Break through the functional bottlenecks of machine tools can "walk on two legs"

China has become the world's largest manufacturer of machine tools for many years, but it is also the world's largest importer. This shows that China's high-end CNC machine tools can not meet domestic needs. One of the constraints is that high-end functional components are also subject to humans and are imported from abroad. Not long ago, the China Machine Tool & Tool Industry Association passed the Work Points (Trial) during the "12th Five-Year Plan" period of the machine tool industry, and put the "competence of upgrading middle and high-end numerical control systems and functional components" as the industry's "12th Five-Year Plan" period. One of the key tasks, and put forward the "two legs to walk" approach.

Wu Bulin, executive vice president of the Machine Tool Association, said that “walking on two legs” is to fully mobilize resources and development enthusiasm in all aspects. While actively supporting the accelerated development of specialized enterprises, it also encourages and supports qualified machine tool companies Its own needs extend the industrial chain and actively intervene in the development of CNC systems and functional components industries, thereby accelerating the development process of middle-to-high-end CNC systems and functional component industries. Specialized enterprises should be closely integrated with the main plant to form industrial alliances and interest communities for development and application.

In this regard, at the meeting organized by the Machine Tool Association, business leaders from the functional components industry also expressed their views.

Proposal I: To avoid large, complete, small and complete Zhao Meiling, general manager of Guangdong Hi-tech Caterpillar Precision Machinery Co., Ltd., said: “This means supporting and encouraging qualified and competent companies to research and develop mid-to-high-end functional components and numerical control systems. A well-run company, whether it is a main engine plant or a functional component factory, should support and accelerate its acceleration to the high-end development."

But she asked two questions: One is whether the machine tool industry should take the path of “bigger and full” or “specialized production”. Another is, what advantages does the host plant have to do with features?

He Minjia, chairman of Guangzhou Numerical Control Equipment Co., Ltd., believes: “Support for the establishment of a CNC system research department, development of middle-to-high-end numerical control software functions, and development of special processing software modules. System hardware, servo drives and servo motors should be manufactured by the system professional factory. It is not recommended to duplicate the production workshop."

Li Baomin, chairman of Shandong Bote Precision Co., Ltd., said: “In order to speed up the development of functional components, the host manufacturers can join in the development of functional components under the capability. But I personally think that the host manufacturers involved in this area. It is worthwhile to study what kind of method to intervene and what to intervene in. It is necessary to fully combine its own advantages and to avoid taking a big, all-round, small-scale approach."

Proposal 2: The Mazhakian model can be used for reference by Chen Jihong, chairman of Wuhan Huazhong Numerical Control Co., Ltd. For a long time, the development of CNC systems and CNC machine tools in China has been characterized by “two skins”. The two did not form a situation of mutual support, mutual promotion, and common progress. Nor did they form a strategic cooperative relationship between development and application industry alliances and interest communities. This not only restricted the development of China's CNC machine tools industry and market competitiveness, but also restricted China's CNC. The development of the system industry.

According to Chen Jihong, there are three models for developing the CNC system industry in the world, and each model has its own advantages and disadvantages.

One is the Siemens model. That is, the system factory specializes in producing a variety of specifications of the CNC system, providing a variety of standard-type functional modules for the world's mainframe factory to provide batch matching, for example, FANUC, Siemens, Mitsubishi and other major production CNC system. The advantage of this model is that the host plant and system plant have their own advantages and are conducive to the formation of specialized and large-scale production. However, the disadvantage is that the system plant and the main plant are mainly bought and sold, and the combination of the two parties is not close enough.

The second is the Haas model, which means that the host plant independently develops the CNC system and sells it with its own production CNC machine tools. Such as the United States Haas company, Italy Fidia, etc., these companies were founded from the beginning of the development of numerical control systems, in order to promote the numerical control system, began the production and sales of CNC machine tools. The disadvantage is that the unique brand CNC system of the main engine plant is difficult to be selected by other main engine manufacturers.

The third is the Mazak model, that is, the main engine factory develops its own brand CNC system on the development platform provided by the system factory, and it is sold with the self-produced CNC machine tools. For example, Japanese Mazak, Mori Seiki, and other companies have carried out secondary development on the CNC system platforms provided by Mitsubishi and Fanuc, forming their own brands of CNC systems. This model not only avoids the possible disadvantages of the other two modes, but also promotes its own advantages.

