The machine tool industry has always been an important strategic layout point for major countries and leading enterprises. With the changes and adjustments in the future manufacturing landscape, especially for high-strategic industries such as global automotive, aerospace, and high-end equipment manufacturing, the machine tool industry is an important strategic fulcrum and will play an important role in the future competitiveness leverage. “Made in China 2025” listed CNC machine tools and basic manufacturing equipment as “strategic battlefields to accelerate breakthroughs”, which proposed to strengthen forward-looking deployment and key technological breakthroughs, actively plan to seize the future of science and technology and industrial competition manufacturing sites, and improve the level of international division of labor and discourse power.
1. the development status of China’s CNC machine tools
In recent years, under the background of favorable national policies and the continuous pursuit of innovation by enterprises, China’s CNC machine tool industry has developed rapidly. Data show that in 2019, the scale of China’s CNC machine tool industry reached 327 billion yuan. Due to the impact of the epidemic and energy supply restrictions, the market size of China’s CNC machine tool industry in 2020 has decreased slightly, and the market size is 247.3 billion yuan, down 24.4% year-on-year. In 2021, the market size of China’s CNC machine tool industry will resume growth, reaching 268.7 billion yuan. China Business Industry Research Institute predicts that the scale of CNC machine tool industry will reach 295.7 billion yuan in 2022. During the “14th Five-Year Plan” period, China actively cultivated advanced manufacturing clusters and promoted the innovative development of high-end CNC machine tool industry. The industry is expected to usher in a period of rapid development.
Numerical control machine tool is the abbreviation of computer numerical control machine tool, is equipped with program control system automatic machine tool. The control system can use the control code or other symbolic instructions to process the program logically, decode it, represent it with coded numbers, and input the NC device through the information carrier. After operation, the CNC device sends out various control signals to control the machine tool action, and automatically processes parts according to the shape and size required by the drawing.
2. the blocking point of China’s CNC machine tools
1) From a technical point of view, the CNC machine tools produced in China, especially high-end CNC machine tools, generally do not master the core technology, more is in the assembly and manufacturing link. Key components, basic high-end materials and other core technologies are controlled by people. The self-sufficiency rate of high-end materials and components is insufficient. High-end chips, high-quality large casting and forging parts, high-performance motors, high-specification bearings, high-end manufacturing materials are mostly imported from abroad. The shortcomings of China’s CNC machine tools are mainly reflected in:
a. It is the main engine, the core component spindle and the feed mechanism are our country’s short board.
b. numerical control equipment. The core of CNC machine tool, including hardware printed circuit board and corresponding software, is obviously short board in China.
c. the driving device. The driving part of the executive mechanism of CNC machine tool includes a spindle drive unit, a feed unit spindle motor and a feed motor. As the core components of CNC machine tools, China still needs to import.
2) From the market point of view, the market share of CNC machine tool enterprises is low. China’s CNC machine tool enterprises lack high-level high-quality talents, low R&D capacity, limited production capacity, and low market share. Their development is mainly based on the capacity expansion of low-end products, and the R&D investment of high-end CNC machine tools is insufficient. In the international ranking of CNC machine tool enterprises, China’s CNC machine tool production enterprises are ranked behind, the visibility is not high, and the degree of attention is not enough. In all brands of CNC machine tools, the user’s attention to Germany, the United States, Japan, South Korea, Taiwan and other brands of CNC machine tools has accounted for more than 60% of the total market.
3) The performance of CNC machine tools is backward. The overall level of China’s industrial base is not high, the lack of independent core technology, coupled with the blockade of foreign machinery manufacturing technology, resulting in a large gap between the performance and quality of domestic CNC machine tools and foreign countries. First, the domestic high-grade CNC machine tool has poor reliability, high failure rate and unstable performance; Second, the processing accuracy of domestic high-grade CNC machine tools can not meet the higher requirements; Third, the domestic high-end CNC machine tool machinability is insufficient, can not be competent for some complex processing, it is difficult to get the recognition of most users, affecting the scope of application.
3, China’s high-end CNC machine tool policy scan
Luo Junjie, deputy director of the Equipment Industry Department of the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, said that CNC machine tools are the “machine tools” of industry. The development of high-grade CNC machine tools is not only an objective need for supply-side structural reform in the industrial and information fields, but also an urgent requirement for achieving the deep development strategy of military-civilian integration and ensuring national security.
In 2009, the national science and technology major CNC machine tool project, that is, high-grade CNC machine tools and basic manufacturing equipment project was officially launched. Since the implementation of the special project, a total of 3,956 invention patents have been applied for, and 2,951 new products and technologies have been developed, with a new output value of about 70.6 billion yuan. Through the implementation of special projects, a number of key core technologies have been broken through, the “bottleneck” problem of key national defense projects has been solved, and the urgent demand for important key high-grade CNC equipment in key areas of the national economy has been met. Some products have reached the international advanced level and entered the market of developed countries.
Statistics show that in the past eight years, of the 57 key host products identified at the beginning of the special implementation, 38 have reached the international advanced level. The average trouble-free running time of the machine tool has increased from 400 to 500 hours to about 1200 hours, and some products have reached the internationally advanced 2000 hours. In the field of high-end numerical control systems, it has also broken the monopoly of foreign technology and achieved batch matching of key functional components. The domestic market share has grown from less than 1% to around 5%. The special standard of “Five-axis linkage machine tool S-shaped specimen” was approved by the International Standards Committee, and achieved the “zero” breakthrough in the field of international standards for high-end CNC machine tools in China.
The “Made in China 2025” issued by the state also proposed that by 2025, the numerical control rate of China’s key processes should be increased from the current 33% to 64%.