“Conservatively, there are seven or eight interested companies coming to consult the robot business one day.†On June 5, at the Machinery Alliance Exhibition in Dongguan, Guangzhou CNC Equipment Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as “Guangzhou CNCâ€) sold in South China. Manager Hu Haifeng found that compared with previous years, the number of companies that want to buy industrial robots has suddenly increased, most of them from small and medium-sized enterprises in Dongguan, Zhongshan, Huizhou and other places. "The sales in the first quarter of this year doubled compared with the same period last year."
Lin Haolong, the planning director of Foshan Lixunda Robot System Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as “Li Xundaâ€), has the same feelings. “In the past, our customer base was mainly large enterprises. Now many SMEs in Foshan have come to ask. The introduction of one or two tests last year has worked well. I want to upgrade the entire line or even the entire plant this year."
Local robotics companies like Guangzhou CNC and Lixunda are welcoming unprecedented opportunities for development. With the introduction of "Made in China 2025", from the Guangdong provincial level to Guangzhou, Shenzhen, Foshan, Dongguan and other cities, all of them have launched corresponding new developments in the robot industry based on their respective industrial plans.
In fact, the potential huge market demand behind the traditional manufacturing industry in the Pearl River Delta has long been a long-standing “big cake†for foreign robotics companies: Swiss ABB, known as the “four major families†of international industrial robotics companies, Yaskawa, Japan, Germany Both KUKA and FANUC have entered Guangdong in a sole proprietorship or joint venture.
Domestic robots and international industrial robots compete on the same stage. What is the state of market survival? To this end, the Yangcheng Evening News reporter conducted an in-depth investigation.
Preempted market
In 2014, the Chinese market sold a total of 56,000 industrial robots, but the sales of local suppliers in China were only 16,000 units, accounting for less than 30%, and mainly concentrated in low-end and mid-range robots.
"We bought domestically produced equipment, mainly because of the cost reduction considerations." Zhang Yinghong of Shenzhen Xiangshunxin Hardware & Plastic Products Co., Ltd. said. The 90-year-old boss spent more than 1.6 million yuan in January this year to buy 10 domestically-made automation equipment for his own factory, becoming one of the first “machine-changing†SMEs in the Shenzhen die-casting industry.
In the early years, a set of automation equipment was sold for three or four hundred thousand yuan. Now, the same product with a higher price is only ten thousand yuan, and the cost of the machine has dropped by more than half. Zhang Yinghong said that 10 machines saved the company nearly one-third of the manpower. "The productivity and yield of robots are beyond the imagination. In two months we have flattened the investment in buying machines."
China has already become the world's largest consumer market for industrial robots. According to the latest statistics from the International Federation of Robotics (IFR), 56,000 industrial robots were sold in the Chinese market in 2014, of which only 16,000 domestic suppliers were sold. Less than 30%, and mainly concentrated in low-end robots.
"Compared with the accumulation of foreign robot industry for decades, domestic robots have not yet established a firm foothold." Li Boji, a senior engineer at Guangzhou CNC, said that in 2013, foreign robots sold more than 27,000 units in the Chinese market, while domestically produced six The shaft joint robot sold only 2,100 units. "Domestic robots and foreign robots are still not competitive at all, and they are all foreigners."
With the continuous reduction of imported equipment, there is no obvious price advantage for purchasing domestically produced equipment, and the stability and reliability of imported equipment. In the current Chinese industrial robot market, mainly Japanese and European robot companies are playing a leading role. Recently, Dongguan built the first “unmanned factory†project, and its software system came from the Japanese robot giant hair company.
At the same time, the "four major families" of international robots have an absolute advantage in high-end fields such as robot manufacturing and welding. For example, in the most mature automotive industry, the production workshops of most domestic automakers have long been monopolized by the “Four Big Familyâ€. "We went to Guangzhou Honda to visit. They used foreign robots to produce a car in more than 50 seconds." Li Boji stressed, "We entered the factory in the morning and have produced more than 2,000 cars at noon." In the production with higher precision and reliability requirements, the existing technical level of domestic robots is still far from the ratio of foreign countries. "The big market such as automobile and electronics is still the world of foreign robots. It is very difficult for domestic robot companies to fight. Go in."
Hope to break through the technology
The four core technologies and high-precision production lines of industrial robots are monopolized by foreign companies, and domestic robot production is making efforts to break through the technology.
Excluding the external influence of foreign robot companies, where is the biggest constraint for the development of domestic robot companies themselves? In the interview, the heads of several core parts and ontology R&D companies pointed out to reporters that there was no breakthrough in core technology.
In Guangzhou CNC, senior engineer Li Boji calculated the account for the reporter:
Industrial robots are mainly composed of four main functional components: mechanical body and control system, servo drive, Servo Motor and reducer. The mechanical body accounts for 10% of the total cost. The controller, servo drive and servo motor account for 60%. The reducer accounts for 30%. This means that if the core components are all dependent on imports, 90% of the cost of domestic robots will be in the hands of foreign robot manufacturers.
He circled it on the paper: "The body is 10%, controllable; controller, drive, motor 60%, controllable; reducer 30%, partially controllable. That is, the current controllable cost of CNC robots in Guangzhou is More than 70%."
Under the word "reducer", Li Buki made a few lines. "If a robot costs 100,000 yuan, the speed reducer will account for 30,000 yuan. Without its own core technology, the overall price of domestic robots is hard to come down."
In fact, after years of technical research, Guangzhou CNC has independently developed a number of precision reducers of various specifications and models, and tested and applied them on industrial robots developed by itself. “But in the field of high-end robots, this is far from reaching Production requirements."
The reporter found that among the four key components of the robot, Huazhong CNC, Guangzhou CNC, Gutech, and Huichuan Technology have made breakthroughs in control systems, Servo Drives, and servo motors, and have certain independent R&D core competition. Capacity; but in the development of reducers, especially RV reducers accounting for more than 70%, the stability of domestic products is not enough.
For Guangzhou CNC, the development of the reducer is not only for cost reasons. "To truly understand the robot system, we must better understand the upstream and downstream of the robot body. We can't just stay in one body for R&D and manufacturing. Business."
On the other hand, high-precision production lines that produce core components such as reducers have long been monopolized by foreign companies. In the long run, domestic robots have the core competitiveness of independent research and development, and must have matching production capacity of parts and components to support them.
Guangzhou CNC has just won an order for a Fortune 500 foreign power tool. Li Boji believes that this means that the quality and technology of domestic robots are gaining recognition in the world. “The big orders are slowly increasing. It is now important for domestic robot companies to put quality first, quality is not good, and there is no more in quantity. significance."
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