Chen Jihong believes that the Mazak model is the most suitable model for the development of the CNC system industry by the host plant. The key to the implementation of this model is: The system factory continuously supplies the CNC system platform technology to the host plant, forming the industry alliance and the interest community that the host plant and the system plant jointly develop and apply. During the “Eleventh Five-Year Plan” period, Huazhong CNC actively established strategic cooperation relationships with key machine tool companies such as Dalian Machine Tool, North First Machine, Wuzhong Group and Nantong Machine Tool, which greatly promoted the development of medium-to-high-end CNC machine tools and numerical control systems.

Recommendation 3: Industry policy needs to be tilted Zhang Wanmou, chairman of Yantai Global Machine Tool Accessories Group Co., Ltd. put it forward. Over the years, functional component manufacturers have been struggling to go ahead in the “relying on the host and supporting the light” and “heavy light and heavy earth” environment, and against the water. Due to the "non-dominant" nature of the "attachment" and "part" names, it is difficult for the functional parts industry to enjoy the "subject"-like emphasis.

Despite the continuous increase in support efforts in recent years, due to weak foundations, small scale, weak self-innovation capabilities, and insufficient technical input of related production companies, the results are far from satisfactory, and far from being able to form supporting capabilities for industrialization.

Therefore, if we want to develop the functional component industry and fully mobilize the enthusiasm of the production enterprises, we should first give it the same attention as the host, and we should give a certain degree of tilt in the industrial policy.

Second, the development of functional components industry must make a difference in the construction of the alliance system of production, study and research, and its ultimate goal is application. Therefore, it is recommended that the government introduce some policies that encourage industry users to use domestic CNC machine tools and functional components, and give more opportunities for domestically-made functional components. At the same time, the functional component companies themselves must also make greater efforts in cooperating closely with the OEMs, from the point of view, and strive to produce demonstration effects in the application, and gradually increase supporting capabilities.

Finally, the functional component factory must form a strategic alliance with the host plant to accelerate development and common development to increase the speed of development of functional components. This is a very necessary development path, but it should be said that it is not easy. In view of the reasons, Zhang Wanmou thinks that there are the following aspects: “The first is that our market economy is still not perfect; second, the rapid development in recent years has led to a misconception that CNC machines are difficult to do. We say that functional components rely on outsourcing, but as a result of these years of development, we have done a good job for others. More importantly, our machine tool level has not really improved."

Recommendation 4: The host plant and system plant should closely cooperate with Yu Dehai, general manager of Dalian Guangyang Technology Engineering Co., Ltd. It is believed that in order to develop a numerical control system, system planning must be done to achieve specialization, and CNC companies must work closely with the host company. , better serve the host. Manufacturers engaged in numerical control systems must study the process and study the machine tools. They must also study key execution components. Only in this way can they figure out what the CNC system should do and what problems to solve.

The research and development of numerical control systems is completely different from that of machine tools in terms of processes, technologies, and processes. The advantage of the main engine plant is that it fully understands the requirements. For the “two-legged walk” point of view put forward by the Association of Machine Tools, I think it is objective to meet the development needs of the machine tool industry. It is absolutely impossible for people who engage in software, control, and hardware to get out of the process and machinery. Engage in the CNC system, this is definitely not a good job. Therefore, as a manufacturer of numerical control systems, we hope to work closely with the host manufacturing companies to fully serve the host companies.

Engaging in any technology, if there is no perfect processing design and system planning, there is no "professional, refined, special" support, this industry can not do well. This has an objective law, and it is not simply financial problems that can be solved.

As for the key to encouraging OEMs to develop CNC systems, the key is to see if the OEMs have the capability in this area. The development of high-end numerical control systems requires specialized R&D teams, manufacturing and production teams, and application technology teams. All kinds of experiments, test conditions, and even the corporate culture atmosphere required for related technological innovations are not just money to solve. Can not have a feverish mind. From the past development history of the industry, the successful experience of the master factory in the development of numerical control systems is not much, and with the development of numerical control technology, the difficulty will increase.

Meiling Zhao said that some people commented on the current state of the technology in the Chinese machine tool industry: functional components companies use the world's top key processing equipment, but failed to produce first-class functional components; the main engine plant uses the world's top CNC systems, functions Parts did not produce first-rate machines. No matter if it is a main engine plant or a functional component company, there are too many technical and technological problems that need to be overcome. The advantages of “specialized” production should be played in their respective industries. They should support each other, promote each other, achieve common progress, and work together to promote the entire Industry development.