High-value
Auto Lathe Machine innovation in industry does not happen on a whim. It does not happen on the whim of an engineer or the whim of an entrepreneur. Any major innovation in manufacturing involves huge investment and high risk. It requires motivation, pressure, knowledge, experience and support systems, and it must take place in some specific interrelated environment.
Therefore, Germany wants to make Industry 4.0 a national strategy, the US industrial giants are trying to promote industrial Internet, and the Chinese government is strongly promoting "Made in China 2025". Major industrial countries are sparing no effort to put in place frameworks and systems for industrial innovation and upgrading, and create various basic conditions.
The road of industrial
Lathe Machining innovation is not a clear and smooth road. The laggard faces high technical barriers of the leader, while the leader faces high uncertainty of the technological route. China, the United States and Germany have their own advantages in industrial system structure, but they all suffer from the innovator's dilemma to varying degrees.
The third echelon of manufacturing innovation
The global manufacturing industry has basically formed a four-tier development pattern: the first tier is the global scientific and technological innovation center led by the United States; The second tier is high-end manufacturing, including Germany, Japan; The third tier is mid - and low-end manufacturing, mainly in some emerging countries, including China; The fourth tier consists mainly of resource exporting countries, including OPEC, African and Latin American countries.
A new round of global industrial revolution is taking place. In the era of intelligent manufacturing or Industry 4.0, the integrated development of the new generation of information and communication technology and manufacturing industry is the main line of the new round of scientific and technological revolution and industrial transformation. In the process of reshaping the global manufacturing landscape, the position of the first tier (the United States) and the second tier (Germany and Japan) will be further consolidated, while the third tier (China) is expected to be upgraded and gradually integrated into the global manufacturing system. The key factor that determines the level and upgrading direction of a country's manufacturing industry is innovation-driven. And different paths of innovation drive, cost efficiency and business return vary greatly:
The United States emphasizes market-driven innovation
The IBM mainframe, born in the US, originally cost hundreds of thousands of dollars and was used by only a small group of professionals. Personal computers cut the price to $2,000, expanding the consumer base to several million people. Smartphones now cost just $200, expanding the consumer base to billions of people around the world. American innovators often create entirely new markets by making revolutionary improvements to complex or expensive products while advancing technological advances that increase production and lower costs, innovating business models, attracting new groups of consumers, and creating entirely new markets.
Germany and Japan focus on efficiency improvement innovation
For example, the final realization of "intelligent factory" and "intelligent production" requires innovators to interconnect and intelligently manage digital equipment such as
Cnc Machine tools, heat treatment equipment, robots, AGV, measurement and testing, etc. Germany, based on its strong embedded technology, industrial software and other advantages, In intelligent manufacturing equipment, process management, technology application and other aspects of the world's leading position. Japan outperformed process innovations, such as Toyota's zero-inventory production system, which reduced the company's two-year inventory cycle to two months and helped free up a lot of capital.
China emphasizes cost innovation
For example, Lenovo bought IBM's PC business, X86 server business and MOTOROLA Mobility business, saying that "hardware is also a good business." What makes Lenovo confident it can turn a loss-making hardware business into a profitable one? Most Chinese manufacturers are very good at "washcloth wringing water", one is to achieve a larger scale, in the procurement of raw materials will produce synergistic effect, reduce the procurement cost; Second, with the expansion of the scale, the expense rate will decrease significantly. For another example, Huawei requires its employees to "not reinvent the wheel" and emphasizes that "more than 30% of innovation is waste". This is Huawei's R&D strategy. The root of Huawei's high R&D efficiency is rapid "micro innovation", continuous optimization of mature products, and then quickly translated into commercial returns.
Why does China's manufacturing innovation still belong to the third tier?
The United States wins with innovative products, Germany and Japan win with innovative production systems and processes, and China wins with a late mover advantage (or following strategy). The authoritative "Industrial Blue Book: China's Industrial Competitiveness Report (2015)" issued by the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences pointed out that, as a developing country, compared with developed countries, China still has a large gap in industrial development level and scientific and technological innovation ability, and still has the advantage of late development. However, after China has become an upper middle-income country, it is more difficult to make use of the latecomer advantage than before. It cannot simply use the cost advantage and resource advantage to give full play to the latecomer advantage. Only through a certain degree of innovation can the potential latecomer advantage be explored.
Follow strategy and cost innovation
The innovation path and strategy of China's manufacturing industry to take advantage of the latecomer advantage are different between state-owned enterprises and private enterprises.
