually buy, some people will not Think about domestic brands."

However, how the consumer market responds is not the key to the problem. Ming Cuixin said: "In the end, it is still a matter of quality. If your product quality is really strong, the market's doors will certainly be open for you." She gave an example. The universal parts produced by China's Erzhong Group are The gap between quality and international brands is not big, but where it is involved in bidding projects, international brand competitors generally have to reduce the price.

Over the years, the development trend of the “reformer and light components” of the Chinese machinery industry has caused the general parts and components enterprises to “become insufficient in advance and weak in later development”. Liu Zhongming, director of the R&D Center of Zhengzhou Machinery Research Institute, said in an interview with this reporter that domestic parts and components have a large gap with international brands in terms of product quality and consistency in production. It is not saying at which point is it really worse, but In many respects, it's a little bit worse, and generally speaking, it's a lot worse. “Currently, the atmosphere of the entire Chinese society is rather impetuous. People always pay attention to 'almost'. This is similar, there is almost the same, and in the end it is much worse. The quality of domestic parts does not go up because of all aspects, even if it is completely imported. The production line and raw materials are also difficult to guarantee quality." He said: "This requires a long process. It won't change in one hour or another."



Although facing a series of problems, China's mechanical parts and components industry should still see more hope. Liu Yuanjie used the words “new starting point and new goal” to describe the situation of mechanical parts and components. Ming Tsui new also said: "We can not exactly say that China's machinery parts and components industry will reach a certain level in the next five years; However, we must have confidence, because more and more leaders, experts are concerned With regard to the development of the parts and components industry, various supportive policies are being launched."

The role of policy in China's economic development is beyond any doubt. History has proved many times. Today, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology has formulated a series of plans, programs and measures to achieve the high-end development of key components and adopted a number of measures. Among them, Ming Tsui's new focus on the benefits of using the role of industrial clusters to explain to reporters. For example, she said that the thermal processing technology and heat treatment technology occupy a very important position in the manufacture of general machinery parts, but the domestic in these aspects are relatively weak, and the equipment required is also more expensive, companies rely on their own strength to do this The work will actually result in a lot of repetitive input, and the effect will not necessarily be good; if one or two companies specialize in this area in one area, overall, it can save a lot of equipment, manpower, and management. Investment, at the same time, also facilitates enterprises to do specialization and refinement in this area. After the scale is formed, it will also reduce costs and enhance the market competitiveness of similar products in the entire region.

In the next five years, opportunities will be greater than challenges for the mechanical parts and components industry.