Localization of equipment manufacturing: basics become a bit

China's industry has been greatly encouraged by the fact that China has set a new record for the shortest manufacturing cycle of large-size forged welding vessels. Excited, there are also insiders pointed out that the large-scale petrochemical equipment manufacturers have put forward high requirements, China's relatively low development in the field of high-strength steel plate and other basic materials, or will drag the entire industry behind.

Industry concerns are not without reason. "The nine-story platform started from the land." Obviously, to achieve the localization of major technical equipment, we need to start from every basic material and every basic component.

The concerns of the industry are not unique to the petrochemical equipment industry but also a common problem in the domestic equipment manufacturing industry. Not long ago, at a third-generation nuclear power equipment autonomy conference, the author heard from industry insiders that in the process of R&D of nuclear power equipment, companies paid more attention to the problems of large-scale forgings, but did not pay enough attention to small parts. At the same time, there are also problems with insufficient supply of raw materials such as welding consumables and plates.

In the analysis of the economic operation of the electrical industry in 2009, the China National Electrical Equipment Industry Association also put forward: While the power generation and the localization of power transmission and transformation equipment are increasing, many important raw materials and basic components (large-scale castings and forgings for high-power and high-parameter power generation equipment) , Boiler steel plates, special-shaped special steel tubes, and large-scale transformers used for steel sheet, magnet wire, casing and even transformer oil, etc.) must also rely on imports, should pay attention to and solve them.

This situation even extends to the machine tool industry, which is known as the "industrial mother machine." The machine tool is an industry that provides equipment manufacturing equipment. It requires a lot of high-precision, high-performance bearings. A domestic machine tool company can produce more than 50,000 machine tools a year, which may require hundreds of thousands of bearings a year. However, high-precision bearings cannot be solved domestically. Imports from foreign countries not only have high prices but also have long delivery times. More importantly, the bearing performance is directly related to the performance of the machine tool.

This may have become a scar on the domestic equipment manufacturing industry. All along, we only pay attention to the whole machine and do not pay attention to the basic functional components. On the surface, large-scale equipment seems to be able to do, but it is repeatedly imported on the basis of parts. Although these basic parts are not large, they are very valuable. As a result, the bulk of profits are given to others.

In ancient Greek mythology there is a story of "the Achilles heel". Achilles battled bravely, but only because of the seemingly insignificant weakness of the heel, he eventually lost his life. The basic materials and basic components are the "top of Achilles" in China's equipment manufacturing industry. As industry insiders say, the basic part is actually the carrier of the core technology. If we can not achieve technological breakthroughs in the basic components, it means that the core technology is still in the hands of others. Basic components actually determine the level of development in this industry.

The length of the equipment manufacturing industry chain, steelmaking, casting, forging, heat treatment, cold processing... also involves many aspects such as design, craftsmanship, management, etc. Only the internal rules of every link in the industrial chain are mastered, and only parts and basic materials are valued and encouraged. Research and development can only realize the perfect machine if it is clear about the “technical mysteries” hidden inside the machine.

For China's equipment manufacturing industry, which shoulders the burden of localization, “there is no single spring but a thousand springs and a thousand springs.” Not only do we need breakthroughs in individual fields, but we also need to improve the overall level of the industry as a whole. Otherwise, the foundation is not strong, and it will be far.