State-owned enterprises took the existing industrial categories and technical performance of the United States, Europe and Japan as "fixed targets" and concentrated their efforts to narrow the gap between production capacity and technology, and finally formed the industrial and technological following model. In this process, we strive to exchange the market for technology, realize the introduction, digestion and absorption (especially the localization of key parts), identify the core technologies that limit Chinese enterprises to obtain higher added value along the mature industrial chain, and then organize engineers to tackle the technical problems. The follow-through strategy has enabled Chinese industry to achieve breakthroughs in many core technological "points", such as China's high-speed rail and nuclear power industries, which have reached world-class levels and begun to attack the international market.
The "reverse innovation breakthrough" of industrial technology by exchanging market for technology has great limitations. Only the market with strong state control can get good technology. For example, the size of China's high-speed rail and nuclear power markets depends entirely on the scale of government investment. If the overseas technology exporting countries do not come up with a system of advanced technologies, they will lose their market share in China. However, for the market where the state does not have strong control, for example, China's automobile industry opened its market but could not replace it with good technology. The state cannot control which brand of car the Chinese prefer, and how much market share multinational car companies have in China has little to do with how much advanced technology they transfer.
Private enterprises' technological innovation is mainly oriented towards market returns. As long as the innovation strategy is right, Chinese manufacturers in Industry 1.0 can beat their international rivals in Industry 3.0. Take BYD, for example: BYD started out making batteries. Many years ago, founder Wang Chuanfu went to Japan with 2 million yuan to buy battery production lines and was surprised to find that a single line cost millions of dollars. For Chinese companies, not being able to buy production lines means the same thing as not being able to do this project. But Wang didn't see it that way. He knew what he wanted, after all, was to produce the batteries, not a specific production line. So he broke down the production process into manual steps and invented a "semi-automatic" production line, which uses "hand + tool" to make products at a cost of only 1 million yuan. Lithium-ion battery production is expensive because the entire production line must be enclosed in a clean room. Byd's designers figured out that it was the battery, not the person, that really kept the dust out, so they came up with a clear dust-free operating box with gloves on both ends. Because of this peculiar set of manufacturing methods, BYD's fixed-asset investment is one-fifteenth to one-tenth that of its Japanese peers, while its prices are 40% lower than those of its rivals.
China's private manufacturers often think they can do it, but in reality they act hastily, stumble to where they are today, and then indeed seize historical opportunities. Most private enterprises focus on business first and then technology. Once they have a business, they dare to raise money to buy technology. Moreover, they pay more attention to the practicality of technology and pay more attention to cost innovation.
Years of efforts to follow strategy and cost innovation have given China's manufacturing system considerable scale advantages. According to an investigation by the New York Times, Chinese industry has the most complete supply chain in the world. China is the only country in the world with all the industrial categories listed in the UN Industrial Classification (39 industrial categories, 191 medium categories and 525 sub-categories), forming a "complete and independent" industrial system. As small as screws and other basic parts, as large as communications, aerospace, high-speed rail, so that you can always use local materials, ready for shipment.
At the same time, as China moves towards the ranks of high-income countries, it has become very difficult for China's manufacturing sector to tap more potential from its latecomer advantage. When you're running behind, the technical path is clear, you know where the direction is, and you don't have to incur a lot of risk costs for the uncertainty of the technical direction. As you approach the leader (or become one), there will be layers of fog ahead of you. You can't always predict what the future will look like, you can only assume what the future will look like. If you get it right, you're there, leading the way in innovation. If you make the wrong assumption, you could fall into the same recession as SONY, Sharp and Panasonic. You choose the wrong direction, you use your resources in the wrong place, and of course you decline. Research and development resources in today's manufacturing industry are extremely expensive, and even the slightest misdirection can be a huge waste. But when you make technological innovations, how can you make sure you don't make mistakes? In the future, the innovation and development of China's manufacturing industry will face increasing trial and error costs.
Leading industrial ecology is more important than leading industrial chain
At present, the world is breeding an industrial upheaval with "intelligent manufacturing" as the core, and China's manufacturing industry has stood at a crossroads. 3D printing, intelligent robots, the Internet of Things and smart factories are coming one after another. "Made in China" is far less powerful than people think, and Western industry has not declined to the point of dependence on China.
Industrial powers in Europe and the United States are rushing to outline the blueprint of the "factory of the future" : for example, if you want a smart TV, you just need to open the APP, enter your customization requirements, the information will be sent to the factory, the factory will express the characteristics of the product into the data, and then through the calculation to arrange the distribution of materials, parts polishing and machine assembly. Most importantly, every component in this assembly line is made according to your will, it has its own identity, the machine interprets that information, adjusts it if it doesn't fit, and then automatically assembles it. Of course, almost no one was involved in the process.
