China's machine tool enterprises should not only cultivate the domestic market, but also actively participate in international competition, learn advanced technology, and find gaps in exchanges and cooperation to improve their level.
"Higher level of machine tools has played a key role in the development of manufacturing industry, but also for the comprehensive strength of the country is of great significance." Recently, at the World Press Conference on Metal Processing in Hanover in 2019, Schaffer, General Manager of German Machine Tool Manufacturers Association, made a judgment on the cutting-edge issues of the current development of the machine tool industry.
"Globally, in the past few years, orders and sales of machine tools have been increasing. The demand for machine tools in traditional industries such as automobiles, machinery and pharmaceuticals has been rising." Schaffer pointed out that the global machine tool industry is developing steadily, and the emergence of new technologies such as the Internet of Things has a tremendous impact on the industry, which not only improves production efficiency, but also guarantees product quality. However, the emergence of new technologies does not represent a subversive change, and the market and technological challenges remain before enterprises.
"For example, the current industry development urgently needs high-quality data, and other machine tools, machinery through the Internet of Things docking." Schaffer said the industry needed a common language platform and a unified set of standards to achieve integration between different systems.
In view of the opportunities and challenges facing the development of China's machine tool industry in recent years, Schaffer said that in the past few years, Chinese machine tool enterprises have been focusing on the domestic market. Most enterprises believe that China's market is large enough to meet market objectives, so the proportion of China's machine tool exports in the past few years is not too high. "It is noteworthy, however, that China's machine tool exports are still increasing, and China's machine tool exports to Germany are increasing in recent years. Last year alone, the proportion of machine tools exported by China to Germany has increased by 20%. Sheffield said.
Machine tools are known as the "mother of industry". With the acceleration of industrial infrastructure modernization in China, the demand for high-efficiency manufacturing technology is increasing with the development of high-quality. According to statistics, in 2018, the main business income of enterprises in China's machine tool industry was 715.13 billion yuan, an increase of 8.3% over the same period last year. Among them, the main business income of metal cutting machine tools reached 119.01 billion yuan, an increase of 3.3% over the same period of last year.
"Machine tool industry covers machinery, electric power, control, software and other industries, which interact with each other and form a very complex system. The high-level development of the industry requires balanced growth of the system, but this is a long-term and sustained process, not overnight. Schaffer pointed out that not only China, including Korea, which has a good momentum of development in the machine tool industry, can not reach a high level in a short time. Chinese machine tool enterprises should actively participate in international competition and find gaps to improve the level.
