Since 2017, global tire and non-tire industry has gradually stopped decline and the demand for rubber machinery has increased, which make Chinese rubber machinery industry face development opportunity. Meanwhile, for sustainable improvement, Chinese rubber machinery industry must have transformation and upgrading to solve the problem that the quality and brand of its own are not balanced and not fully developed. This is the conclusion made on the 2017 Rubber Machinery Annual Meeting and Quality and Brand Promotion Experience Exchange held in Guilin recently.
Downstream Industry Proposing New Requirements for Rubber Machinery
Zhang Hongbo, director of China Chemical Industrial Equipment Association Rubber Machinery Specialized Committee, expressed that in recent 3 years, as the transformation and upgrading of Chinese rubber products (such as tire) industries quickened, higher requirements were proposed for rubber machinery, which were prominently manifested in three aspects: firstly, the quality requirement was high; secondly, the requirement for intelligent degree was high; and thirdly, the requirement for energy conservation and environmental protection was high. Meanwhile, the characteristics of the demand of the downstream industry also changed, which were manifested as multiple overseas projects, many non-tire rubber products projects and small demand batch.
Zhang Hongbo thought that this was both opportunity and challenge for rubber machinery industry. Chinese rubber machinery industry had walked out of the stage where the social production could not satisfy the downstream demand, thus facing opportunity, only by carrying out transformation and upgrading, improving product quality, stabilizing product quality and building product brand could we “compete” with international famous rubber machinery enterprises in the international market. “Quality and brand become the focuses of Chinese rubber machinery industry at present and also are the problems Chinese rubber machinery industry must solve for development.”
In recent years, Chinese import of rubber machinery has had a sharp rebound, meanwhile, overseas brand rubber machinery enterprises have obtained rapid development in China, for example, the vulcanizer capacity of Japan Mitsubishi Heavy Industries Changzhou Factory exceeds 300 sets, Japan KOBELCO sells dozens of internal mixers in China each year, and the Netherlands VMI sells 50~60 forming machines in China each year.
“Why domestic enterprises prefer foreign brands? What’s wrong with domestic rubber machinery enterprises?” Zhang Hongbo thought that the overall strength and
level of Chinese tire industry had been comprehensively improved, to guarantee the product quality, the requirement for rubber machinery was higher, and selection of imported equipment was appropriate. Although domestic equipment seemed to be innovated and developed in recent years on the surface, the product quality, especially in standardization and stability, was not largely improved, and some equipment even fell behind.
“Product quality is the life of the enterprise, and quality and brand are in a complementary relationship. Without good quality and brand, it is difficult for Chinese rubber machinery products to be recognized by transnational tire companies, and carrying out international operation becomes nothing but empty talk.” Zhang Hongbo said.
There being Numerous Highlights in Transformation and Upgrading of Rubber Machinery Enterprises
As introduced by Zhang Hongbo, some rubber machinery enterprises in China took quality and brand improvement as the highest priority, many highlights occurred and were worth learning from.
For example, Guilin Zhonghao Lichuang Electromechanical Equipment Co., Ltd. paid attention to the details of the products, included the requirements of high-end clients at home and abroad into the product specification and popularized in each product. In the first eight months of 2017, this company newly signed 19 cutting production lines with the clients, in which 12 production lines were for export, the products were in short supply to become one of the products with relatively high cost performance.
After being identified as the first batch of national “pilot enterprises for cultivation of industrial enterprise brands” in 2012, Tianjin Saixiang Technology Co., Ltd. emphasized the strategy of brand combination, focused on building brand establishment system, constantly deepened the brand connotation, vigorously publicized “TST” trademark in overseas market and gradually cultivated and formed the rubber machinery products and service brands with the characteristics of Saixiang.
Instructed by the experts of Krauss Maffei Company, Guilin Rubber Machinery Co., Ltd. combined German “craftsman” spirit with Japanese “6S”, optimized in multiple aspects such as design and assembling and stepped on a new level in quality improvement, processing optimization, etc.
MESNAC innovated on the basis of traditional high quality, high efficiency, high stability and maintainability, integrated into “intelligent” and “integrated” innovation to build world-level brand, and has developed into the second largest rubber machinery manufacturer in the world.
Sustainable Improvement Requiring Quality and Brand Support
“Chinese rubber machinery industry faces five opportunities and six challenges.” Zhang Hongbo said. Five opportunities include: national “the Belt and Road” strategic opportunity, environmental control opportunity, tire industry transformation and upgrading opportunity, intelligentization opportunity and global purchase opportunity of world tire giant. And six challenges faced include: slight growth and de-capacity of tire industry, structural overcapacity of rubber machinery, low stability and automation degree of the products, rapid development of solely-owned or wholly-owned factory of world brand rubber machinery supplier, breakthrough revolution of world tire manufacturing technique’s influence on demand of rubber machinery, and anti-dumping of the countries such as India on Chinese rubber machinery.
Therefore, rubber machinery industry must make enough efforts in five aspects. Firstly, carry out structural adjustment, put effort to eliminated the outdated high-energy-consumption rubber machinery, carry out upgrading and transformation of the first generation of radial tire equipment, equip the tire industry with brand-new full-automatic equipment, especially occupy the leading position with high-end equipment to reach the purpose of environmental protection and energy conservation as well as high efficiency and safety.
Secondly, cultivate the spirit of “craftsman”, enhance the standard design and production of the products and include advanced technologies into the standard and improve the stability of the equipment, the first product shall be the same with the 100th product.
Thirdly, improve the automatic control level of rubber machinery, apply the information network technology to solve the problem of automation isolated island, and realize the uniform information collection and treatment of the whole production line.
Fourthly, realize overall gearing of standard, design, manufacturing, sale and service with the world, and strive for more commercial opportunities.
Fifthly, grasp the opportunity of “the Belt and Road”, accelerate exploitation of international market, establish the concept of global big market, and cultivate world-class enterprises with core competitiveness, truly go out, develop into cross-border enterprises and become the strong in the market competition.
(by Chen Weifang)
