CNC machine tools were invented by American inventor John Parsons in the 20th century. With the development of electronic information technology, the world machine tool industry has entered an era of mechatronics integration centered on digital manufacturing technology, with CNC machine tools being one of the representative products. CNC machine tools are the processing mother machine of the manufacturing industry and an important foundation of the national economy. It provides equipment and means for various sectors of the national economy, with infinitely amplified economic and social effects. Industrialized countries such as Europe, the United States, and Japan have successively completed the industrialization process of CNC machine tools, while China has been in the development stage since the 1980s.
Development of the United States
The US government attaches great importance to the machine tool industry, and departments such as the US Department of Defense constantly propose the development direction and research tasks of machine tools due to their military needs, and provide sufficient funding. They also recruit talents from around the world, paying special attention to "efficiency" and "innovation", and emphasizing basic scientific research. Therefore, continuous innovation has been made in machine tool technology, such as the development of the world's first CNC machine tool in 1952, the creation of a machining center in 1958, the development of FMS in the early 1970s, and the creation of an open CNC system in 1987. Due to the fact that the United States first developed a large number of automated production lines required for automotive and bearing production needs, and advanced electronic and computer technologies in the world, its CNC machine tool host design, manufacturing, and CNC system foundation are solid, and it has always attached great importance to scientific research and innovation. Therefore, its high-performance CNC machine tool technology has always been leading in the world. The lesson of high-performance CNC machine tools used in aerospace production in the United States today is that they focus on basic scientific research, neglect applied technology, and in the 1980s, the government relaxed guidance, resulting in a slow increase in CNC machine tool production. In 1982, they were surpassed by Japan, which was lagging behind and heavily imported. Since the 1990s, by correcting past biases, CNC machine tool technology has shifted towards practicality, and production has gradually increased.
Development in Germany
The German government has always attached great importance to the important strategic position of the machine tool industry and vigorously supported it in various aspects. After developing the first CNC machine tool in 1956, Germany placed special emphasis on scientific experimentation, combining theory with practice, and placing equal emphasis on basic research and applied technology research. Enterprises and university research departments work closely together to conduct in-depth research on the commonalities and characteristics of CNC machine tools, and strive for excellence in quality. Germany's CNC machine tools have good quality and performance, are advanced and practical, and are genuine at a reasonable price. They are exported all over the world. Especially large, heavy-duty, and precision CNC machine tools. Germany attaches great importance to the advanced and practical use of CNC machine tools and supporting components. Their mechanical, electrical, hydraulic, pneumatic, optical, cutting tools, measurement, CNC systems, and various functional components rank among the world's top in terms of quality and performance.
Development in Japan
The Japanese government attaches great importance to the development of the machine tool industry and guides its development through planning and regulations (such as the "Machine Vibration Law", "Electromechanical Law", "Machine Information Law", etc.). Learn from Germany in valuing talent and supporting machine tool components, and from the United States in quality management and CNC machine tool technology, even surpassing the blue. Since the development of the first CNC machine tool in 1958, the production surpassed that of the United States in 1978, and the production and export volume have always been the world's top. Strategically, we first imitate and then create. As a mid range CNC machine tool with a large and extensive production capacity, we export a large amount and occupy a vast market in the world. Starting from the 1980s, we further strengthened our research and developed towards high-performance CNC machine tools.
Development in China
As the cornerstone of modern industry, the machine tool industry is a crucial issue that cannot be bypassed in the process of industrial economic development. Due to its inherent shortcomings, the Chinese machine tool industry has always fallen behind the mainstream level of foreign countries in the development of mid to high-end machine tool projects, and is in a process of catching up.
China's CNC machine tools are still relatively backward. The market for CNC machine tools in China is huge, and compared to foreign products, the main gap in China is the high-speed, efficient, and precision of machine tools. China is in the middle stage of industrialization, gradually transitioning from an open policy focused on solving shortages to building an economic powerhouse, and from poverty alleviation to prosperity. A number of high growth industries based on heavy industry, such as coal, automobiles, steel, real estate, building materials, machinery, electronics, and chemical engineering, have strong development momentum, This constitutes a huge demand for the machine tool market, especially for CNC machine tools.
The accelerated transformation of China's machine tool industry faces four major constraints. China's CNC machine tool technology can only achieve a maximum of five axis linkage, and according to relevant sources, this five axis is still the most outstanding component. Almost all of the five axis and above are imported, and there is also a significant gap in multi-point linkage technology compared to foreign technical standards.
The international competition in the domestic market is intensifying: due to the shrinkage of the mid to low end CNC machine tool market and excess production capacity, coupled with the influx of foreign products at low prices, market competition will further intensify. Due to the long-term dependence on imports for high-end products, domestic products are even more facing severe challenges of international competition.
