People’s Daily： Domestic machine tools, high-end breakthrough-State-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission of the State Council

"In 2020, the operation of the machine tool industry was better than expected, showing a recovery growth trend." A few days ago, Mao Yufeng, executive vice chairman of cmtba, said that after nearly 10 years of downturn, the machine tool industry is welcoming new opportunities for development.

Machine tool, the machine that produces machines, is called "industrial mother machine" and is the core production base of equipment manufacturing industry. In the extraordinary year of 2020, the machine tool industry intensively cultivated and made many new breakthroughs in the field of high-end CNC machine tools: a major breakthrough was made in the super-large five-axis machine tool, and the world’s first 3D printing CNC machine tool with integrated casting, forging and milling was successfully developed …

During the "14th Five-Year Plan" period, how did the machine tool industry make up the short board and forge the long board?

Mid-to-high-end blossomed, and the machine tool industry showed signs of bottoming out.

In the spring of 2020, the machine tool industry reported good news frequently.

The first domestic high-speed five-axis machining center for ultra-long-distance high-speed rail developed by Shenyang Machine Tool of General Technology Group was successfully rolled off the assembly line. This machine tool is used for machining complex surfaces of large-scale structural parts of high-speed rail, marking the first time that domestic high-end CNC equipment is used for the production of core components in high-speed rail industry.

A month ago, the testing method of five-axis machine tool of "S specimen" revised by China officially became an international standard, and the machine tool people frankly said, "This is a hard bone."

"S specimen" is regarded as the "crown jewel" in the field of machine tool processing. As long as a machine tool can process qualified "S-specimen", then even complex thin-walled parts can be competent. The machining of "S-specimen" requires the machine tool to change various angles and ensure high machining accuracy.

"The core components of our machine tool have withstood the test of’ S specimen’." The person in charge of a leading machine tool enterprise in China said that it was a lot of suffering to break through the "S-specimen". "During the test, all the inspection points of machine tool processing were qualified, but the combined" S-specimen "always failed to meet the standard."

The reason is that there is still a gap in machining accuracy. Each inspection point should not only meet the standard, but also have almost zero error, so as to ensure that the error of the outline size of the "S specimen" does not exceed 0.05 mm. The R&D team of this enterprise keeps approaching zero error. After more than 1,200 tests, it finally chews this "hard bone" and realizes 100% qualified processing of "S specimen".

Mao Yufeng said that the localization of high-end machine tools in China is constantly improving. Up to now, the domestic market share of representative products such as domestic five-axis machining center and high-grade CNC system has increased to about 30%.

What is more gratifying is that not only the leading enterprises of large machine tools continue to conquer key technologies, but also the "invisible champion" in the segmentation field is breaking. In November 2020, nearly 20 enterprises in the machine tool industry were selected into the second batch of "Little Giant" enterprises publicized by the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology.

On January 4th, 2021, Shenzhen Genesis Machinery Co., Ltd. delivered another good news, and 218 T-V856s machine tools were shipped in a single day, setting a new high in recent years and winning a "good start". With reliable processing quality, the company has jumped to the forefront of subdivision in just over 10 years.

"In the past 10 years, the demand of China’s machine tool market has changed dramatically, from completely relying on investment to investment and consumption." Mao Yufeng said that in the past, the customers of machine tool enterprises were mainly concentrated in heavy industries such as energy, steel and equipment manufacturing. Now, customers have expanded into electronic products, new energy vehicles, medical devices and semiconductors. "Some enterprises that are not suitable for market demand have been eliminated, and a number of enterprises that respond quickly and focus on sub-sectors have grown rapidly."

Breakthroughs have been made at the high end and progress has been made at the middle end. The machine tool industry is gradually getting rid of the downward trend for many years, showing signs of bottoming out. According to the data of cmtba, in 2020, the total orders of metal processing machine tools increased by 16%.

Strengthen collaborative innovation and realize the expansion from 1 to 100 and from point to surface.

As an "industrial machine tool", the application scenes of machine tools are everywhere, ranging from small mobile phones, televisions and washing machines to large cars, high-speed trains, airplanes and rockets, and as fine as medical implants and medical devices, they are inseparable from machine tools. China’s economy is developing towards high quality, and the requirements for product quality and machine tools are getting higher and higher. "It can be said that the supply capacity and demand of domestic high-end machine tools do not match, not only the whole machine has a gap with imported machine tools, but also the key basic supporting parts." Mao Yufeng said.

Where is the gap? It lies in sustainable innovation based on application.

Zhu Kongfeng, deputy chief engineer of guangzhou cnc Equipment Co., Ltd. said that China has been able to produce high-end CNC system for machine tools, taking CNC system as an example, and achieved a breakthrough from 0 to 1. However, compared with imported high-end CNC systems, there is still a gap in technology maturity and brand influence. "It is these gaps that make it difficult for domestic CNC systems to expand from 1 to 100, from point to surface. At the same time, without the tempering of high-end application scenarios, the gap between domestic high-end CNC systems and foreign products will be difficult to make up, and even larger. "

"Good products are used. If no one uses them, there is no way to know the gap. There is no application scenario. How to upgrade the iteration?" Jiang Shilin, assistant to the chairman of Dalian Guangyang Science and Technology Group, felt that the high-end machine tool market is small in scale and high in unit price, and the price factor has little influence. "It is very difficult to develop domestic high-end CNC machine tools only by relying on enterprises themselves and market forces."

