Abstract:Non-woven fabrics are widely used by virtue of their high strength, wide range of applications, short production process, low comprehensive cost, etc., based on the advantages of non-woven production technology and product performance, the non-woven fabric industry has developed rapidly in the mainland, and China has become the world's largest producer and consumer of non-woven fabrics. In 2020, driven by the large increase in demand for downstream applications of non-woven fabrics during the epidemic, including masks and disposable hygiene products, the output of the non-woven fabric industry increased significantly, and in 2021, due to the more complex and severe external environment, the rise in commodity prices and shipping costs changed the cost structure of the industry, and the decline in demand for epidemic prevention materials and the huge production capacity led to intensified competition in the industry, and the output of non-woven fabrics declined. According to preliminary statistics from the China Industrial Textiles Industry Association, the output of non-woven fabrics in mainland China in 2022 will be 8.35 million tons, a year-on-year increase of 1.8%.
1. Definitions and Classification
Non-woven fabrics, also known as non-woven fabrics and non-woven fabrics, are sheets, webs or wadding pads made by orienting or randomly arranged fibers through rubbing, holding or bonding, or a combination of these methods. It is a kind of fabric that does not need to be spun and weaved, but the textile staple fiber or filament is oriented or randomly arranged to form a fiber network structure, and then reinforced by mechanical, hot adhesive or chemical methods, which has the characteristics of moisture-proof, breathable, flexible, lightweight, non-combustible, easy to decompose, non-toxic and non-irritating, rich in color, low in price, and recyclable. According to the different production processes of non-woven fabrics, non-woven fabrics can be mainly divided into spunlace non-woven fabrics, spunbond non-woven fabrics, needle-punched non-woven fabrics, chemically bonded non-woven fabrics, thermally bonded non-woven fabrics, etc., various process products have different characteristics, and the application fields are also correspondingly different.
Second, the business model
1. Procurement mode
Non-woven fabric industry enterprises in the procurement work of the implementation of budget management and plan management combined with the way of the company's production, R & D and other departments according to the use of the plan in a timely manner to develop the procurement plan and submit to the company's procurement department, the company's procurement department to the need to purchase raw materials to summarize and classify and arrange a special person to compare the procurement, the company's financial department is responsible for the entire procurement process of internal control and supervision and procurement fund scheduling. Generally speaking, the company has strict screening procedures for raw material suppliers, and maintains a good cooperative relationship with them in the form of establishing a list of qualified suppliers, so as to facilitate the allocation of goods and stable procurement of product quality. At the same time, the company will reserve a certain amount of inventory to cope with price fluctuations in the raw material market and sudden sales orders.
2. Production mode
Enterprises in the non-woven fabric industry generally adopt the production mode of sales and production, and the sales clerk will complete all the receipt and confirmation of customer orders for the next month before the end of this month, and submit the product marketing department to the production planning department for order review. For the trial production order of new products, the production planning department will cooperate with the R&D department to carry out product research and development, process formulation, and targeted product research and development, process formulation, etc. For regular production orders, the production planning department directly determines the production process according to the purchase and sale contract to formulate the production task list, and issues it to the production workshop, and arranges the production plan and quickly organizes the production by the special person, and the quality management department controls the whole process in accordance with the quality requirements to ensure that the product quality meets the needs of customers.
3. Sales model
The sales model of non-woven fabric enterprises is generally divided into direct sales model and distribution model. Under the direct sales model, the company generally signs a purchase and sale contract with the customer, and then the customer places the order by telephone, email, fax, etc., and the company fills in the order confirmation according to the user's requirements and submits it to the customer to sign and confirm, and at the same time issues a production task list to be organized by the production department. In view of the high cost of direct sales in some regions, and the risks of small scale and untimely payment collection of some downstream users, the company chooses to establish a trading business partnership with strong traders, and does not store the business model of consignment and agency. The company's product specifications are complete, excellent quality, and have accumulated a good reputation among customers, and customers will continue to introduce new customers to buy the company's products while establishing long-term cooperative relations with the company. In addition, while maintaining existing customer relationships, the company's sales team actively develops new customers through professional exhibitions at home and abroad, as well as the Internet and other channels.
3. Industry policy
In recent years, in order to promote the development of the non-woven fabric industry, the mainland has promulgated a number of relevant policies on supporting, encouraging and standardizing the non-woven industry, such as the "Outline of the 14th Five-Year Plan for National Economic and Social Development of the People's Republic of China and the Long-Range Objectives for 2035" issued by the National People's Congress, which proposes to expand the supply of high-quality products such as light industry and textiles, accelerate the transformation and upgrading of enterprises in key industries such as chemical industry and papermaking, and improve the green manufacturing system.
