Machines can be seen everywhere in mechanized modern society. There is a "mother" who "made machines" among the machines, that is, "machine tools". Machine tools play an important role in the national "modernization" evaluation. At present, my country is already the largest produ

Machineered modern society can be seen everywhere. There is a "mother" who "made machines" in the machine, that is, "machine tools".

machine tools play an important role in the evaluation of national "modernization". At present, my country is already the largest producer and consumer of machine tools. However, our country's machine tool production still has a great dependence on a country--that is Japan.

Some people even say that China's machinery industry is about to achieve nothing without Japanese machine tools. Is this true?

What is the development level of my country's machine tools?

machine tool is also called a working master or a tool machine. It is like a high-end machining machine. All parts with high precision and rough surfaces need to be processed by a machine tool. The hair of ordinary people is usually 60 microns, while the process of an ultra-high precision machine tool can reach 0.01 microns.

Fine parts are also commonly used at present, such as automobiles, national defense, aviation, aerospace, etc., which require fine parts. Moreover, mechanical products are composed of hundreds of components. If there is a problem with the key process of one of the key components, the entire machine may be greatly affected, and even the tragedy of the destruction of the aircraft will occur.

Therefore, machine tools are also called the cradle of "modern mechanization" manufacturing. The level of "mechanization" in a country is also closely related to the development of machine tools, and plays a significant role in the construction of national economic modernization.

Since machine tools are so important, what is the level of machine tools in our country?

The first batch of machine tools in my country was still in 1863. Yung Wing was appointed by Zeng Guofan to purchase the first batch of machine tools from the United States. Subsequently, the General Administration of Jiangnan Machinery Manufacturing made a batch of machine tools, 6 years behind the United States and 2 years behind Germany, Japan and the Soviet Union. Overall, my country's machine tool industry started relatively late.

But in fact, the level of machine tools in my country is not bad. Those who are engaged in the machine tool industry in China should have heard of the famous "Eighteen Arhats".

The so-called "Eighteen Arhats" refer to the eighteen basic enterprises established in the early days of the founding of the People's Republic of my country. These eighteen machine tool enterprises have made great contributions to the development of my country's machine tool industry. After the reform and opening up, state-owned enterprises experienced a period of transformation and reform, and the Eighteen Arhats became the pillar of the country.

The "shortcoming" of my country's machine tools

But the reality is cruel. In this rapidly iterative and updated machinery industry, once the pace stops, it will be crushed by the wheels of the world. To this day, the merger of most of the "Eighteen Arhats" and the bankruptcy of bankruptcy have long since disappeared from the glory of the past.

Although my country has developed rapidly from nothing to something, from something to essence, and has become the largest country in manufacturing and consumption of "machine tool", , my country's machine tool manufacturing industry still has great "shortcoming" .

In Tsinghua University, deputy dean of the Mechanical Industry Research Office, Shen Liechu , published an article in which mentioned the "shortcomings" in China's machine tool manufacturing industry. The article points out that the "shortcomings" in my country's equipment manufacturing industry are fully exposed and prominently reflected as the carriers of core technologies. "three basics (core)" means basic (core) components, basic (core) processes, and basic (core) materials. The dependence of the three-core is mainly reflected in the dependence of precision parts on Japan.

According to the not long ago " Nihon Keizai Shimbun " report, among the 1631 parts of Huawei mobile phone , there are as many as 869 parts from Japan. 018, Huawei imported parts from Japan worth 46 billion yuan, accounting for 5% of China-Japan trade volume . For example, in Japan's industrial products exports, the proportion of durable consumer goods is less than 20%, and the main exports have become the "world supply base" of high-tech and high-value-added machinery and equipment, components, raw materials and intermediate products.

Why is Japan able to occupy such a favorable position in the US-Japan trade war so fierce?

In fact, although the US-Japan trade war has stagnated Japan's economic development for 20 years, during these 20 years, Japan's manufacturing industry has transformed into high-tech, high-end products and high-end components. Therefore, Japan currently has a certain advantage in precision and high-end parts worldwide.

Although the technology we use is becoming more and more advanced and the product is being updated faster and faster, its internal components and components such as high-precision bearings, high-end high-pressure hydraulic parts, electronic components , etc. are unchanged or change very slowly.

. It happened to be the era when Japan's manufacturing monopoly on precision parts in 20 years, countries around the world, including China, all rely heavily on these precision originals.

In the article, the author also inspected the five-coordinate linkage honing machine tools developed by a machine tool factory in Nanjing. It has a high level, but important equipment such as CNC system , functional components (such as ball screw , rolling guide ), honing wheels (imported from Switzerland ), hydraulic and pneumatic components, bearings, etc. all need to be imported from abroad, and the cost of accounts for more than 60%. is still inseparable from the high import costs in China's manufacturing industry.

