Although the non-standard equipment industry as a whole is showing an obvious upward trend, the market space for non-standard equipment is vast, and even some traditional industries may become the market with the greatest potential. However, China has a large number of non-standard enterprises, a relatively small scale, outdated technology, and homogeneous competition, which are also obvious shortcomings. Moreover, there is a gap of at least 10-20 years between China and developed countries in this field.
New non-standard automation equipment is often mechatronics integrated equipment, fully utilizing the latest achievements of information technology. Some designers in Chinese companies are not familiar with electronic products and are afraid or unable to choose them, greatly limiting their level of improvement. Many core technologies are not truly independent, and relying on equipment imports is obviously difficult to reduce costs. At present, high-end products are still mainly imported from abroad.
According to market logic, the growing market space can improve the technological research and development level of enterprises and expand their scale, providing good development opportunities for enterprises. However, the objective situation is opposite. Domestic non-standard equipment enterprises have not broken out of the vicious cycle of low quality and low price, are still simply imitating, have not developed their own unique products or patented products, and have not accumulated more funds for the development of the enterprise. At present, the production of small workshops with more than ten people is still the mainstream form in the non-standard equipment industry.
Exploring Development Obstacles
The formation of anything has its subjective and objective reasons, and the mechanism of formation is complex and intricate. The current situation of non-standard equipment is also the result of the interaction of various elements. Although non-standard equipment is still a relatively healthy industry at present, the seven major obstacles facing us have increasingly affected the development of the non-standard automation equipment industry.
Non standard equipment cannot be mass-produced, and large enterprises are unwilling to do so, while small-scale enterprises can easily gain survival space.
Non standard equipment is equipment that has no standard to follow and is customized according to the production status of the enterprise. The equipment of Company A is often only suitable for Company A and cannot be mass-produced and replicated to Company B. Usually, it takes two to three months for a device of around 300000 RMB to meet the customer's requirements, receive design proposals from non-standard equipment manufacturers, discuss and determine the plan between both parties, sign a contract, produce design drawings, process components, and complete equipment assembly and acceptance. Because the input-output ratio is too low, large enterprises do not turn a blind eye to such trivial and long cycle small orders. However, such projects are quite attractive to small businesses with only a few people. A small-scale enterprise with sales, several mechanical engineers, and several software engineers is growing rapidly.
The market size of non-standard equipment has increased, but as the cake grows, there are more people dividing the cake.
In 2000, only some Taiwanese factories in the Pearl River Delta and Yangtze River Delta were well-known for producing non-standard equipment in China, with a total of around 30 factories. According to relevant statistical data, the estimated scale of non-standard equipment in that year was around 600 million, and these thirty companies accounted for about 70% of the market share. By 2012, there were over 70 non-standard equipment factories in Chang'an, a major hardware manufacturing city in China. There were countless small-scale non-standard equipment factories in China, with an order of magnitude of over ten thousand; The estimated market size has also increased to around 60 billion yuan. In a simple sentence, although the market size has increased by 100 times, manufacturers have increased by a thousand times. The newly added market is occupied by numerous small manufacturers. Unable to form a large-scale enterprise.
The threshold for non-standard equipment enterprises is low, and the quality of personnel varies.
Why are there so many non-standard manufacturers in the market? The reason is that the initial investment cost of non-standard equipment factories is relatively low, with an estimated total investment of around 300000 yuan. A non-standard equipment enterprise can be operated by just a few grinding machines, a few milling machines, and a few hundred square meters of house with just over 10 people. The usual entrepreneurial model for non-standard equipment factories involves two or three shareholders jointly investing, with one shareholder responsible for sales, one shareholder responsible for technology, and one shareholder responsible for after-sales service, without the involvement of large capital or enterprises. This situation leads to a relatively closed non-standard equipment industry, where the industry cannot be shuffled, and good coins cannot drive out bad coins, resulting in uneven quality of enterprises.
Adhering to the principle of borrowing, there is less innovation and research and development.
Domestic non-standard enterprises rarely have new inventions, creations, or applications. One important purpose for domestic enterprises to visit and participate in exhibitions both domestically and internationally is to discover new applications, processes, and technologies. This approach has very positive implications in many ways. He shortened the equipment gap between China and developed countries, improved the level of industrial and agricultural modernization, and thus reduced the labor intensity of the general public. However, it is undeniable that this kind of plagiarism under the guise of borrowing seriously reduces the enthusiasm of enterprises to develop new technologies and applications; Over time, it has affected the technological capabilities of China's automation equipment industry, making the core always in the hands of European and American enterprises. This has led us to rely on polluting the environment, selling physical strength, demolishing and building houses to develop our economy, which is a very sad thing. For long-term development, we must attach great importance to the protection of intellectual property rights, so that enterprises can obtain long-term and stable benefits from research and development. The non-standard equipment industry especially needs to protect intellectual property rights.
The requirements of enterprises for automation are still relatively basic, which restricts the development of non-standard automation industry to a higher level.
Under the pressure of human resource shortage, manufacturing enterprises have chosen automation. However, automation can be roughly divided into three stages from the perspective of saving human resources: semi automation, full automation, and the integration of automation and informatization. Based on cost considerations, many companies choose semi-automatic equipment, and slightly more complex processes are still manually completed. This type of semi-automatic product can be independently designed by someone who is familiar with mechatronics. The large demand for low-level automation has constrained the development of non-standard industries towards higher levels.
The industry is loose and has not formed organizational advantages.
There is no industry association established for non-standard equipment. As the saying goes, crying children have milk to eat. Without industry associations, it would be difficult for the government to hear voices from non-standard industries, and we would not receive any preferential policies, at least in terms of taxation. Various manufacturers are old and dead, not interacting with each other. Non standard equipment companies have a strong sense of vigilance, fearing that their technology will be learned by others, afraid that their customers will be taken away by others, and afraid that their key personnel will be poached by others. This lack of communication and collaboration has led to non-standard equipment increasingly falling into the trap of price competition. A non-standard enterprise should sell technology and solutions, but now many non-standard enterprises are discussing material costs and management expenses with customers. We should think that without technology, non-standard equipment is just a pile of scrap metal. Therefore, we should elaborate more on how much cost our non-standard equipment can save customers and improve efficiency. What we receive is a reasonable return on our mental labor.
The advantage of large-scale enterprises is not obvious.
Although small businesses are the mainstream of non-standard industries, there have also been some medium-sized non-standard enterprises with over 100 employees. These medium-sized non-standard enterprises have an annual output value of tens of millions, but due to management issues, design and equipment personnel have not shown sufficient sense of responsibility, resulting in unsatisfactory product quality performance for some medium-sized non-standard enterprises. Over time, many manufacturers have turned to small non-standard enterprises to purchase relatively inexpensive non-standard products.
At present, there are a large number of non-standard automation and mechanization enterprises in China, but their scale is relatively small, and their common characteristics are outdated technology and homogeneous competition. How to participate in the competition in this industry has become a challenge! Only when there are difficulties can there be opportunities. Faced with promising market prospects and development space, it is also a particularly attractive aspect of this industry. Enterprises that have gone through the early stages of survival will inevitably usher in rapid industry development.