From "Follow Up" To "Local Leader": Innovation And Self Breakthrough Of CNC Industry In China

"When it comes to industry, the most fundamental is manufacturing. Machine tool is the mother machine for manufacturing other machines, and CNC machine tool is the core equipment of manufacturing equipment and the foundation of all walks of life Recently, in an exclusive interview with the 21st century economic reporter, Chen Jihong, chairman of Huazhong CNC (300161, SZ), repeatedly mentioned that "from the automobile industry, electric power industry, aerospace, electronic information and other industries, to the mobile phones sold in shopping malls, the manufacturing process needs digital control machine tools."

China's machine tool industry is in the peak period of stock replacement and industrial structure adjustment and upgrading. With the rise of domestic manufacturers, the new cycle of numerical control industry with "innovation" as the main melody is slowly starting.

2021 is the first year of the 14th five year plan, and also the first year for innovation driven development to shape new advantages. With the support of national policies and the continuous pursuit of innovation by domestic enterprises, China's CNC machine tool industry has developed rapidly, the scale of the industry is expanding, and its position in the international market is also gradually improving. Taking metal cutting machine tools as an example, according to the database of China Academy of Commerce and industry, the national output of metal cutting machine tools will be 49000 in December 2020, with a year-on-year increase of 32.4%.

It is understood that the market competition in China's machine tool industry is very fierce. The market magnitude is about 500 billion yuan, among which, the sales volume of CNC system is about 400000 sets. In terms of market structure, medium and high-end CNC system products account for more than 50% of the market share and the largest profit margin, while foreign-funded enterprises such as farak, Mitsubishi, Siemens and Taiwan Xindai company occupy almost half of the market share of the mid end CNC system, and the competitiveness of Chinese mainland enterprises is not outstanding.

In Chen Jihong's opinion, if we want to break through the situation that foreign giants are "stuck in the neck" on core technology, realize 0-1 technological breakthrough, 1-10 technical iteration, 10-100 market development and profit feedback, which are "the key points we need to make breakthroughs with our ingenuity in the future".

At the same time, Chen Jihong is full of confidence in the future of China's CNC industry: "in order to realize the grand mission of innovation in a big country, Huazhong CNC will further improve the product technology maturity, accelerate the transformation of innovation achievements, and look for different markets for product positioning and segmentation. Relying on the theoretical and technical background of Huazhong University of science and technology, we strive to deepen the Trinity layout of production, teaching and research, make the key technologies such as chips, operating systems and core algorithms realize independent control, and explore a characteristic road for the development of China's CNC system industry

Technical constraints

In fact, China's machine tool industry started relatively late. At the beginning of the founding of the people's Republic of China, a hundred wastes were waiting to be prospered. During the "first five year plan" period, the foundation of China's modern machine tool industry was shaped by the aid of the Soviet Union.

After the reform and opening up, the machine tool industry has gradually realized the market-oriented operation, but it is still dominated by state-owned assets, and the output of metal cutting machine tools once stagnated around 200000 sets.

After 2000, with the development of China's economy, the machine tool industry has entered a stage of rapid growth. According to the research data of GF Securities, after China's accession to the WTO in 2001, the annual economic growth rate remained at 7% - 8%, and the market demand grew rapidly. In 2000, the output of metal cutting machine tools was about 180000, and it has reached 860000 by 2011. The output has increased nearly four times in 11 years, with an average annual compound growth rate of 15.5%. China's machine tool consumption and total output ranked first in the world in 2002 and 2009 respectively, and has always been the first in the world in terms of machine tool production and consumption.

But at the same time, the rapid development also makes the dilemma of key technology "neck sticking" increasingly prominent. For a long time, China's machine tool industry has been "big but not strong", the production system is mainly medium and low-grade machine tools, high-end CNC systems are basically dependent on imports, and the high-end field lacks core competitiveness.

Chen Jihong pointed out that China's manufacturing industry has developed rapidly in recent years, and has made the world's first achievements. However, due to the Western emphasis on the pre division of labor in the industrial chain, China has bypassed many "hilltops" mainly based on basic technology. These "hilltops" have now become bottlenecks hindering the progress of China's manufacturing industry“ Technical iteration is a hard bone, there is no shortcut. For example, industrial software MATLAB, simulation data modeling CAD, CAE, industrial hardware such as CNC system, PLC, sensor and other cutting-edge technologies are subject to western countries. The main reason for the current technical dilemma is that capital is chasing profits and the domestic environment in the past has not invested enough in basic R & D

Break through the encirclement

In the face of development opportunities, capital swarmed into the industry track with high profits and fast feedback. China's online games, e-commerce and other emerging industries and mobile phones, home appliances and other application-oriented products do not fall behind the international, and even in some areas walk in the forefront of the international.

However, no enterprise is willing to do basic R & D in many professional fields. The slow positive feedback and low capital return efficiency make basic R & D a tough nut to crack.

"There is no shortcut to break through the technical difficulties. After taking the shortcut, it is bound to be controlled by others. Technological breakthroughs from 0 to 1 are not achieved overnight. " In recent years, after China's machine tool has become a force that can not be ignored in the world, Chen Jihong increasingly believes that only by doing research and development, product conversion and market development can we achieve sustainable development.

After 2011, affected by the global financial crisis, the global layout of manufacturing industry has undergone a major adjustment, high-end manufacturing industry has returned to Europe and the United States, and the low-end manufacturing industry has shifted to Southeast Asia and Asia and Africa. The domestic machine tool industry, which mainly produces medium and low-grade machine tools, has been greatly impacted, and the industry has declined as a whole.

