China's industrial robot usher in a major explosion but the painful industry still exist

With the wave of "artificial intelligence", "machine OEM" has been gradually infiltrated into all fields of society, including the business, medical, education, finance, public security and other aspects of the law, especially in the industrial sector for the robot gap, but Can blindly follow the trend of many enterprises to capture the real point of economic growth? Usher in the veto but the painful industry still exist.

Demand for industrial robots in China has risen sharply

Recently, Luo Junjie, deputy director of the Ministry of Industry Equipment Industry, said that the first 10 months of this year, China's industrial robot production exceeded 100000 units for the first time, an increase of nearly 70%. It can be seen that in recent years, the demand for industrial robots in China has risen sharply.

According to IFR's World Robot Report 2017, the robotics industry in China is growing at an unprecedented rate and is becoming a leader in the global robotics industry. Data show that in 2016, China's sales of industrial robots increased by 27% to 87,000 units, accounting for nearly 1/3 of the world. Meanwhile, robot manufacturers in China are expanding their presence in the domestic market. From 2018 to 2020, the annual sales of robots in China are expected to increase by an average of 15% -20% annually.

It is understood that industrial robots are mainly used in the production of automobiles, auto parts, electrical and electronic products, chemicals, rubber and plastics, accounting for about 60% of the total production.

Behind a series of data reflects the rhythm of our country's transformation from "manufacturing a big country" to "building a powerful nation". The transformation and upgrading of traditional manufacturing industries are imperative. First, the demographic dividend gradually needs "machine OEM" to improve the workforce Insufficient status quo, therefore, has an urgent need for industrial robots; Second, the automated, intelligent equipment configuration to improve operational efficiency at the same time, but also better with the development of digital convergence.

Robot pain points still exist

From the data level to analyze the development of China's overall upward trend in robot development, but the reality is not optimistic. Gu Chunyuan, chairman and president of ABB China, said that the climax of the application of industrial robots in China has not really entered the era of full-scale explosion. The key lies in how to integrate relevant technologies from the fragmented state to the Chinese-made ones with the guidance of realistic and localized needs. Specific industries or processes.

In particular, in recent years, the "shortage of labor force" has forced the transformation and upgrading of labor-intensive industries, and the low-cost growth model previously built on the low wages, excessive labor intensity and poor employment environment of labor force has apparently been unable to adapt to the current environment. Today, manpower costs have risen sharply. Industrial robots, which step on the turning point of traditional intensive enterprises, can be said to have solved the pressing needs of many enterprises.

On August 23, 2017, the China Electronics Association released a report saying that it expects to sell more than 110,000 industrial robots in China this year, and at the same time, China's industrial robot market will reach 4.22 billion U.S. dollars in 2017.

However, some experts think that vigorously developing and applying industrial robots is the key to the transformation and upgrading of China's manufacturing industry. However, the interactive development of industrial robots and manufacturing industries in our country still faces many difficulties and many measures need to be taken to solve them.

At present, the industrial robots in the domestic market are more adapted to simple processes, and once engaged in more complicated processes, there will be a series of problems such as poor matching and poor application.

In addition, traditional robots in our country are more expensive and less flexible, and have not been widely used in the labor-intensive low-end manufacturing industry. China-made robots accounted for only one-third of the domestic market in 2016, and our country is mainly concentrated in mid- and high-end manufacturing industries such as automobiles, machine tools and electronics.

However, the problem is that high-end products are still dependent on imports; the overall weakness of independent innovation capability; the repeated construction of industries across the country; the standard testing and certification system remains to be improved; and these worries have become a common obstacle for the domestic robot enterprises from sharing the large market cake of Chinese robots.

In addition, Japan, known as the "Kingdom of Robotics", has set its sights on the Chinese market. It is hard to conceal its ambition of seeking a share of the domestic enterprises in terms of investing in factories or increasing production capacity.

The high-end robot market has become an oligopoly. The top four companies are abb, Kukah, Fanuc and Yasukawa, accounting for 60% of China's high-end market share. China's industrial robots belong to the lower reaches of the middle reaches. Their main businesses are processing, low barriers to entry and low-end high-end markets with economies of scale yet to be established.

In view of this, even though China's potential market for industrial robots is a blue ocean, it is no easy task for local enterprises to get ample opportunities into their arms.

In short, if the local enterprises in our country want to gain some gains in the field of industrial robots, we must first reduce procurement costs, and secondly, we should gradually fade the role of "processing" and gradually deepen our core technology to foster competitive technological advantages. However, The road to bottom-up advancement is full of thorns. It requires efficient coordination between the government and enterprises, as well as the enterprise's determination and pioneering spirit to take root in the technology field before it can better nudge the blue ocean market.