Machine tools industry needs change thinking

A series of new changes and new difficulties, such as a shrinking market size, a rapid escalation of demand structure, overcapacity, and rising costs, have caused the machine tool industry, which has been entering a downward path since 2012, to fail to emerge from the downturn. On February 23, 2014, the China Machine Tool Industry Association hosted the 2014 International Forum of Machine Tool Manufacturing Industry CEOs. Dozens of industry leaders from home and abroad gathered to discuss how to welcome new developments in the new environment. future.

“The machine tool industry is facing a severe situation, and the development environment is undergoing significant changes in many aspects.” Chen Huiren, executive vice chairman of the China Machine Tool Industry Association, pointed out that on the one hand, the total market demand has decreased significantly, the industry’s decade of hot-spot growth has ended, and the market has become increasingly In reason, the demand for machine tool tools has rapidly increased. The demand for high-precision, high-speed, high-efficiency, and intelligent medium-to-high-end CNC machine tools has increased significantly. Compared with the past, “demands are even higher and more demanding.”

According to data from the China Machine Tool Industry Association, cumulative imports of machine tool products fell 19.3% year-on-year in the first three quarters of last year, of which metalworking machine tool imports fell by 24.0% year-on-year, and gold-cutting machine tool imports fell 25.7% year-on-year. This is in addition to 2009, which was affected by the global financial crisis. In the past 10 years, the value of imports of machine tools has dropped sharply in double digits.

A large number of domestic companies are not prepared to respond to these changes. Taking the Jinqi machine tool industry as an example, the statistical data of the key enterprises of the China Machine Tool Industry Association show that from January to November last year, the industry’s sales revenue dropped by 7%, the total profit decreased by 82.1%, and the sales profit rate was only 0.65% indicates that the business conditions of the company have deteriorated and the profitability has been greatly reduced. Some companies have been in a state of loss.

“The transformation and upgrading have talked for many years and achieved remarkable results, but we have not yet achieved a fundamental breakthrough.” Chen Huiren said that some companies are still accustomed to the past administrative means to promote the transformation and development, but the current situation has changed, the future industry transformation will rely more on Market forces are pushing hard.

It should also be noted that some industry benchmarking companies have achieved initial results in the transformation and upgrading of the new situation through their solid efforts in innovation and services. Following the order of 5 large-scale stamping production lines for two Ford vehicles in the United States in 2011, the 6th large-scale stamping line project again won by Jinan No. 2 Machine Tool Co., Ltd. shows that the international competitiveness of some machine tool companies in China is also rising.

“The development in the new situation requires new ideas.” Long Xinyuan, chairman of Qinchuan Group, combined with the development experience of Qinchuan, said that it is necessary for the industry companies to analyze the cost structure clearly. At the same time, the business structure must correspond well with the cost structure. In addition, the business structure It is necessary to correspond well with the market structure, especially the international market. On the one hand, it sticks to its own superior products. On the other hand, it integrates its own characteristics into the market segmentation areas where competition is not particularly fierce.

Participants also expressed concern about the current excess production capacity of the industry and the resulting vicious competition. According to statistics, in the last round of economic stimulus, the number of companies in the machine tool industry expanded rapidly. In 2011, the number of metal-cutting machine tool companies was 1,070 and the output was about 400,000 units. By 2013, it had reached 1,264, an increase of 18.1%. The output can reach 850,000 units, an increase of 112.4% over 2011.

"The production capacity is really too big to see hope." Long Xinyuan quoted the history of the machine tool industry in the United States, saying that there are more than 500 companies in the heyday of the U.S. machine tool industry, and today there are only about dozens of them and they are really large-scale. No more than 10 homes. He reminded companies in the industry to face up to the status quo in the industry and to make early plans for their transformation in light of their actual situation.

According to industry analysts, the mid-end machine tool market has become a hot spot for competition due to further blurring of domestic and foreign market borders and technological advancement of domestic machine tools. At the same time, the high growth of high-end machine tool imports has not changed due to the domestic high-end demand. The development of line equipment, smart manufacturing islands, digital workshops, manufacturing services, etc. has not yet become a scale advantage, which will also be the goal of the Chinese machine tool industry in face of new changes and build a new future.