Since last year, cost pressures in the equipment manufacturing industry have mainly been driven by rising labor costs, while international market demand has also been contracting. As a result, many equipment manufacturers are abandoning traditional scale-based business models and turning to intelligent development to drive industry profits and core product competitiveness.

　　Pressure

　　The 10th China (Tianjin) International Equipment Manufacturing Exposition, held in Tianjin a few days ago, attracted many domestic and foreign exhibitors. The exhibition achieved impressive transaction volumes.

　　Yang Liuqiang, deputy general manager of exhibitor Nanyang International Trading (Shanghai) Co., Ltd., introduced that a large part of equipment manufacturers' sales relies on exhibitions. As the industry has recovered in recent years, many business opportunities can usually be found at exhibitions. His company's products have now opened up sales in the European market. Although export profits have declined, stable sales channels can be found as the pace of overseas market development accelerates.

　　However, Yang Liuqiang is somewhat worried about the industry's development prospects.

　　Yang Liuqiang believes that from 2009 to 2010, rising prices of raw materials such as steel were the main constraining factor, while in recent years it has been the rapid increase in labor costs. Affected by cost control, there is not much room for industry profit improvement.

　　Hartford Machinery Tianjin Co., Ltd. is Taiwan's largest professional manufacturer of machining centers and has a technology center in Tianjin. Xu Yong, deputy general manager of the company, said that last year the company set up a sales center in Tianjin, focusing on developing markets in North China and Northeast China.

　　Xu Yong believes that although raw material prices have declined somewhat in recent years, labor costs have risen sharply and become the most prominent cost pressure at present. "We hope to enhance product competitiveness by focusing on technological research and development, thereby alleviating cost pressure."

　　In fact, because the industry threshold is not high and industry association coordination tends to be business-oriented rather than mandatory, the problem of fierce competition has always existed, with a large part of production capacity concentrated in low-level repetitive construction. Many exhibitors hope to change the current situation of excessively low industry standards, and by raising industry standards not only improve overall product quality but also achieve an effect similar to good money driving out bad.

　　Mainstream

　　It is worth noting that intelligent production became the theme and focus of this exhibition. Many exhibitors brought equipment manufacturing products featuring automated production, intelligent recognition, and Android system control.

　　We have learned that the equipment manufacturing industry, as the foundation of manufacturing, has been affected by costs in recent years, with low profit margins and intelligence levels. "Without accelerating intelligent development and enhancing product competitiveness, it is difficult for enterprises to talk about development."

　　Xu Yong believes that the company has organized a research and development team of dozens of people in recent years, and the return on this investment is quite worthwhile. In fierce competition, capable large enterprises often stand out and gain a firm foothold at the high-end level of the industry, thereby obtaining higher profit returns.

　　As one of FAW Toyota's suppliers, Liu Li, head of the sales department at Tianjin Shenji Fixture Equipment Co., Ltd., said that the company has seized market opportunities in recent years and launched a batch of products in line with the intelligent development trend. Orders for these products were around 2 million yuan last year, and in just a few months this year they have already exceeded 4 million yuan. The trend of growth in production and sales of intelligent products is obvious.

　　We noted that companies in the robotics field such as Siemens, Yaskawa, Shanghai-Fanuc, and Dalian Guangyang Science & Technology all attended. Handling robots, welding robots, intelligent control robots, and programming robots exhibited on site became popular "new favorites" at the exhibition.

　　The exhibition also set up a special venue for global industrial robot displays, with nearly 200 related companies appearing. Vision robots, underwater robots, intelligent manipulators, programming robots, and material processing robots attracted many visitors to stop and watch.

　　According to forecasts by industry research institution Gaogong Industry Research, the output value space for China's industrial robots is 310 billion yuan to 688 billion yuan.

　　Experts analyze that the robot industry chain includes upstream key components, midstream complete machines, and downstream applications. Among these, China lacks upstream capabilities and has a large technology gap with foreign countries. Therefore, international robot companies are rushing to seize the Chinese market.

　　Advantages

　　It is understood that some regions are increasing industrial support as an important channel for achieving regional transformation and upgrading.

　　In the State Council's decision on accelerating the cultivation and development of strategic emerging industries, high-end equipment manufacturing is listed as one of China's strategic emerging industries. The "12th Five-Year Plan" proposal states that high-end equipment manufacturing should be discussed from the perspectives of manufacturing upgrading and emerging industries.

　　Regarding the prospects for intelligent development, a relevant person in charge of the Tianjin Binhai New Area Intelligent Manufacturing Industry Technology Innovation Strategic Alliance believes that Tianjin, as a key equipment manufacturing base in China, has a large gap in the use of industrial robots in fields such as shipbuilding and repair, aerospace, wind power energy, automotive equipment, port machinery, heavy equipment, large castings, electronic information, and biomanufacturing.

　　During the "12th Five-Year Plan" period, Tianjin will build five equipment manufacturing bases each with an output value exceeding 100 billion yuan, and will focus on creating 17 distinctive industrial clusters each worth 10 billion yuan in three major areas: automobile, machinery and equipment manufacturing and large castings and forgings, and high-end metal products.

　　A relevant person in charge of Zhenwei Exhibition Group said that Tianjin, as a key equipment manufacturing base in China, has huge market potential that has attracted increasing attention from international giants. In recent years, the rapidly developing industries in Tianjin, such as aerospace, electronic information, biopharmaceuticals, shipbuilding and repair, and port logistics, have generated huge demand for production equipment, which has also become a reason for attracting well-known domestic and foreign equipment manufacturing enterprises to settle in Tianjin.