In the new cycle, in order to break through the foreign neck blockade, since 2012, with the support of major national science and technology projects, Huazhong CNC has been benchmarking the latest generation of advanced five axis CNC system abroad. Through 10 years of tackling key problems, it has gradually narrowed the gap with the international top level and achieved a technical breakthrough from 0 to 1.

Chen Jihong said: "foreign countries to 5-axis linkage, or 1 micron high-precision as the export limit of the red line. Once exported, it has to be approved by foreign governments. Through ten years of hard work, Huazhong CNC has now conquered the key technologies of 5-axis linkage control, high-precision control within 1 micron, synchronous drive, multi-channel and composite processing control, and successfully developed Huazhong 8-type high-end CNC system with independent intellectual property rights. It has reached the international advanced level in terms of function, performance and reliability, and won the second prize of national science and technology progress award. Moreover, Huazhong CNC deeply integrates numerical control technology and artificial intelligence technology, and has creatively developed such key technologies as perception analysis based on "command domain" electronic control data, theoretical and big data fusion modeling, intelligent optimization of "I code" and "dual code joint control", etc. for the first time in history, it has embedded AI chip into CNC system, and developed Huazhong 9 new generation intelligent CNC system. Also developed a number of intelligent application modules such as process optimization, health protection, etc., so that these unique original technologies can achieve local leadership. In terms of market distribution, Huazhong CNC has a place in the economic CNC system market. In the future, we will make efforts in the medium and high-end markets by adjusting the layout, and strive to achieve breakthroughs from 1 to 10 and 10 to 100 in five years. "

At the same time, in the process of marketization, with the overcapacity in the low-end market and the overall decline of the machine tool industry, some state-owned enterprises restructure and withdraw from competition, and excellent private machine tool enterprises gradually stand out“ At present, there are many private enterprises in China who struggle with passion and sense of responsibility in the industry. They have mastered many core technologies of machine tools. The spirit of "making machine tools with ingenuity" has become the fundamental driving force for the high-quality development of the industry, and also gives us great encouragement and confidence. " Chen Jihong said.

The "14th five year plan" clearly points out that China's future economic structure will be more optimized, the innovation ability will be significantly improved, and the R & D investment of the whole society will increase by more than 7% annually. In the process of China's economic transformation from high-speed growth to high-quality development, the "14th Five-Year Plan" proposed that "the proportion of basic research funds in R & D funds should be increased to more than 8% and" the establishment and improvement of evaluation system and incentive mechanism in accordance with scientific laws "provided a solid material foundation for basic research and created a good scientific research ecological environment.

This also means that with the help of funds and systems, the difficulties of enterprises in basic research will be solved. At present, China's CNC system industry has also begun to follow the iterative upgrade, and even started to lead the local market segments.

save against a rainy day

Talking about the wind and rain of the past decade, Chen Jihong believes that it is not easy for central China CNC to develop and grow in the industry competition“ Numerical control system is the national strategic core technology, but also the market full competition technology. We are faced with the top foreign giants. When we do not break through, foreign blockade restrictions or high price monopoly; We have made a breakthrough, foreign countries immediately cut prices. This makes a lot of numerical control system enterprises once in a dilemma

"Compared with other CNC system enterprises in China, the biggest advantage of Huazhong CNC is the deep integration strategy of industry, learning and research of Huazhong University of science and technology, which is not available in other domestic CNC system enterprises. In the national numerical control system engineering technology research center of Huazhong University of science and technology, a research and development team composed of more than 10 teachers, more than 60 full-time researchers and more than 170 graduate students continuously provides a large number of core unit technologies for central China CNC, and completes 0-1 prototype test research. Huazhong CNC focuses on the engineering and product stages from 1 to 10 and the marketization and industrialization stage of 10-100, forming a very close cooperation mode of deep integration of industry, University and research. " Chen Jihong said.

After the R & D investment of basic technology has gradually kept up with that, China, as a major machine tool manufacturing country in the world, has made great progress in the performance, function and integrated application of CNC system. Among them, the self-sufficient low-grade CNC system has almost completely replaced the import, and the medium-sized CNC system has achieved remarkable results in serialization, commercialization and industrialization. The high-grade CNC system of Huazhong CNC has been applied and verified on more than 1500 five axis machining centers, turn milling compound machine tools and six axis CNC Abrasive belt grinder, and has been applied in key enterprises such as AVIC, aerospace science and technology, aerospace science and technology, which provides guarantee for the national defense industry to realize independent control of key equipment. In recent years, about 80000 sets of CNC systems have been applied in more than 2000 enterprises in machine tools, aerospace, weapons, nuclear industry, shipbuilding, power generation, automobile, 3C manufacturing and other fields.

According to the financial data of 2020 annual report released by Huazhong CNC, the company realized 1.32 billion yuan of operating revenue during the reporting period, an increase of 45.95% compared with that in 2019; The net profit was 27.7746 million yuan, an increase of 81.19% compared with that in 2019. In many fields such as general machine tool market, 3C processing equipment field and emerging 5g processing field, Huazhong 8, the core product of Huazhong CNC, takes the key technologies such as high-speed and high-precision, five axis linkage, multi-channel control and linear motor as the core, further expanding the market share. Data shows that during the reporting period, the company's revenue in the field of CNC system and machine tools (including CNC system, motor and CNC machine tool business) reached 620 million yuan, an increase of 51.87% over the same period of last year.

"In the face of the current domestic and foreign dual cycle strategy, our goal is not only the domestic market, but also hope that our products can go out of China. In this regard, Huazhong CNC has set up an international business division in recent two years. Its product positioning is characterized by high cost performance and has certain competitiveness in the international market. In the future, we will continue to strengthen cooperation and exploration with the international market. " Chen Jihong said.

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