The high-profile announcement of an investment of 20 billion yuan in the construction of a robot industrial park, with strong support from local governments, quickly secured 500 acres of industrial land. More than a year has passed, and apart from a low-end robot assembly factory without core technology, there is no trace of high-end supporting enterprises such as reducers and servo motors that were originally planned
The real case happened in an ordinary county town of a province in the middle of China reflects one aspect of the development of China's industrial robot industry. Recently, Vice Minister of Industry and Information Technology Xin Guobin stated, "The risk of low-end industrialization and overcapacity of low-end products in the robotics industry has attracted high attention from relevant departments
More than 40 industrial parks, over 800 enterprises competing for the cake
In 2010, Wuhan Midea had a monthly production of 500000 air conditioners and more than 10000 employees; now, it has a monthly production of 550000 units and 3000 employees. "Liu Bingwei, Equipment Manager of the Engineering Department of Midea Group Wuhan Refrigeration Equipment Company, said that the large-scale use of industrial robots and the informatization transformation of production processes have increased per capita efficiency by 20% annually.
The widespread use of robots has been a prominent feature of the transformation and upgrading of manufacturing enterprises in recent years. Statistics show that since becoming the world's largest industrial robot market in 2013, the usage of industrial robots in China has significantly increased. In 2014, the national sales of industrial robots exceeded 57000 units, an increase of 54%; In 2015, sales increased to 68000 units; In 2016, the number of robots installed reached 85000, exceeding 30% of the global number of newly added industrial robots.
Industry analysts predict that in 2017, the sales volume of industrial robots in China will reach 102000 units, and the cumulative ownership will be close to 450000 units. The market share of Chinese local robot enterprises will increase from less than 5% in 2012 to more than 30% in 2017; In 2020, the number of industrial robots in China will reach over 800000, with a potential market demand value of nearly 500 billion yuan.
Industrial robots have been widely used in 37 industry categories and 91 industry categories of the national economy. In 2016, the 3C (computer, communication equipment, and other electronic equipment) manufacturing industry and the automotive manufacturing industry accounted for 30% and 12.6% of the total sales of domestic industrial robots, respectively.
However, the strong market demand has also brought about signs of overheating in the industry. According to statistics, there are over 20 provinces in China that focus on developing the robot industry, and over 40 robot industry parks. In the past two years, the number of robot enterprises has rapidly increased from less than 400 to over 800, while the number of industry chain related enterprises has exceeded 3400. Among them, there are over 280 robot enterprises in Zhejiang alone. Zuo Shiquan, the director of the Equipment Institute of CCID Research Institute, admitted: "There is a certain degree of overheating in China's robotics industry, and the phenomenon of low-level repetitive construction and blind start-up does exist in some regions
"Five years later, it would be good for domestic robot enterprises to have 1/5 left, and manufacturers without core technology and core parts basically have no Lebensraum." The head of a domestic robot manufacturer judged.
About 90% of multi joint robots with six or more axes come from abroad
A car company in Northeast China has purchased a welding robot independently developed by a domestic enterprise. Due to insufficient reliability, the production line has been running intermittently.
Geely Auto Chunxiao Plant purchased the handling robot for the stamping workshop and inspected the domestic robot enterprises for many times, but failed to meet the design requirements in terms of load capacity, repeatability and control stability, so it finally had to choose ABB.
SAIC-GM considered the domestic brand welding robot a few years ago, with good accuracy and reliability, but the key parts rely on imports, and the price is 70% -80% higher than that of foreign products
"There are three weaknesses in the development of China's industrial robots: foreign brands account for more than 60% of the market share of China's industrial robots; foreign companies account for about 90% of the market share of multi joint robots with more than six axes and complex technologies; foreign robots account for 84% of the market share in the welding field, which is difficult to operate and is the most widely used in the world; and foreign companies account for 90% of the market share in the automotive industry, where high-end applications are concentrated." said Qu Daokui, president of Siasun Robotics Automation Co., Ltd. in Shenyang.
Li Guisheng, Chairman of Jiefu Equipment (Wuhan) Company, who received a 3-year welding clamp order from Mercedes Benz, introduced that they have opened the welding clamp interface protocol to a robot enterprise in South China. However, after several months of research, the reliability and stability of the enterprise's welding robots have not met the requirements of mass production.
Zuo Shiquan believes that in recent years, although breakthroughs have been made in the research and development of robot core components such as precision reducers and servo motors, and they have been put into production, there is still a significant gap in the core technology of robots among Chinese enterprises, and reliability still needs to be continuously improved. In addition, the mastery of complex technologies such as welding and surgical medicine is not sufficient, especially in areas such as perception and control technology, human-machine interaction technology, etc., and it is necessary to accelerate the catch up.
The entry threshold for high-end and low-end industries needs to be raised
A large number of manufacturing enterprises in China are still in the stage of transformation and upgrading from 'Industry 2.0' to 'Industry 3.0', which can replace the heavy physical labor of workers and low-end industrial robots operating in harmful environments. The market is huge. "Zuo Shiquan said that in the first half of 2016, 60.1% of domestic industrial robots were used in the fields of transportation and loading and unloading, with sales increasing by 94.3% year-on-year; The sales of processing robots used in cutting, grinding, deburring and other fields increased by 103% year-on-year.
The demand in the mid to low end market is rapidly expanding, and the enthusiasm for industrial investment is naturally high. However, in Qu Daokui's view, how to transform from quantity and speed oriented to quality and connotation oriented is currently the biggest issue in the development of the local robot industry. According to reports, there are over 200 enterprises engaged in the robotics industry in Dongguan, Guangdong, but most of them either purchase foreign equipment integration or purchase foreign core component assembly, with less than one-third having intellectual property rights.
How significant is the role of relevant government subsidies in the rush of low-end production capacity? Zuo Shiquan said that last year, a survey conducted by CCID Research Institute, China Robotics Industry Alliance, and other units found that many local government departments either indirectly supported robot production enterprises through subsidies to users, or directly provided technical transformation funds, equity investments, first set premium subsidies, and other financial support to robot production enterprises. It is understood that since 2014, Dongguan has allocated 200 million yuan of financial funds annually for three consecutive years to provide inclusive subsidies to robot enterprises; Wuhu City, Anhui Province, has cashed in 440 million yuan of various policy funds in two years.
While playing a significant role in promoting transformation and upgrading, local support policies may trigger some problems, "said Zuo Shiquan. Firstly, it leads to duplicate construction. The policy of supporting manufacturing enterprises to purchase local equipment has led to the proliferation of robotics enterprises, resulting in a large amount of low-end production capacity. The second is to trigger Cut throat competition. To some extent, the support policy has caused enterprises to focus on production rather than research and development, spawned a batch of small, scattered and weak enterprises with fast money, and triggered Cut throat competition of low quality and low price. Thirdly, it affects the image of independent brands. The survey found that there are local support policies, no open and transparent audit standards and processes, and enterprises also lack unified and standardized indicators when designing products. Some technologies have not yet matured and are listed first, with uneven quality, which has weakened users' confidence in using Autonomous robot.
Policy optimization and adjustment are imperative. Suggestions from Zuo Shiquan: Firstly, implement the standardized conditions and healthy guidance for industrial development, promote the concentration of resources towards advantageous enterprises, and encourage the high-end development of industries; Secondly, strengthen the construction of robot standard system and accelerate the research and formulation of various technical standards urgently needed by the industry; The third is to establish a national robot innovation center, closely collaborate with industry, academia, research and application, and solve key common technical problems in the industry.