The growth of the mold industry can be the key to high-end products

“In 2010, the total sales of molds in China reached about 112 billion yuan, an increase of over 14% over the previous year.” Qin Ke, Deputy Secretary-General of the China Die and Mould Industry Association, told reporters that this indicates that China's mold industry has recovered well in the post-crisis period. With the growth of sex, the growth rate has once again reached a double digit.

Small, fine, industry-specific

Qin Ke said that the mold is an extremely important and indispensable special basic process equipment in industrial production. To develop the industry, molds must go first. And because the mold manufacturing process integrates precision manufacturing, computer technology, intelligent control and green manufacturing, it is both a high-tech carrier and a high-tech product. Due to the high production efficiency, high consistency, low energy consumption and high energy consumption of the parts produced in batch using moulds, as well as their high precision and complexity, they have been increasingly valued by the industrial production departments of the national economy.

Most of the molds are produced for specific users. Therefore, compared with general industrial products, the mold enterprises have a large quantity and small scale, and are mostly small and medium enterprises. The technical content of mold products is high, the ratio of activated labor is high, the value-added rate is high, and the production cycle is long. Therefore, the mold manufacturing industry has a technology-intensive and capital-intensive, balanced production and enterprise management difficulty, and has a special dependence on specific users. , VAT load, slow accumulation of corporate funds, and long investment recovery period. Due to the wide variety of mold products, the great disparity in size, and the different requirements, the development of mold enterprises is suitable for “small and refined, small and specialized, small and special”; the development of the industry is suitable for agglomeration and cluster development to build strong Collaborative supporting system. This is one of the important features of the mold industry.

According to the data of China's industrial census in 2008, there are about 30,000 mold manufacturing companies (plants and factories) nationwide and nearly 1 million employees. Among them, there are more than 2,800 enterprises with a main income of more than 5 million yuan in the mold manufacturing industry. More than 400,000 people.

She said that in the past, the production and processing of molds mainly relied on fitters or extensive workshop-type production management models centered on fitters. Now it is gradually being replaced by an intensive, modern production management model that relies on technology and centers on design. The traditional concept of mold products is also being replaced by the concept of high-tech products such as smart molds.

Since the 10th Five-Year Plan, under the support and guidance of state policies, the mold industry has invested a lot, the level and strength of the company's equipment have greatly improved, production technology has made great progress, CAD/CAM technology has become widespread, and hot runner technology and multiplexing Progressive stamping technology has been better promoted; digital technologies such as CAE, CAPP, PLM, and ERP have been adopted by some companies and have received good results; high-speed processing, concurrent engineering, reverse engineering, virtual manufacturing, and non-map production. Standardized production has been implemented in some key enterprises.

Advances in technology have led to a significant increase in the level of mold products in recent years, and the trend towards high-end development is more pronounced. Some mold products have reached or approached the world's advanced level, among which are representative giant molds with a single set of mold weight up to 120 tons, ultra-precision molds with machining accuracy of 0.3-0.5 μm and a service life of 300-400 million times. Long-life molds, high-speed precision stamping dies that can be matched with high-speed punches of 2500 beats per minute, multi-material, multi-process forming multi-functional composite molds, intelligent molds capable of intelligent control, etc.

However, from the point of view of mold production and demand, the middle and low-end molds have been oversupply, and the high-tech mold self-sufficiency rate represented mainly by large-scale, sophisticated, complex, long-life molds is still low, only about 60%, and a large part still depends on it. import. At present, the total mold sales account for the largest proportion of plastic molds, accounting for about 45%; stamping molds account for about 37%; casting molds account for about 9%; and other types of molds total about 9%.