Reasons for China's machine tools' shortcomings

When China was busy doing more, the world's advanced machine tools had evolved to achieve success. While China's CNC machine tool technology is still in the five-axis stage, foreign countries have entered the nine-axis five-linkage linkage. Unfortunately, Western countries have begun to embargo on China on advanced machine tool technology with a five-axis or above.

What does this mean? Although my country is the largest producer of "machine tools" and the largest consumer of "machine tools", in terms of my country's relatively low manufacturing costs and huge import costs, the production of "machine tools" is actually transfusion of blood to foreign countries. Therefore, in this seemingly prosperous situation, there is still a great crisis.

So under the hovering of "technology" and "market", many Chinese manufacturers choose to cooperate with foreign capital because they believe that the research of new technologies is "large investment, long cycle and high risk", so low-end products have formed intra-volume , and the production capacity cannot be released.

Due to the high-cost import of key parts, many manufacturers have directly collapsed, such as the acquisition of Shenyang machine tool of Germany's Sis Bio, the acquisition of Ingersoll of the United States, the acquisition of Dalian machine tool , and merchants have gradually realized the importance of having their own technology.

How can China make up for its "shortcomings"?

Therefore, the current "machine tool" production reform in my country is imperative. So how should we face "shortcomings"? In fact, a recent article from " Smart Manufacturing " gave us some reference opinions.

In this article, Shen Liechu, deputy director of the Mechanical Industry Research Office of Tsinghua University, pointed out that in response to this phenomenon, China's policy encourages "to become bigger and stronger" and advocates the so-called "diversification" . What does this mean? That is, while we encourage enterprises to become bigger and stronger, we should make the company's products "commercialized" to the greatest extent and create more economic benefits. That is to say, when we pursue "high-end" , we also need to turn this value into commercial capital to the greatest extent. The article also pointed out that for the cultivation of "technical" talents, we can refer to Germany in this regard. Under the current education of China, there is no shortage of high-education talents and truly skilled talents. Simply put, my country should pay more attention to the cultivation of talent "innovation ability" , and cultivate a group of people who can contribute to the development of science and technology, rather than people who completely "sweep their education". After all, a strong youth is strong and a strong country is strong.

So what is the so-called innovation? "Innovation" is not only about developing a machine, but also about turning this machine into a commodity , creating economic value for society and the development of the country, so that this manufacturing can become "effective manufacturing".

Nowadays, there are countless patents for high-end talents. As a bargaining chip for promotion and bonus points, there is no real "patent" development, which also leads to the waste of many "resources".

Current achievements of China's machine tools

So has China not achieved any achievements in the market and technology swing? Of course not. In the swing between the market and technology, China is also actively looking for its own balance point.

After 65, the country has organized several five-year planning research and development. CNC technology has basically completed the upgrade from ordinary machine tools to CNC machine tools around 2013. Although it was 30 years later than the West, this has not stopped Chinese companies from two-way exploration in the technology and market fields. Restructuring and integration has made huge breakthroughs, and the high-end has been underway.

Now, after continuous efforts, the Chinese scientific research team has finally overcome new technologies and manufactured domestic seven-axis five-linked machine tools, breaking through Japan's blockade. According to Chinese experts, China's independently developed machine tools can process giant parts with a diameter of 10 meters, and at the same time control the machining accuracy and surface accuracy to within 0.01 mm. This advanced machine tool can greatly improve China's strength in many aspects.

Now that China's independently developed and produced seven-axis five-link machine tool has been successfully launched, it means that China has finally broken Japan's monopoly. Although Japan feels full of threats, it is helpless.

According to statistics from the National Bureau of Statistics, China's cumulative production of metal cutting machine tools in 2021 reached 602,000 units, a cumulative increase of 29.2%. As of January to February 2022, the cumulative production of China's metal cutting machine tools reached 89,000 units, a cumulative increase of 7.2%.

So while maintaining the dividends of "machine tool production and consumption", our country is also constantly independently developing machine tools that truly belong to us. The market statistics also allow us to clearly understand our advantages and constantly use our advantages to make up for our shortcomings.

Although China's machine tool industry started late, it has developed rapidly, which is closely related to my country's always maintaining an objective judgment of its own situation and always maintaining its determination not to fear difficulties and forge ahead. Therefore, we have our own world in the "machine tool" industry. Japan once claimed to the outside world that as long as Japan blocks large machine tools, China will not be able to build aircraft carriers at all. And now these words can only be a gimmick.

China's machine tool industry has become more and more mature, and the wrong thinking of "in-rolling" and "buy in" low-end products has also been well corrected, and the curse of China's "machine tool" industry has gradually faded.

References:

[1] Shen Liechu. What is the "shortcoming" of China's equipment manufacturing industry? [J]. Smart China, 2020(01):24-28.