CNC technology has gradually become the mainstream technology in the machine tool industry

The article by Deputy Minister Shen Liechu elaborated on the current dilemma of the machine tool industry and the direction of future transformation and upgrading. I agree with most of Shen's assertions, especially the analysis of weak links such as functional components and product reliability. It can be said that the main task of the transformation and upgrading of the machine tool industry is to completely solve these long-term "hard bones", such as high-end control systems and servo devices. At present, the chill of the machine tool industry is in a sense because the increasingly fierce international competition forces us to avoid the weak links of these necks. If we do not break through these bottlenecks in time, the machine tool industry has achieved in the past decade. The results may stop at the new "low-end melee, high-end failure."

So, which companies have the conditions to become the protagonist of this transformation and upgrading? Shen Lao believes that the current “big and complete” business model of mainstream machine tool enterprises in China may be problematic in terms of governance structure and governance capacity, at least in contradiction with the development path of “special, new, refined and strong” in the international machine tool industry. On this issue, the author thinks that there is no need to be pessimistic: large enterprises such as sinking machines and big machines are not only fully qualified to undertake the task of leading the transformation and upgrading of the machine tool industry, but from a certain perspective, the “big and complete” enterprises are also unable to transform. Or the main force.

This necessity is reflected in some structural changes in the world's machine tool industry in recent years: after CNC technology has gradually become the mainstream technology in the machine tool industry, large enterprises have increasingly become the focus of industry competition. This was revealed in the Japanese-American trade war 30 years ago. At that time, all walks of life in the United States realized that the single-product, under-investment of American SMEs had been pushed into the corner by Japanese industrial giants. "David can't beat Goliath." This has led to mergers and restructuring and capacity concentration as part of the US response. Thirty years later, Fanuc, one of the giants in the US market and one of the giants in the field of general-purpose CNC machine tools, has more than 5,000 employees worldwide. Germany is no exception: DMG Group mentioned in Shen Laowen, namely Demagisen Seiki is the representative of the German machine tool industry “bigger and stronger”: in 2013, Demagisen registered 6497 employees, an increase of 4% over the previous year; Trumpf's number of employees in the 2012-2013 fiscal year reached a record 9,925. The changes in German machine tool companies are not limited to the expansion of scale, but also the product line and business diversification, including the life-long manufacturing services mentioned by Shen Lao. It can be said that today's German machine tool industry is replacing the long-standing "specialization" tradition with a diversified business structure.

This kind of competitiveness and attractiveness of “big and complete” enterprises is rooted in the characteristics of CNC technology itself. The high-intensity application of information technology has made scientific knowledge increasingly important in the development of CNC machine tools, and the systematic characteristics of product development have also been continuously enhanced. At this time, although the traditional technical experience is still a necessary condition for the successful development of machine tool systems, system development requires enterprises to integrate machine tools, automatic transmission equipment and control technology, and even robots, among which technology intensity and capital intensity. Sufficient to block most of the “specialized” SMEs from acquiring core capabilities, especially in high-end markets such as flexible manufacturing systems.

This trend reinforces the advantages of large companies, especially “big and full” companies: multi-product lines offer more opportunities for system integration, and the combination of capacity advantages and multiple product lines strongly safeguards the capital necessary for system development. Invest. Especially for industries with high economic cycle sensitivity such as machine tools, the investment demand in the downturn stage is even greater than the upward stage. All these factors constitute the driving force for industrial concentration and expansion of large enterprises.

The continuous expansion of multinational corporations in developed countries has increased the difficulty of catching up with technologically advanced enterprises. In this case, “large scale and diversification are not the result of being good at technology and competitive games, but a prerequisite for entering the competition.” This means that in the process of China’s machine tool industry's full transformation and upgrading to high-end products, “large The capital advantages of all enterprises will be more obvious, and their organizational experience and technical preparation in tackling low-end products will also lay the necessary organizational foundation and knowledge base for transformation and upgrading.

Therefore, from the perspective of technology development and industry catch-up, large enterprises will play an important and decisive role in the transformation and upgrading of the machine tool industry. (One exception here is the development of the machine tool industry in Taiwan, China. From the current data, it is indeed based on small and medium-sized enterprises, but the author does not think that Taiwan is a sample of the transformation and upgrading of the mainland machine tool industry: not only the industry The difference in volume, and from the perspective of global export markets, Taiwan and mainland machine tools are in the middle and low range of the entire industry.) However, successful transformation and upgrading cannot be done by the leading enterprises alone, and the decisive significance is not from the sky. It must be supported and coordinated by certain external conditions.

- Local companies are treated equally. Everything is strong and grows from weakness, as long as the road is correct. We emphasize the key role of large enterprises in the process of transformation and upgrading of the machine tool industry, and do not deny the significance of SMEs for industrial development. This kind of significance includes not only the direct output of employment, output, taxation, but also the product categories and technological paths that SMEs reserve for the development of the whole industry. If we neglect the above-mentioned role of small and medium-sized enterprises, and take the “big and complete” as the destination to “smash” the group and even suppress the development of small and medium-sized enterprises, it is possible to repeat the mistakes of the “攒” group in the 1990s: no matter how Bundle, the seesaw can not be an aircraft carrier.

- Technology support for public R&D institutions. The technical barriers caused by the advancement of numerical control technology have made public R&D support necessary for the innovation and development of the machine tool industry. On this issue, whether it is the National Manufacturing Science Center of the United States, the Machine Tool Research Institute under the Fraunhofer Institute of Germany, or the Industrial Technology Research Institute of Taiwan. The Institute of Mechanical and Systems has performed very well. As Shen said, a firm "problem-oriented" is a necessary condition for such public R&D institutions to function. If there is no such public institution, and the public R&D funding is directly invested in the enterprise, it will inevitably encounter the problem of “difficult to spread”, causing the “public” and “private use” of R&D funds, and it is very likely The self-owned research and development funds of the subsidized enterprises have an extrusion effect. All of this is not conducive to stimulating development investment across the industry.

- Close communication between producers and users. “Put through the user's craftsmanship”, this is the fine tradition of the machine tool industry mentioned in the Shen Lao article, and also the key to the revitalization of the machine tool industry in Japan and Germany after the war. In industrial practice, this communication can form a substantial market protection barrier and become a defense tool to block foreign companies. However, in the process of marketization, domestic machine tool enterprises are generally in a state of decentralized competition, and user companies are either competitive enterprises that can freely choose foreign products, or major national engineering owners who occupy monopoly status, which is not conducive to machine tool enterprises and users. The establishment of a long-term cooperation mechanism for joint learning and equal dialogue has invisibly made product development a "one-man show" for machine tool companies, and thus exposed the defects of insufficient reliability.

The above supplementary conditions are inevitably linked to a leak. However, it is obvious that external conditions in these aspects cannot be achieved by relying on complete market mechanisms, and there must be a top-level design and institutional arrangement of the government. Perhaps, in the process of transformation and upgrading of the machine tool industry, effective government policies are more important than the big companies themselves: after all, from the perspective of technology accumulation, financial strength and brand value, Chinese large enterprises are far less inferior to international counterparts such as Fanuc and DMG; In this case, if there is no strong policy guidance and external support, David can't beat Goliath.