Smart manufacturing aims to achieve the effect that your cola is sweetened according to your obesity level, your perfume is made according to your personality, the medicine you eat is formulated according to your genes... This meets today's people's pursuit of diversified and personalized products.
Under the general trend of intelligent manufacturing and industrial unmanned, the biggest innovation dilemma faced by the transformation and upgrading of China's manufacturing industry is the lack of "system dominance".
The key point of today's global industrial and technological competition has shifted from "industrial chain" to "industrial system (industrial ecosystem)". For example, who can master the core technology of aero-engine, who can control the key points of the aircraft industry chain, who can master the core technology of CPU chip, who can control the key points of the PC industry chain, this is the industry chain competition. However, intelligent manufacturing should not only control the key points of the industrial chain, but also control the key systems that form the industrial ecology.
In order to realize product customization and diversification through industry 4.0 or industrial Internet, massive data will be generated. Take the Amberg factory in Germany for example, there are more than 1,000 online monitoring nodes on its production line, and more than 50 million data are collected every day. How to monitor and track these data, sensor system and cloud computing system is very critical. It is necessary to have a high-sensitivity sensor that can accurately track the production process, and build an efficient and reliable cloud computing network. However, there are few manufacturers in the world that can supply high-end industrial sensors, and those who can provide complete cloud computing solutions are the Kings of The Times.
CPS (a multidimensional complex system that integrates computing, networking and physical environments) is seen by Germany as the core of Industry 4.0, which is the direction of German industrial innovation. Note: CPS is not a technology or software, but an action goal, an all-encompassing system engineering. Based on the Internet of everything, CPS coordinates the management of digital computing and physical processes, pursues the digitalization and virtualization of production and manufacturing systems, as well as the close connection and high consistency between digital virtual factories and actual factories.
CPS has brought global manufacturing into an era of "systemic competition", where different CPS (and corresponding industrial ecosystems) will compete fiercely for market dominance. If the system level, development direction is controlled by others, any local technology and solution (such as robots, sensors, etc.) will be twice the effort.
In this view, what are the core points of innovation and upgrading of China's manufacturing industry? China is more concerned about whether China will go through a large-scale "machine replacement" process like that in the United States and Europe. Can the huge stock in China's industrial system benefit China's industrial upgrading? What are the key links and micro-foundations for achieving the stock upgrading?
To raise these specific issues to a higher level, intelligent manufacturing, Industry 4.0 and industrial Internet have different concepts but the same direction. They are all systems engineering and systems competition. The result of losing the dominance of the system will be the subsequent knowledge-intensive services (maintenance, consulting, upgrading) will be surrendered to others.
The party that wins the dominance of the system, the human resources released after the realization of intelligent manufacturing and machine replacement, will enter the knowledge service field of higher value. If China loses the dominance of the system, machine replacement can only lead to the net reduction of jobs within the Chinese economy. China's manufacturing industry is still hovering in the low-end link of the industrial chain, and will be stuck in the third tier of global manufacturing innovation for a long time.
Flexible manufacturing to cope with global industrial changes
Since China's manufacturing industry has not mastered the system leading force, it is difficult to continue even the following strategy and cost innovation implemented for many years, and it has begun to encounter considerable innovation resistance. As the United States and Germany stand at the forefront of global industrial upheaval, it is inevitable that the road ahead is unclear, trial and error, and faced with different degrees of innovation dilemma.
American entrepreneurs are good at "zero-to-one innovation". Many innovations are disruptive, and one innovation will kill other similar industries. German entrepreneurs are stronger than "innovation from one to N" and focus on intermediate technology. Industry 4.0 is to improve the manufacturing level with more systematic, integrated and integrated ideas, which can make the manufacturing industry more precise and efficient. However, Germany has not introduced many advanced technology products, and the United States has introduced the most advanced technology products.
In the modern world of diversified and customized market demands, high-tech new products are being replaced faster and faster, which requires more and more flexibility in manufacturing.
Many large industrial enterprises have been subject to ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning). The highly automated ERP system has been applied to the German industrial field in a large scale for a long time, which can improve the integration but reduce the flexibility. The product is best not to modify, once to modify will encounter big trouble, because of the lack of adaptability. This is a big dilemma facing German manufacturing innovation.
The United States, which is highly innovative in science and technology, often suffers from a capital environment. Thanks to American investors' belief in the importance of capital efficiency, the financial world's tool for measuring profitability is no longer
