China's industrial robots have to go a long way
Japanese media said that in China’s manufacturing front line, automation and it (Information Technology) have begun to expand, and China hopes that the domestic market share of industrial robots will increase from more than 30% in 2017 to 70% in 2025.
According to the report on the website of Japan economic news on July 31, statistics from the International Federation of robots (IFR) show that China surpassed Japan to become the world's first industrial robot market in 2013, and now the market size accounts for more than 30% of the world. Especially in factories producing high value-added products such as automobiles and electronic products.
"The per capita production efficiency will reach 2.6 times in five years," said Huang Gang, CEO of Shanghai Cambridge Technology, which manufactures routers and other communication equipment. The company started the automation of the factory in 2011. In order to ensure the smooth delivery of products, it introduced an automatic control system, forming a system that can cope with the shortage of labor.
According to the report, according to the statistics of Rui industrial, a Chinese survey company of industrial supplies, the scale of investment in Intelligent Manufacturing in 2018 increased by 46% over the previous year.
However, it is reported that Japanese and European enterprises have a strong sense of presence regarding manufacturers of industrial robots and machine tools used in the manufacturing line. According to the statistics of Rui industrial, in the Chinese market, foreign capital (excluding German KUKA owned by Chinese enterprises) such as FANUC and Yaskawa electric of Japan and abb of Switzerland account for more than 60%.
In China, there are many enterprises that only assemble foreign parts, but in the past decade or so, there have also been a number of emerging enterprises. A representative case is Xinsong Robot Automation Co., Ltd. with the Chinese Academy of Sciences as its parent, which has developed a high safety cooperative robot in which people share work nearby. Professor ichihiro Ogata of the Graduate School of Tohoku University in Japan, who is familiar with industrial robot technology, believes that "its performance is comparable to that of Japanese and European enterprises".
In addition, there are also enterprises that supply domestic products to small and medium-sized factories. In the field of metal welding robots, Huanyan automation equipment (Shanghai) Co., Ltd., established in 2014, has the largest supply volume as a domestic enterprise. Shi Hongwei, vice president of the company, confidently said that the sales price of each robot was less than half of that of a foreign-funded enterprise. In order to reduce costs, independent production was launched in some parts in 2019.
However, the report pointed out that at present, China's enterprises capable of competing with foreign capital in technology are in the minority. Some experts believe that "there are about 30 local industrial robot enterprises in China that can compete with foreign enterprises to a certain extent".
Lin Guangshu, director of Rui industry, believes that the technical barriers are still very high. Although the expansion of the market will promote the increase of the supply of local enterprises, the sense of existence of foreign-funded enterprises that have advantages in the field of industrial robots that need advanced technology and face automobiles and electronic products is still prominent. Even in 2025, the market share of China's domestic industrial robots will only slightly increase compared with the present.