Analysis of Consumption Trend of Metal Cutting Tools in China

In the world-wide industry, the proportion of tool consumption is probably: high-speed steel cutters account for 35%, diamond and cubic boron nitride tools account for 10%, and welded carbide cutters, solid carbide and indexable carbide It is the remaining part.

This is not the case in China's cutting tool industry. According to statistics of domestic sales of member companies of the Tooling Industry Association Tool Branch in 2010, about 69% of China's domestically-made domestic cutting tools are high-speed steel tools, and cemented carbide tools only account for about 28% (the rest are tool systems, diamonds). And cubic boron nitride tools, etc.). Even with imported tools, about 53% of tool consumption in China is high-speed steel tools, while carbide tools are 45%, and diamond and cubic boron nitride tools only account for 2%.

This proportion shows that although China has become the world’s largest consumer of machine tools and is also the world’s largest consumer of cutting tools, our tool consumption structure cannot even reach the world average. Our current situation is: Although our CNC machine tool production rate and machine tool production rate are increasing year by year, but from the decline in the average price of its machine tool, it can be seen that our CNC machine tool may be easy to play in NC. This means that the overall level of metal cutting in China is not high.

The current low level of overall processing and our increasing labor costs and the appreciation trend of *** hide the risk that our manufacturing in China will gradually become uncompetitive. Some economists in countries including the US Entrepreneurs are considering moving some manufacturing companies that have moved to Asia back to their home countries.

To enable us to continue to attract global companies to place manufacturing in China, we need to improve our competitiveness, which of course includes improving manufacturing. In fact, the author believes that this is also in line with the *** requirement that we must change the mode of development during the “12th Five-Year Plan” period, that is, from the heavy quantity, low-value, high-consumption manufacturing industry, to heavy-duty, high- Value-added, green manufacturing.

The first is the material technology of the tool. The tooling material technology is expected to develop in both the high-performance and new-type materials. As for the high-speed steel tools that are widely used in the cutting tool industry in China, although this tool material has no possibility of extinction in the short term, upgrading is also necessary.

For example, if we use high-performance high-speed steels containing cobalt and even powder metallurgy high-speed steels (P/MHSS) instead of ordinary high-speed steels, which are now commonly used, our high-speed steel tool manufacturing levels can also reach a higher level. In developed countries in Europe and America, since the 1970s, the market share of high-speed steel tools has gradually been eroded by cemented carbide tools. However, with the advent of powder metallurgy high-speed steel tools, the market share of high-speed steel tools has rebounded. This is because powder metallurgy high-speed steel tools are more popular than users because they have higher hardness, better toughness and wear resistance than ordinary high-speed steel tools. Because of the application fields such as high-impact, high-removal machining, powder metallurgy high-speed steel cutters are less brittle than ordinary old models and are less prone to chipping, which in turn replaces a portion of cemented carbide. Tool. However, the tool industry in China does not use powder metallurgy high-speed steel to manufacture tools for a long time. Therefore, the level of high-speed steel cutting tools is not a bad idea. Until recent years, I heard that Heye Group and Jiangsu Tiangong have plans to develop powder metallurgy high-speed steel. I hope they can implement it well. I hope that the existing high-speed steel cutting tool manufacturers in China can transform the development mode, production, and Promote the more popular powder metallurgy high-speed steel cutting tool products.

In addition, also in high-speed steel cutting tools, China's high-speed steel cutting tool manufacturers also belong to the single-vehicle bridge. Most of the production capacity is in the manufacture of high-speed steel drilling tools. In 2006, the consumption of high-speed steel cones was higher than that of high-speed steel drills in the tool consumption in Germany. In China, the domestic tool consumption of high-speed steel hole machining tools is approximately 4 times that of high-speed steel thread tools. According to the author's analysis, this is not to say that the demand for high-speed steel thread cutting tools in China is small, but because the manufacture of high-speed steel cones is relatively simpler than the manufacture of high-speed steel drill bits, the requirements for taps are relatively high and the applications are also more complicated. Tool makers are far from meeting the needs of domestic consumers in terms of tap manufacturing and sales services. As a result, tap consumption in China is similar to the consumption of cemented carbide tools and is more dependent on international manufacturers in China. This point, we can also get some evidence from the sales situation of Japanese tap manufacturing and marketing expert OSG.

Our domestic tool manufacturers want to win a place in the competition with international manufacturers. Paying attention to user experience will be a must. From the author's point of view, many of our domestic tool manufacturers have insufficient attention to user experience in product development, production, sales, and service.

Among them, there are old state-owned large-scale cutting tools companies, but also some joint-stock companies with a very high sales volume. There are also some private enterprises. When they introduce their own companies to users, they often do not introduce what kind of services their customers can provide. What kind of problems the user solves, but instead focuses on what kind of equipment they have, and often will introduce the manufacturer of the equipment and the model of the equipment. In fact, most user companies do not understand what the manufacturer's equipment represents. The author worked for Walter Tool for eight years until the day he left Walter. He knew nothing about the company's blade production equipment. However, I know what kind of solutions they can provide to users, how much productivity can be improved for users, and how much production costs can be reduced for users. I also know what their product features are, know what tools to choose based on different conditions of use, and how to use them correctly. In the process of communicating with many users, I clearly know that these are what many users really want to know. I can tell you candidly that no one has ever asked me what type of equipment Walter's blade is manufactured from, as we almost everyone uses a mobile phone, but what equipment is used in these phones? We may all be ignorant. If our tool makers indulge in their own world, are keen to own what kind of good equipment and complacent to this, without regard to the user experience, according to the needs of users to develop, manufacture, and sell products, we will be difficult Get yourself a world in competition.