Mao Yufeng said frankly that for a long time, the prototype research and light application verification in the machine tool industry often means the completion of the project through the acceptance of the prototype. Few people pay attention to the follow-up application and market expansion of the products, and lack policy support for the promotion of innovative products of enterprises. This innovative model can only solve the problem of "being or not" and cannot meet the needs of high-quality development.

Faced with this dilemma, some enterprises have made useful explorations.

"We have advanced the time to find customers." Jiang Shilin said that in the past, products were sold to customers and they were asked to try them out. Now we come to the door first and ask our customers what their needs are, and the two sides research and develop together. "We understand the psychology that customers favor imported mature machine tools. After all, every failure and shutdown of the production line will cause huge losses. Therefore, we can only do our homework first. "

Recalling the first cooperation with a research institution, Jiang Shilin will never forget the more than 200 pages of A4 paper filled with questions. "The first joint research and development, customers asked us to use the standards for inspecting imported advanced equipment. For us, the problem paper with a thickness of 3 cm is not harsh, it is a baby. " Jiang Shilin recalled that after improving the equipment, the company sent engineers directly to the customer’s workshop to solve problems at any time, so as to improve the reliability of the equipment, the adaptability of the process and the stability of production, so as not to affect the performance of the operators and improve their enthusiasm for operating domestic equipment. After a joint research and development, Dalian Guangyang finally won the recognition of customers. The customer purchased 22 high-end five-axis machine tools at one time to form an intelligent production line. "After that, the company’s products opened up a situation in the aerospace field."

"The supply mode of the machine tool industry is changing from batch to customization, especially for mid-to high-end products. It is even more necessary for the machine tool industry to strengthen collaborative innovation practice with users, from passively following to solving user needs to jointly researching new needs and new processes." Mao Yufeng said.

Industry-University-Research actively embraced new technology with a game of chess.

Sharp tools make good work. For the manufacturing industry, this "device" is a machine tool. During the "Fourteenth Five-Year Plan" period, the machine tool industry has a long way to go to make up the short board and forge the long board.

"From the perspective of products, a good machine tool needs the quick march of the whole industry chain. The basic components determine the functional components, and the functional components determine the performance of the main engine. This is an interlocking process." Zhu Kongfeng said.

From the industry point of view, machine tools and a series of basic industries such as semiconductors, raw materials and cutting tools are interdependent and interdependent. For example, a high-end machine tool needs high-quality bearings, and high-quality bearings depend not only on the quality of steel, but also on the performance of the machine tool used to process bearings.

"This means that the machine tool industry needs to make up the shortcomings. It is not feasible to rely solely on the head enterprises, but it needs the user’s demand to lead and Industry-University-Research to use a game of chess." Jiang Shilin said.

Mao Yufeng emphasized that it is foreseeable that the demand for domestic high-end machine tools is expected to explode further during the 14 th Five-Year Plan period. In terms of major demand and common technology research and development, we need to explore how the new national system can play a better role.

Zhu Kongfeng said that, just as the "Proposal" of the Tenth Five-Year Plan proposed to implement the system of "revealing the list and taking the lead", he hoped that the relevant departments would guide the downstream enterprises to publicly release their needs and jointly research and develop with the upstream and downstream of basic industries and machine tool industry chains to form a new development pattern of complementarity, collaborative research and mutual promotion. "Government departments can adopt the way of purchasing services, with leading enterprises contracting related projects and organizing project participants by themselves to realize key core technologies.

"Although the machine tool industry accounts for less than 1% of GDP, it is the basis for upgrading the manufacturing industry to the middle and high end. To achieve high-quality development, the industry needs the strong support of more capital. " Mao Yufeng suggested that state-level large funds invest more in the machine tool industry, and at the same time give more opportunities to private enterprises. "After nearly 10 years of development in the machine tool industry, private enterprises have become an important force that cannot be ignored."

However, bury your head in the road and look up at the road. In recent years, subversive innovations in the machine tool industry have come out one after another, which not only makes up for the shortcomings of traditional CNC machine tools, but also affects the research and development ideas of traditional machine tools.

According to reports, the traditional CNC machine tools "do subtraction" in processing, and process mechanical parts by turning, milling, planing and grinding, which has the advantage of high reliability. 3D printing technology is "addition". First, liquid materials are solidified into planar thin layers, and then layers of thin layers are accumulated into the required three-dimensional objects, which is superior to controlling complex shapes. A few days ago, in Wuhan, a brand-new machine tool-casting-forging-milling integrated 3D printing CNC machine tool combined the advantages of the two.

"Many precision parts needed by modern industry have complex structures and extremely high requirements for precision and air tightness. Machining with traditional CNC machine tools is extremely difficult to control accuracy, while 3D printing technology has shortcomings in terms of air tightness. " Zhang Haiou, the project leader and a professor at Huazhong University of Science and Technology, said that the 3D printing CNC machine tool integrating casting, forging and milling combined their advantages into one, forging while casting, and successfully trial-produced the aircraft composite molding die only once, which not only met the requirements in parameters, but also overcame the bottleneck problems of difficult processing and low yield of complex large molds, and shortened the manufacturing cycle by at least 1/3.

"In order to meet the needs of efficient and flexible manufacturing, the transformation of traditional machine tools is imperative, which requires the machine tool industry to actively embrace new technologies and be ready to meet new challenges while practicing internal strength." Mao Yufeng said.

[Editor: Zhao Yihan]