Machine tool remanufacturing industry will enter a key breakthrough period

This is a general view of the participants at the symposium on the industrialization of China's machine tool remanufacturing held in Wuhan not long ago. The reason is: First, in 2010 the machine tool industry completed industrial output value of nearly 550 billion yuan, of which metal processing machine tool output value of 20.9 billion US dollars, accounting for about one third of the world. From January to September 2011, the total value of industrial output of the machine tool industry was 472.17 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 33.5%. After more than 10 years of rapid development, the machine tool market has a large amount of inventory. Some experts predict that the total number of old machine tools that have served in China for more than 10 years, that is, the number of old machine tools that can be used for remanufacturing may exceed 2 million units.

Second, from the perspective of the product life cycle, China is entering the peak period of the retirement of machine tool products. In addition, under the background of accelerating the transformation of economic development methods and optimizing the industrial structure, the increasing demand for high-end CNC machine tools will inevitably eliminate a batch of machine tool products.

Third, since the project was established in 2009, the concept of remanufacturing has been recognized by the market. In addition, according to the requirements of the plan, remanufacturing will be a new bright spot for the development of the “Twelfth Five-Year” circular economy, and policy support will continue. As the machine tool industry, the pace of industrialization of remanufacturing will accelerate.

Regulating the market is the most important task. As a promising new industry, it is particularly important to establish a sound and standardized market during the initial period of development. At the symposium, representatives of machine tool remanufacturing companies unanimously agreed that the primary task of the current industrialization of machine tool remanufacturing is to establish a regulated market.

Borrowing from the concept of the automotive aftermarket, machine tool remanufacturing should belong to the machine tool aftermarket. This is because the machine tool product itself has a complete chain of sales-maintenance-remanufacturing.

Different from the remanufacturing of auto parts, the remanufacturing of machine tools is mostly creative remanufacturing, which realizes the function upgrade and numerical control, and does not belong to restorative remanufacturing, showing higher added value.

In this sense, remanufacturing is the advanced stage of maintenance and transformation. The main criterion for discrimination is that the technical performance of remanufactured machine tools cannot be inferior to new ones.

Wei Liancheng, chairman of the China Mechanical and Electrical Equipment Maintenance and Transformation Technology Association, said that China's machine tool remanufacturing business still remains at the stage of maintenance and numerical control transformation. “Especially maintenance and renovation of large and heavy machine tools are the main factors, so it is obviously difficult to form batch and industrialization.” Wei Liancheng believes that compared to the mature remanufacturing industry in Europe and America, China’s large and heavy machine tool maintenance and transformation is still in remanufacturing. Primary Stage.

The reporter learned that there are currently three main categories of machine tool remanufacturing in China: professional machine tool remanufacturing companies, such as Wuhan Huazhong Automation Technology Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as Huazhong Automation), which is included in the pilot remanufacturing enterprise of machine tools by the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology; Such as Chongqing Machine Tool Group and Wuhan Heavy Machine Tool Group; CNC system manufacturing companies, such as Siemens Automation Factory, Guangzhou CNC Equipment Co., Ltd. and so on. These three types of companies constitute the main body of the current domestic machine tool remanufacturing.

China's remanufactured machine tools, especially heavy-duty machine tools, are mostly order-based. Because there is no unified product technology standard and market pricing principle, it is greatly affected by the user market. Some user units overemphasized the importance of cost and price ignoring the technical solutions and the strength of the manufacturers, which invisiblely boosted some remanufacturing enterprises to only pay attention to the immediate interests and were reluctant to increase investment in fixed assets such as plant and equipment, and were unwilling to hire outstanding technicians. Only by conquering the operating costs and occupying the market at a low price, the remanufacturing market of the machine tools is uneven and disorderly.

In the developed countries where the remanufacturing industry developed earlier, the remanufacturing of machine tools has been carried out for many years, and a relatively complete industrial chain has also been formed. However, the implementation time in our country is still relatively short, and most of them are the maintenance and reconstruction of a single large-heavy machine tool, lack of process specifications, and the market is also slightly confusing.