The strategy of leading with technology is shifting towards a customer-centric approach: Economic crises often lead to large-scale industrial upgrading and enterprise transformation. The machine tool and tool industry has achieved service-oriented manufacturing, with the core being customer-centric and actively providing personalized services that customers need. Therefore, the shift from simply selling products to providing overall solutions, and from technology centric to customer centric has become a current trend.
The contrast between China's products and the demand of the Chinese market is significant, and the product structure urgently needs to be adjusted. Although the Chinese machine tool industry has maintained sustained and rapid development for many years, the phenomenon of unreasonable industrial and product structure still exists. The entire industry is large but not strong, and high-end products still rely heavily on imports. Although the domestic market share of domestically produced machine tools has increased to some extent, the market share of high-end CNC machine tools and core functional components in the domestic market is still very low, and the potential for the entire industry to replace imports is enormous.
The technological innovation model of enterprises needs to be improved: due to the gradual improvement of the status, industrialization level, and brand influence of Chinese machine tool enterprises, in order to become an industrial powerhouse, their technology acquisition can no longer rely on others. In the past, China has taken a path from imitation to introduction, and from now on, it must take the path of independent innovation. The only way to support product structure adjustment is to establish an independent, new, and strategic innovation model for industry, academia, and research in the face of new technological blockades in enterprise technology.
The Chinese CNC machine tool industry will continue the momentum of structural adjustment and continuously occupy a larger market with new products and highlights. CNC cutting machines can be divided into two categories according to their cutting methods: flame cutting and plasma cutting. With the continuous improvement of downstream industry demand, there is a greater demand and higher requirements for CNC machine tool accessories.
The development in Northeast China is not fast, and the development in other places is also relatively slow. The third is to achieve results in restructuring and promoting transformation. Experts believe that in the face of the financial crisis, enterprises should continuously adjust their structure, improve quality, increase variety, and promote industrial upgrading. In addition, enterprises should strengthen management and reduce costs, resulting in a significant improvement in enterprise efficiency. The decorative development trend of CNC cutting machine tools is evident, with more emphasis on mechanical performance, easy operation, cost-effective, and stable processing accuracy. Metal material processing is increasingly demanding popularization and mass production. In addition to meeting the above functionalities, CNC cutting machines also need to have the applicability of multiple cutting methods.
In order to improve their own strength and expand the international market faster, domestic CNC machine tool enterprises will adopt various means to accelerate integration with foreign enterprises to improve product quality and enhance competitiveness. While continuing to expand into markets in countries such as the United States and Japan, it has also fully blossomed in Southeast Asia, the Middle East, Russia, Europe, Africa, and more. It is understood that the current operation of the metal cutting CNC machine tool industry has the following characteristics: firstly, export enterprises face significant difficulties. From the perspective of enterprises above designated size, brand enterprises mainly focused on domestic sales have a good development momentum. The development of small and medium-sized enterprises without brands is relatively difficult. Secondly, the development of various regions is not balanced enough. Zhejiang, Shandong, Hebei, Beijing, and Sichuan have developed relatively quickly, and private enterprises in Guangdong have also developed rapidly.
Most companies in the CNC cutting machine tool industry rely on reducing product prices to gain market share, resulting in low product prices, low added value, low profits, and insufficient funds for sustainable development. With the development of the industry and the upgrading of competition, improving the technological content of products, possessing independent patents and designs, and emphasizing brand building and marketing are the best choices for long-term development of enterprises.
The Chinese machine tool industry has achieved sustained and rapid development in the past few years, and demand remained strong until the first half of 2011. However, since the second half of 2011, the demand growth trend has significantly slowed down, new orders have sharply declined, the economic efficiency situation has gradually become severe, and profit margins have continued to decline.
During the 12th Five Year Plan period, the country will implement active fiscal policies and prudent monetary policies. With technological progress, product upgrades, and the continuous promotion of national key projects and local investment projects, the demand for machine tool products in various industries of the national economy will further increase. The demand for high-level machine tools in national defense modernization will become more urgent, and market demand will develop to a higher level, The new round of market competition will also become more intense.
Due to the low prosperity of the industry and the decreasing demand for machine tools from downstream manufacturing enterprises, China's machine tool industry has been in a sluggish state, with upgrading and transformation becoming the key word in the industry. Economical CNC machine tools have become one of the key points in revitalizing the equipment manufacturing industry.
China's casting machine tool industry has made certain achievements, but its development still faces many restrictive problems, and technological innovation has always been a tough challenge for the domestic casting machine tool industry. Compared with foreign casting machine tool industries, China's casting machine tool industry is significantly lagging behind in terms of manufacturing process level, which leads to significant deficiencies in the technical level and operating speed of core operating components, product accuracy maintenance, and machine tool reliability.