Qin Ke told reporters that the operating characteristics of the mold industry in 2010 showed that the structural adjustment of the industry over the past five years has achieved results. From the understanding of the Association, it can be clearly seen that large-scale, precision, high-efficiency, and high-performance molds are the main representatives. The proportion of medium-to-high-end molds continues to rise, and the product level has been greatly improved. At the 13th International Mould Technology and Equipment Exhibition in 2010, there were 181 molds that received the “premier mold” award, including 55 first-prizes and 64 second-class molds, not only a larger increase in quantity than before. Moreover, the level has also been greatly improved. More and more projects have reached the international level, innovation is evident, and patents have increased. The gap between the average price of imports and exports of moulds is continuously shrinking, which also reflects the improvement of the general level of the mold industry in China and the progress of science and technology.

Prospects can be expected

In 2010, China’s per capita plastic consumption was about 46 kg, which was only 1/3 of that in developed countries. This indicates that China’s plastic products industry will continue to develop rapidly during the “12th Five-Year Plan” period; Under the inevitable trend of plastic and wood, the engineering plastics industry is expected to maintain an average annual growth rate of 15% during the 12th Five-Year Plan period. From this it can be imagined that the plastic molds with the highest proportion of the total mold will also develop at a relatively high growth rate during the “12th Five-Year Plan” period.

In addition, as the automotive industry with the largest amount of molds, it is expected that during the 12th Five-Year Plan period, it will grow at an average annual growth rate of about 10%, plus China’s huge motor vehicle ownership (the end of 2009 was 186 million vehicles, of which 7619.3 The maintenance spare parts market and export market driven by 10,000 vehicles and 94.53 million motorcycles will also maintain a high growth rate for China's auto parts and components on the basis of a huge market of 1.5 trillion yuan. During the period, the average annual growth rate of automotive molds will not be less than 10%, and the average annual growth rate of rubber molds, including automobile tire molds, will reach more than 10%.

The electronic and information industry is also a large user of the mold. The “12th Five-Year Plan” is expected to have an average annual growth rate of around 20%. Rail transit, aerospace, new energy, medical equipment, building materials and other industries will also bring huge market for molds. For example, medical devices currently account for only 2% of the world's share. The consumption ratio of drugs and medical devices is only 2.5:1, while that of developed countries is 1:1. The per capita annual consumption of medical plastics in the United States is US$300, and China only has 30 yuan, showing the potential for development.

Therefore, according to the estimates of China Die & Mould Industry Association, the total mold sales in China may reach 174 billion yuan by 2015, of which the proportion of high-grade molds will reach 40%.

In the international market, due to the continuous increase in labor costs in industrialized countries, they are forced to transfer molds to developing countries, especially developing countries like China, which have a relatively good technological foundation, in order to reduce production costs. The trend of multinational companies coming to China to purchase molds is still in development, and the development of international emerging markets is also promising.

However, the market demands more and more molds in development. For example, emerging industries such as automobile lightweighting, intelligent shaping, and new energy, aerospace, biomedicine, rail transit, and smart grid are the key development priorities of the country during the “12th Five-Year Plan”. The molds needed to focus on these priorities are also natural to the mold industry. Many of these development priorities require new development, and many technologies require breakthroughs. This should be used as a breakthrough to drive the overall level of the industry.

China's mold life is low (fine die life is generally only about 1/3 of the advanced level of foreign countries), long production cycle, poor quality reliability and stability and other problems that have long plagued the industry development need to be resolved next. At the same time, China still has a large gap in research and development capabilities, personnel quality, research on the basic theory and technology of mold design and manufacturing, etc., resulting in slower development of new mold areas and new product development, and high technology. The proportion of mold content is much lower than that of foreign countries (about 60% in foreign countries and less than 40% in China).

Qin Ke told reporters that the mold export exceeded US$100 million and we spent more than 10 years. From US$100 million to US$1 billion, it took us 7 years, and now exports have approached US$2 billion. It can be said that China’s mold industry already has A considerable basis.

However, the base figure is large. To achieve the goal of doubling exports in the “Twelfth Five-Year Plan” period, we must actively cultivate export bases and key export enterprises. Of course, the expansion of foreign trade and the development of exports are not only aimed at reaching the export target of 4 billion U.S. dollars. What is more important is to achieve the integration with the international market through the completion of this task, so as to promote the improvement of China's mold technology and comprehensive industry level. .