Fourth, industry barriers
1. Financial barriers
The non-woven fabric industry is a capital-intensive industry, and the investment cost of fixed assets such as proprietary equipment and spare parts required for the construction of the plant and production line in the early stage is larger, and the maintenance cost in the later stage is also higher, which requires the enterprise to have relatively strong financial strength, especially the advanced nature of the production line equipment largely determines the production capacity and quality of the enterprise's products. In addition, in production and operation, enterprises also need a large amount of working capital for business turnover, which improves the capital threshold for non-woven fabric production enterprises. With the development of the mainland non-woven industry increasingly standardized and industrialized, the industry concentration will gradually increase, non-woven industry enterprises in technology, equipment, talent and other aspects of investment is increasing, without a certain amount of capital, technical support and advanced management, is unable to gain a foothold in the increasingly fierce market competition, therefore, for enterprises entering the non-woven industry have higher capital and scale requirements.
2. Technical barriers
Independent research and development capability is one of the most important core competitiveness of the non-woven fabric industry, which plays a decisive role in the development of non-woven material production enterprises. The technology of the non-woven fabric industry is complex, involving textile engineering, textile materials, fluid mechanics, chemistry, polymer materials, pulp and paper, microorganisms, water treatment and other theoretical and applied disciplines, most well-known enterprises at home and abroad have independently developed a large number of patented technologies and unique technologies to ensure the quality of enterprise products. At the same time, the technology of the industry itself is in the stage of rapid development, the integration of technology in the industry, the rapid update of technology, the unique production process and technology has become the core competitive advantage of the non-woven fabric industry, and it is also the key element that new enterprises are difficult to have in a short period of time. From the perspective of the downstream development of the industry, the application of non-woven fabrics is becoming more and more extensive, and the functionality, quality stability and production technology differentiation of products have attracted more and more attention from downstream enterprises. This requires years of professional ability and technology accumulation in the industry, and at the same time, it needs to be gradually mastered after a long period of market practice and its own technical summary.
3. Talent barriers
As one of the emerging industries in China in recent years, the non-woven fabric industry inevitably has problems such as fewer professionals, lack of comprehensive talents, especially the scarcity of talents with comprehensive interdisciplinary technology. In particular, spunlace, hot air and filament microfiber nonwovens technology has a large professional span, which requires the cooperation of high-quality, high-skilled and experienced professionals in various fields to carry out product process design and product development. In the process of production and post-processing, a large number of skilled workers with rich production experience and high assembly technology level are also required. At present, the above professionals in the industry are mainly trained within the enterprise, and the training cycle is long, and it is difficult for new entrants to obtain technical and experienced industry talents in a short time.
4. Brand barriers
The product applications of the non-woven fabric industry are mainly concentrated in medical and health protection, civil hygiene, industrial base fabrics and electronics, filtration, packaging, beauty, stationery, decoration and other consumer fields, which require a long time to accumulate brand influence in order to have a stable customer base, and the suppliers of such customers are cautious, once the cooperative relationship is formed, it will not be easily replaced, so it is more willing to choose non-woven manufacturers with excellent quality and good reputation for long-term cooperation. In addition, the homogenization of the non-woven fabric industry is fiercely competitive, and if you want to stand out in the competition in the industry, in addition to the support of production technology, marketing channels, talents, funds, etc., the company's brand building and influence are particularly important. Due to low brand awareness, lack of production experience, and no good word-of-mouth effect, it is difficult for new entrants to gain competitive advantages.
Fifth, the industrial chain
From the perspective of the industry chain, the industrial chain of the non-woven fabric industry is mainly divided into three parts: upstream, middle and downstream, of which the production and supply of non-woven fabrics is located in the middle of the industry chain, the upstream is the raw material manufacturers and production line equipment manufacturers required for the production of non-woven fabrics, and the downstream is the deep processing of non-woven products, and its products are ultimately sold to terminal markets such as medical and health, civil cleaning, decoration and decoration, and industrial materials. From the upstream point of view, the upstream raw materials of the non-woven fabric industry are mainly polyester, nylon, polypropylene, Viscose fiber and other chemical fiber materials, these raw materials in the industry production enterprises, market competition is sufficient, raw material sources are sufficient, there is no scarcity of resources or individual enterprises monopolize the market, but when the overall price of the raw material industry fluctuates greatly, it will have a certain impact on the production and operation of enterprises in the industry and even product prices; Environmental protection and other industries are widely used, especially in the demand for sanitary materials in the market is gradually expanding, vehicle textiles, footwear and artificial leather market is also showing a new atmosphere, non-woven fabrics with its high value-added and high-efficiency competitive advantages, the industry has great potential.
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