Text/Ball Review/Zi Yang Correction/Zhi Qiu
Industrial robots are known as the "pearls of manufacturing" and are important equipment for realizing the intelligent and digital transformation of traditional industrial manufacturing.
At present, the mainland has become the world's largest industrial robot market, according to the data released by China Electronics, in 2021, the size of the domestic industrial robot market reached 83.9 billion yuan.
Behind the prosperity of industrial robots in the mainland, it shows the rapid development speed of China's manufacturing industry, and almost every modern factory in China can see the figure of industrial robots.
The core technology of industrial robots is controlled by Japan and Europe
From the above point of view, industrial robots play a key role in the development of manufacturing, and as a result, the field has also become a "big cake" for major industrial countries around the world, and some companies in Japan and Europe have almost monopolized the entire industrial robot industry.
Of course, since the mainland is the world's largest industrial robot market, it naturally has the ability to produce the equipment, but in the manufacturing technology of multiple core components of industrial robots, domestic related enterprises need to rely on purchasing from Japanese and European enterprises, especially the three core components of reducers, servo motors and controllers, and are highly dependent on Japanese and European enterprises.
According to the author's understanding, the three core components of the above-mentioned industrial robots, in an industrial robot, the production cost accounts for more than 60%, and these parts are precision high-end components, which require extremely high industrial strength of production enterprises, and the core technologies are controlled by the old industrial enterprises in Japan and Europe.
It should be known that parts such as reducers require enterprises to master a large number of core technologies and continuously iterate in order to succeed in research and development.
Due to the late start of related enterprises in the field of industrial robots in the mainland, the reserves in the core technology of parts and components are weak, and it is difficult to achieve technological breakthroughs in a short period of time.
How to break through domestic robots
Looking at the development of the industrial robot industry in the mainland, the problem is mainly concentrated in two major aspects; on the one hand, the domestically independently developed robots cannot be sold; on the other hand, some small and medium-sized enterprises cannot afford industrial robots.
To put it simply, although some large industrial manufacturing enterprises have sufficient funds to buy industrial robots, they have become accustomed to using foreign brands, resulting in the inability to sell industrial robots independently produced in the mainland, and the return of funds is slow.
Some small enterprises lack investment motivation, coupled with the high operating threshold, so there is a phenomenon that industrial robots cannot be bought.
So, how should domestic robots break through? In the author's view, the market share of domestic industrial robots is too low and the strength is weak, and it is difficult to confront foreign companies head-on.
In the face of this situation, the relevant departments of the mainland must introduce relevant strategies to encourage large state-owned enterprise manufacturing companies to use domestically manufactured robots, so that they can play a demonstration role in the entire manufacturing industry, and in the long run, more and more companies will choose to use domestic robots to provide a good environment for domestic robot companies to accumulate technology.
For small and medium-sized micro and medium-sized manufacturing enterprises that "can't afford", the author believes that the relevant departments can introduce subsidy policies to allow more domestic robots to enter the production lines of small and medium-sized enterprises.
However, it needs to be understood that the main reason why domestic industrial robots are "unable to sell" and "cannot afford" is that the core technology cannot be independent.
As mentioned above, the reducer and servo motor and the controller need to be highly dependent on imports, and the introduction price of one of the reducers is as high as 80,000 yuan, so that the cost of industrial robots produced by domestic enterprises cannot be reduced, resulting in a situation of "unaffordable".
The author believes that while the relevant departments in the mainland have introduced support policies for industrial robots, domestic related enterprises should also accelerate the research and development of core technologies.
It is worth mentioning that domestic related companies have also chosen to help domestic robots break through in an alternative way, such as Midea, which successfully acquired KUKA, one of the so-called "four major families of industrial robots" in 2017.
It should be known that KUKA's strength in the field of global industrial robots is not weak, and its products have also entered the Boeing 787 passenger aircraft, and the core technology of many industrial robots is mastered in its hands.
In other words, after the successful acquisition of KUKA by the United States, it can further contribute to the rise of domestic industrial robots.
Write to the end
At present, the industrial chain of industrial robots in the mainland is in full swing, and the good news of technological breakthroughs continues to come.
With the development of science and technology, a new generation of information technology, artificial intelligence, new materials, etc. are deeply integrated with industrial robots, and the future development of the industrial robot industry will be more rapid.
For domestic related enterprises, it is necessary to seize the changes in the technological era, further promote domestic robots to high-end, and completely break the monopoly situation of Western enterprises such as Japan and Europe.
So, do you think domestic industrial robots can achieve a breakthrough?