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The future trends of machining

May 26,2020


  In the face of increasingly fierce international market competition, China's machinery manufacturing industry is facing severe challenges. We have fallen behind technologically, and coupled with insufficient funding, resource shortages, and many issues in management systems and the surrounding environment that need improvement and perfection, these factors pose great difficulties for us to quickly catch up with the world's advanced levels.

  The machinery manufacturing industry is the most important component of the manufacturing sector, responsible for creating and providing mechanical products to users, including the entire process of development, design, manufacturing, distribution, and after-sales service of mechanical products. The speed of national economic development largely depends on the technological level and development speed of the machinery manufacturing industry.

  Current development status of China's machinery manufacturing industry

  The machinery manufacturing industry is the most fundamental industry of a country, determining the overall level of a country's manufacturing sector. It started early but has developed in a worrying manner. For example, compared to the machinery manufacturing industry, China's automotive industry has much higher product quality and production efficiency, which is largely due to the characteristics of the machinery industry. With the continuous deepening of our reforms and the expansion of opening up, unprecedented favorable conditions have been provided for the revitalization and development of China's machinery manufacturing industry.

  Today, the global landscape of manufacturing is undergoing significant changes, with a division of the world into Europe, Asia, and America. Signs of the world economic center shifting towards Asia have emerged, and the product structure and production models of the manufacturing industry are also rapidly changing. All of this brings rare opportunities. Challenges and opportunities coexist; we should face reality, confront challenges, seize opportunities, deepen reforms, and take the revitalization and development of China's machinery manufacturing industry as our mission, striving to ensure that our machinery manufacturing industry catches up with the world's advanced levels in a relatively short time.

  Looking at the development status of China's machinery industry through Chinese manufacturing. The presence of Chinese manufacturing is now ubiquitous. This reflects the rapid development of our equipment manufacturing industry, represented by machinery and automobiles. Without the development of heavy industries like machinery, the light industry that produces various consumer products would lose its most basic production tools, and China could not become the world's factory.

  The development of modern science and technology, represented by information technology, has raised higher and newer requirements for the equipment manufacturing industry, further highlighting the irreplaceable foundational role of the machinery equipment manufacturing industry as a carrier of high-tech industrialization in promoting the overall technological progress and industrial upgrading of society.

  As the primary driving force for national economic growth and technological upgrading, the machinery industry will progress alongside the development of high-tech and emerging industries, fully reflecting the overall trend and characteristics of advanced manufacturing technology developing towards intelligence, flexibility, networking, precision, greenness, and globalization. Moreover, the equipment manufacturing industry provides essential material technology for the development and production of new technologies and products, making it an indispensable strategic industry for economic advancement. Even industrialized countries entering the 'information society' place great importance on the development of the machinery manufacturing industry.

  1 Basic Equipment

  In the machinery manufacturing industry, equipment such as machine tools, cutting tools, fixtures, and testing instruments largely determines the processing level. However, many key components cannot yet be produced domestically, relying entirely on imports, which significantly restricts the development of China's machinery manufacturing industry.

  2 Manufacturing Processes

  With the development of science and technology, especially the rapid advancement of electronic technology and information technology, more and more high-tech applications are being used in the machinery manufacturing industry. Industrially developed countries widely adopt new processing methods such as high-precision processing, fine processing, micro-processing, micro-machinery and micron/nanotechnology, laser processing technology, electromagnetic processing technology, superplastic processing technology, and composite processing technology.

  3 Automation Technology

  With the development of high-tech such as computer technology, the level of automation technology in the machinery manufacturing industry has further improved. Industrially developed countries generally use CNC machine tools, processing centers, flexible manufacturing cells (FMC), flexible manufacturing systems (FMS), and computer-integrated manufacturing systems (CIMS) to achieve flexible automation, intelligence, and integration in production management. Industrially developed countries widely adopt computer management, emphasizing the updating and development of organizational and management systems and production models, introducing new management ideas and technologies such as Just-In-Time (JIT), Agile Manufacturing (AM), Lean Production (LP), and Concurrent Engineering (CE).

  4 Core Technologies

  Especially since the reform and opening up, more and more foreign enterprises have invested in China. Although we have introduced many advanced foreign equipment, we have not mastered core technologies. Enterprises not only lack core technologies but also have weak innovation capabilities, which leads us to follow others closely, making it difficult to master core technologies.

  5 National Macro Policies

  The proportion of scientific and technological investment in GDP is still very low, with insufficient investment and wastefulness coexisting. Historically, the highest proportion of scientific and technological investment in GDP in China was 2.32% in 1960, which has declined year by year, dropping to 0.69% in 1998, and rebounding slightly after 2000, reaching 1.23% in 2004. In contrast, this proportion in innovative developed countries and emerging industrialized countries is generally above 2%.

  6 Independent Innovation and Talent Cultivation

  The technological innovation capability of enterprises is relatively poor, and the product development cycle is long. In China, small and medium-sized enterprises as well as large enterprises are still following the path of low-cost industrial control automation. Talent is the core of independent innovation, yet we lack top innovative talents. This is fully reflected in the severe shortage of high-level talents and the lack of motivation for technological innovation. The development of high-precision and cutting-edge technologies is relatively weak. High-precision and cutting-edge technologies will play a significant role in future international competition.

  The machinery manufacturing industry is the most fundamental industry of a country, determining the overall level of a country's manufacturing sector. China is now a major manufacturing country, with its manufacturing scale ranking fourth in the world, following the United States, Japan, and Germany. However, compared to industrially developed countries, there is still a significant gap, mainly reflected in low product quality and technological levels, a lack of products with independent intellectual property rights, outdated manufacturing technologies and processes, unreasonable structures, lagging technological innovation capabilities, and certain gaps in advanced manufacturing technologies and production management.

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