Construction machinery "cottage" road came to an end

In the recent earthquake relief in Japan, the pump truck with a length of 62 meters by Sany Heavy Industry and known to the Japanese media as the "big unicorn" had been with the 56-meter arm pump truck with the name of "Elephant" in Germany. Around the island nuclear power station, "Eight Immortals crosses the sea and each shows its own supernatural power." Since then, the intentions of 30 long-arm pump trucks have been handed over to Sany by the Japanese side. Although no one would be keen on topics such as success or failure between "big unicorn" and "elephant", it is exciting enough for Big Unicorn to show itself to the world at such a time.

With the rapid upgrading of industrial structure and the continuous improvement of technological research and development capabilities, the Chinese construction machinery industry has made great strides in high-end, large-scale and intelligent products, which not only completely breaks the long-term reliance on imports of large-scale and super-large construction machinery products. And the leading enterprises in the construction machinery industry represented by Sany Heavy Industry, Zoomlion, and XCMG Group are showing a strong upward momentum and increasing influence in the international construction machinery industry. The world-class 500-ton, 1,200-ton class all-terrain crane, 2,000-ton crawler crane, the world's longest boom concrete pump truck, and the world's largest horizontal boom slewing D5200-240 tower crane and other products The emergence of various industries has made China's construction machinery industry a representative of China's equipment manufacturing industry with the highest level and strongest core capabilities.

However, as Jun Jun, the chairman of the China Construction Machinery Industry Association, frankly stated that although China's construction machinery companies have made great progress over the years, there are still many advanced foreign companies in terms of technological level, technological innovation capability and product level. Not a small gap. China's construction machinery industry must focus on restructuring and development as the main line, vigorously promote the "adjustment transformation, innovation and upgrading" strategy, through the development of high-end, large-scale, intelligent construction machinery and key supporting system areas, to promote healthy and sustained rapid industry development of.

It should be soberly noticed that China’s construction machinery technology upgrades are mainly based on the external introduction of digestion and absorption. There are few original innovations and integrated innovation needs to be strengthened. In contrast with the rapid development of mainframe products, the development of basic components and basic processes has been lagging behind. The quality of basic components such as engines, transmissions, drive axles, high-pressure and large-flow pumps, valves, seals, and high-strength fasteners that are compatible with the host system is poor, and the specifications and specifications are incomplete. Special raw materials and other products have long been dependent on imports. China’s construction machinery must demonstrate competitiveness at a higher level. This “imperfection” must go forward.

The weak foundation has caused the technological “hollow” key components and the development of basic technologies to lag behind. It has become the “bottleneck” factor that has constrained the Chinese construction machinery industry to further enhance its competitiveness. To a certain extent, it has even become a difficult to crack. "Death knot."

Take an excavator for example. At present, the model of domestic excavator production is roughly as follows: Product integration supported by domestic and foreign purchaseable resources. In other words, the product is assembled from the "U.S. engine, the hydraulic system of Germany, the electronic control system of Japan, plus the domestic frame structure." Or is the "introduction - mapping - mapping - assembly - improvement - molding" cloning model. In the core work department and key components of the product, there is a large gap in the level of domestic products. This makes the "shanzhai" phenomenon of domestic brand excavators widespread. Because the key parts are subject to human beings, it is naturally a helpless choice for the production process. However, as a product manufacturer and assembler who just do not master the core technology, its development or sustainability is clearly insecure.

Some people in the industry pointed out that the current situation is not just to explore the issue of how to improve the level of key components, but to actively explore the issue of how long it will take to catch up with the world's advanced level.

It is reported that companies such as Sany Heavy Industry, Zoomlion, and Liugong have invested a lot of effort in developing high-pressure hydraulic devices. Some commentators believe that from the current R&D capabilities and progress of various companies, it will take three to five years or even longer to realize the local industrialization of high-level hydraulic devices. At the same time, however, some foreign-funded enterprises are accelerating the pace of investment and construction in China. Once the dominant position of such “monopolistic products” continues to be strengthened, the consequences for domestic companies are not hard to imagine.

In the opinion of experts, there are still many deficiencies in the independent innovation of construction machinery manufacturing:

The first is that there is a problem with the source of technology. In the technology supply chain of construction machinery manufacturing, the technology of an enterprise generally has three sources: it is provided by the public technology research platform of the society; the technology is formed through the introduction of technology and digestion and absorption of the enterprise; and the original technology of the enterprise is independent. With the reform of the science and technology system, research institutions originally belonging to the public nature of the industrial sector were transformed into enterprises. The determination of the operational status made it impossible for them to undertake common technical research. This makes the part of the original function of providing common technology for the majority of companies and providing technology to the industry. At the same time, from the country's entire innovation system, the industry's innovation system is lacking, resulting in the absence of structural common technical research. To solve this problem, it depends on the involvement and support of public resources.

Second, as the main body of independent innovation, but also the most active company, the role played in the innovation process is obviously insufficient. At present, the intensity of investment in R&D funds for domestic companies is low. Although there has been a marked increase over the past, the gap is far from those of foreign competitors. For example, the lack of high-performance benches and test methods is considered to be an important factor that restricts the development of the industry. Insiders pointed out that at present, domestic companies generally lack sophisticated technology, and the key is that the investment in experimental and testing platforms is not enough. The lack of experimentation has led to insufficient accumulation of data. Without database support, innovation has no way of talking about. Perhaps aware of this, some of the 10 million-level experimental stations have recently been built.