China's casting machine tool enterprises lack the awareness and ability of independent innovation and basic theoretical research, which restricts the development of casting machine tool technology in China. To change this situation, it is necessary to deeply study the characteristics and requirements of product processes in user industries, develop high-level processing equipment based on process characteristics, and pay attention to the research of basic theoretical work, Only in this way can China's casting machine tool industry have better development in the near future. The series of policies introduced by the country have vigorously built emerging enterprises and high-tech enterprises. Seizing this opportunity, a series of policies such as "adjustment and revitalization" and "independent innovation" have been introduced internally to upgrade enterprise machine tool technology and strictly ensure product quality, providing a good environment and market for accelerating the development of the casting machine tool industry.
As a fundamental and strategic industry in the country, the machine tool industry has clearly identified independent innovation strategy as the most important component in the 12th Five Year Plan, emphasizing the need to support and lead the industry's development through technological innovation engineering. The development of China's machine tool industry must be based on independent innovation, through independent research and development of original innovation, introduction of technology digestion and absorption of re innovation, integration of existing technology innovation, and other methods, to achieve key technological breakthroughs and industrial upgrading. Build and improve a technology innovation system that is enterprise centric, market-oriented, and combines industry, academia, research, and application; Persist in increasing investment in research and development expenses; Strengthen research on key and common technologies, strive to make breakthroughs in basic and common technology research, and improve product development technology level.
technological development
High speed, precision, composite, intelligent, and green are the overall trends in the development of CNC machine tool technology, achieving gratifying results in practicality and industrialization. Mainly manifested in:
1. The further expansion of machine tool composite technology With the advancement of CNC machine tool technology, composite processing technology is becoming increasingly mature, including milling turning composite, turning milling composite, turning boring drilling gear processing, turning grinding composite, forming composite processing, special composite processing, etc. The accuracy and efficiency of composite processing are greatly improved. The concepts of "one machine tool is a processing plant" and "one loading, complete processing" are being accepted by more people, and the development of composite processing machine tools is showing a diversified trend.
2. The intelligent technology of CNC machine tools has made new breakthroughs, which have been more reflected in the performance of CNC systems. For example, the automatic adjustment of interference and collision prevention function, the automatic exit of the workpiece from the safety zone after power failure protection function, the detection and automatic compensation learning function of machining parts, the intelligent parameter selection function of high-precision machining parts, and the automatic elimination of machine tool vibration during the machining process have entered the practical stage, and the intelligence has improved the function and quality of the machine tool.
3. Robots make flexible combination more efficient. The flexible combination of robots and hosts has been widely used, making flexible lines more flexible, expanding functions, shortening flexible lines, and achieving higher efficiency. Robots and machining centers, turning and milling composite machines, grinders, gear processing machines, tool grinders, electric machining machines, sawing machines, stamping machines, laser processing machines, water cutting machines, and other forms of flexible units and production lines have begun to be applied.
4. New progress has been made in precision machining technology. The machining accuracy of CNC metal cutting machines has been improved from the original wire level (0.01mm) to the micrometer level (0.001mm), and some varieties have reached 0.05 μ About m. The micro cutting and grinding processing of ultra precision CNC machine tools can achieve a stable accuracy of 0.05 μ About m, with a shape accuracy of up to 0.01 μ About m. The precision of special processing using energy sources such as light, electricity, and chemistry can reach the nanometer level (0.001 μ m) . By optimizing the design of machine tool structures, ultra precision machining and assembly of machine tool components, adopting high-precision full closed-loop control and dynamic error compensation technologies such as temperature and vibration, the geometric accuracy of machine tool processing is improved, and shape and position errors, surface roughness, etc. are reduced, thus entering the era of sub micron and nano level ultra precision machining.
5. The performance of functional components continues to improve, and they continue to develop towards high speed, high precision, high power, and intelligence, achieving mature applications. The promotion and application of fully digital AC servo motors and driving devices, high-tech electric spindles, torque motors, linear motors, high-performance linear rolling components, high-precision spindle units and other functional components greatly improve the technical level of CNC machine tools.
Development issues
The demand for CNC machine tools in China is increasing day by day, and the development of CNC machine tools has driven the innovation and upgrading of functional components of CNC machine tools. The key functional component industry of high-end CNC machine tools in China is still unable to meet domestic needs, and there are mainly the following problems in the domestic CNC functional component industry.
1. Adaptability and satisfaction far fall short of market demand
From the current development trend of CNC machine tools in China, the adaptability and satisfaction of domestic functional components are far from meeting the market demand. Mainly manifested in:
1) There is a certain gap in the product level of functional components between China and foreign countries. Most of the functional components produced in China are labor-intensive and have low technological content, making it difficult to adapt to the development speed and technical requirements of domestic CNC machine tools, especially high-end CNC machine tools.
2) The development capacity of functional components in China is weak, and the speed of new product development is slow. Most functional components require cooperation with foreign countries for development, production, joint venture, and even assembly. Although there have been significant changes in the situation in the past two years, China is still in the process of developing high-tech and the latest functional components, and the market share prospects are still not optimistic.
The Development History of CNC Machine Tools
Oct 06, 2023Leave a message
Send Inquiry