China Heavy Machinery Association market report shows that although the financial crisis has had a certain impact on the development of the industry, the growth rate of the total output value of lifting machinery in 2008 remained above 30%. This is the sixth consecutive year since 2003, the lifting machinery manufacturing industry has maintained a growth rate of more than 30%.
The rapid development of the lifting machinery industry has also promoted the application of automation products in this industry. Affected by the world economic crisis, the global economy is showing a weak trend, resulting in a relative shortage of funds for some European and American users, and the operation cycle is lengthened, prompting them to need high-altitude work platform products with better performance and low price. This is an opportunity and a challenge for Chinese crane manufacturers. Faced with this challenge, many lifting machinery manufacturers have made it clear that they will accelerate the application of automation products in lifting machinery to cope with competition from domestic and foreign markets. For China's lifting machinery manufacturing industry, where the level of automation application is not high, this undoubtedly provides a huge emerging market for automation products.
The prospect of hoisting machinery industry is promising
Relevant surveys show that in 2007, the total output value of the lifting machinery industry reached 217.475 billion yuan. From January to September 2008, the total output value of the lifting machinery industry reached 2042.45, an increase of 31.49%. In 2009, the growth rate of the lifting machinery industry will decline slightly. Xu Shanji, executive vice president of China Heavy Machinery Association, said in an interview with reporters recently that although the order quantity of most enterprises has decreased by more than 20% compared with the same period last year, it is expected that the sales growth of crane industry in 2009 will remain at around 15%.
Because of the "Eleventh Five-Year Plan" will be energy, power, petrochemical, metallurgy, shipbuilding, transportation and other industrial fields as the focus of development, and the rapid development of these industries, are inseparable from the lifting and transportation equipment, which ensures that the lifting and transportation machinery industry told the growth momentum during this period, according to expected estimates, the growth rate may exceed 15%. With the increasing demand for material handling equipment in the world market, the competitiveness of Chinese enterprises in the international market is also increasing. Experts predict that by 2010, the export value of material handling equipment will reach 6.5 billion US dollars, with an annual growth rate of 12.5%, and the import value of the Chinese market will reach 4.6 billion US dollars, with an annual growth rate of 11%.
At the same time of total growth, the technical content of the lifting and transportation industry has also been significantly improved with the driving force of international market competition. As the scale of industrial production continues to expand, production efficiency is increasing, the proportion of material handling costs in the production process is gradually increasing, and the demand for large, high-speed and automated cranes is also growing. The lifting capacity of the crane is getting larger and larger, the working speed is getting faster and faster, the degree of automation is getting higher and higher, and higher requirements for energy consumption and reliability will be put forward. Crane workflow has become an important part of automated production processes. Experts pointed out that the future crane technology will develop in the following direction: Easy operation, easy maintenance, low energy consumption, higher safety and reliability, excellent durability, no fault, easy maintenance and economic use.
In addition, some industry experts pointed out that in the face of the international financial crisis, although the policy of stimulating domestic demand and loose monetary policy will promote the economic development of the heavy machinery industry, attention should be paid to controlling and adjusting the economic development speed of the industry and enterprises, especially to prevent the excessive scale of investment in fixed assets in the industry and the repeated construction of production capacity.
Independent development capability needs to be improved
Affected by the economic crisis, the operation of lifting machinery enterprises are also facing many challenges. The reporter learned that at present, the operation of large and medium-sized enterprises in domestic lifting machinery enterprises is in good condition, but some smaller enterprises have suffered serious impact. In addition to some small enterprises manufacturing gantry cranes in production, semi-discontinued state, there are some small enterprises producing belt conveyors operating conditions are also very difficult. For the current industry decline, Xu Shanji, chairman said that although the economic crisis has caused a certain impact on the entire industry, but also conducive to the restructuring and integration of the industry,"eliminated some small enterprises with weak competitiveness is beneficial to the development of the industry."”