The reporter believes that the original intention of the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology to establish a pilot enterprise for remanufacturing is to hope to form a demonstration role for the future machine tool remanufacturing industry. This will not only help establish the industry standard for future remanufacturing of machine tools, but also help to increase users' confidence in the use of remanufactured products. After all, the selected pilot companies are superior in terms of qualification and other aspects.

The road to industrialization As the only private enterprise in the current pilot unit for machine tool remanufacturing, Huazhong Automation has obtained 23 sets of remanufacturing orders for heavy-duty and super-heavy-duty machine tools from January to October this year. Sales of remanufactured products accounted for total sales. More than 60%.

“Huazhong Auto Control should be considered as one of the earliest companies engaged in machine tool remanufacturing in China. At present, the remanufacturing business basically covers imported or domestic heavy-duty, super-heavy-duty machine tools, machining centers and special equipment.” Zhang Junnan, general manager of Huazhong Automation, said, January 2010 The company officially became the first batch of mechanical and electrical product remanufacturing pilot units of the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology. Currently, it specializes in the remanufacturing of machine tools and electro-hydraulic integrated machines, mainly for the remanufacturing of heavy-duty machine tools, super-heavy-duty machine tools, and the design and manufacture of special machines that meet the requirements of special processing technology.

Zhang Xiaonan told reporters that old machine tools generally have residual values ​​of 45% to 80%, mainly due to the strong durability of the bed, columns, and bases. Remanufacturing these main parts requires the consumption of large amounts of steel and energy. If you retain the main body, repair or replace damaged parts, you can create equipment with the same quality and even better performance as the new equipment.

Since most of the machine parts can be refurbished, the remanufacturing cost of large-scale machine tools is generally only about one-third of the cost of new machine purchases.

The remanufacturing of machine tools not only reduces the purchase cost, but also shortens the order period. If the remanufactured products can really meet the performance specifications of new products, it seems not difficult for customers to accept them.

In contrast, the reason for urging remanufacturers to deepen their efforts in the market is much simpler: profits. According to reports, the profit margin of the Wuzhong Remanufacturer's bed sheet has exceeded that of the new machine tool.

what does this mean? It is more profitable to rebuild an old machine than to build a new machine. Therefore, for machine tool remanufacturing companies, the most important test is the performance index of remanufactured products.

Huazhong Automation has remanufactured a 13-meter CNC gantry boring and milling machine imported from Germany in 1986 by the North Heavy Industries Group Corporation. According to Zhang Deqin, deputy general manager of Huazhong Automation Co., Ltd., this CNC gantry boring and milling machine has not been overhauled since it was installed. The NC system and electrical control components of the machine tool have been aged, the failure rate is high, accessories are not easy to purchase, and maintenance is difficult. The local wear of the machine tool part is serious, which leads to a reduction in the machining accuracy of the machine tool; the hydraulic components of the hydraulic control system are damaged or worn, which results in the loss of some of the functions of the machine tool and can not meet the machining accuracy of the parts and the actual needs of the factory production.

After more than three months of intense work, Huazhong Automation completed the remanufacturing of this 13-meter CNC gantry boring and milling machine. The result is that it not only improves the performance of the electrical control system of the machine tool and the reliability of the machine tool, but also restores the functions that the machine tool should have and the factory precision of the machine tool, and meets the precision requirements of the machined workpiece.

Talking about the experience of remanufacturing machine tools, Zhang Xiaonan believes that it is professional and focused to promote the development of the company. In December last year, Huazhong Automation passed the review of the remanufacturing pilot companies of the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology and became the only one of the four pilot enterprises in the machine tool industry. The "Machine Remanufacturing Pilot Implementation Plan" compiled by the company was rated as Class A by the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology Group. These achievements are all recognition of the company's efforts in machine tool remanufacturing. Zhang Yinan also very much agrees that the remanufacturing of machine tools will enter a period of vigorous development. For the next phase of development of Huazhong Automation, he told reporters that in order to further speed up the development of the machine tool remanufacturing business, since 2009, Central China Automation has invested 250 million yuan to open up more than 80 acres of machine tool remanufacturing production base. “At present, the main plant of the project has already been put into use. After the project is completed, it will have an annual production value of approximately 180 million yuan.”