Due to the early start to adjust the industrial structure, technological transformation, China's "eight heavy machinery" enterprises by the crisis is relatively small, which also shows from another aspect of enterprise transformation and enhance the importance of independent development capabilities. Relevant personnel of Beijing Heavy Industry pointed out that from the perspective of production costs, at present, the steel price advantage between domestic and developed countries has been greatly weakened, but the difference between human resources costs still exists, which can become a major advantage of China's lifting machinery industry. However, if we want to enter the European and American markets smoothly, we must work hard on product performance, especially product safety and operability. Improve product performance, while optimizing the design of existing products, and strive to reduce costs while ensuring their performance, so that Chinese products can be competitive in the international market.
Wang Jianye, chairman of China's heavy machinery industry, also pointed out that the domestic heavy machinery industry should focus on improving its independent development capability, especially to strengthen cooperation with units that master production technology. Only by mastering good manufacturing technology and production process technology can we develop effective control technology. At present, there is still such a problem in China: The product sells well, but the key technology is not your own. Among them, the key technology, especially the control technology, has not been fully mastered in China, and most of them use the technology and components of Siemens and ABB. Therefore, the independent research and development of the integrated technology and components of the control system will become a direction for the relevant technical personnel in China in the future.
The market potential of automation products is huge
As one of the equipment with a wide range of applications, the rapid growth of the crane industry has brought a high growth space for automation products, but it is also inseparable from the support of automation products and technologies.
With the rapid development of China's economy, the lifting machinery manufacturing industry has made considerable progress, but compared with the international level, the overall automation application level of China's lifting machinery industry is not high. Reporters through the survey found that the lifting machinery manufacturing industry practitioners, especially technical personnel on automation products and technology awareness is not high, and even crane engineers exist "our motion control using hydraulic control, not automation products" such understanding, but do not understand what is automation products.
At present, the automation products used in the lifting machinery industry mainly include transmission systems, control systems, sensors, low-voltage electrical appliances and safety protection systems. Among them, PLC as the mainstream controller of lifting machinery, in addition to the use of relay control of some simple products, all other cranes use PLC control, as well as supporting man-machine interface operating system. Relevant surveys show that large port machines usually use large PLCs and field buses, of which Siemens S7 - 300/400 is used more, while ordinary cranes mainly use small PLC control, the main brands include Mitsubishi FX, Siemens S7 - 200, Omron CS and so on.
In terms of transmission control, the driving requirements vary according to the structure of the crane. The transmission control of hoisting machinery mainly includes two-speed motor, frequency converter, DC speed regulation, stator voltage regulation/rotor series resistance and so on. From the perspective of comprehensive performance, inverters and other types of drives have their own advantages and disadvantages, but the cost is relatively low. At present, inverter drive is widely used in high-end lifting machinery. The crane used in metallurgical industry mainly uses stator voltage regulating device, and the simpler crane uses two-speed motor drive. With the development of the lifting machinery industry and the improvement of customer requirements, the safety requirements for mechanical equipment are getting higher and higher, especially for the expansion of the European and American markets, making safety protection products a potential market for lifting machinery manufacturing. Since the promulgation of the EU's new machine directive and safety control technical standard ISO13949-1, it has also had a positive impact on Chinese domestic enterprises and users, prompting lifting machinery enterprises to actively explore and apply automation products and technologies.
Although the current level of automation applications in China's lifting machinery industry is not high, but both lifting machinery manufacturers and lifting machinery users have recognized the advantages and necessity of the application of automation products, it can be said that automation products in the lifting machinery industry The application prospects are very broad. The automation manufacturers have also seized this opportunity and launched their own special products for lifting machinery, which has helped the development of the lifting machinery industry and enhanced their market competitiveness.
At present, in addition to Siemens, ABB, Yaskawa and other traditional suppliers of lifting machinery automation products, many automation enterprises have begun to extend their tentacles to the lifting machinery manufacturing industry. For example, Zhongda Dentsu, a subsidiary of Delta Electronics Group, has provided frequency converters, synchronous lifting and walking solutions for elevators and tower cranes in the lifting industry, while Mitsubishi Electric has also launched comprehensive solutions for the lifting industry, including crane dual encoder control system and grab control system.(Rope tracking function), master-slave control system, load torque high-speed frequency control function, crane brake control function, inverter built-in PLC function, etc.
There is no doubt that the application prospects of automation products in the lifting machinery industry will be very broad, and the automation enterprises in this market will also depend on their own decision-making direction and speed.
