Five major questions asked the piston industry

In recent years, the rapid development of the domestic automobile industry has brought enormous development opportunities for the piston manufacturing industry with an average annual growth rate of 15%. China's automobile piston industry already has a larger scale of production is expected by 2012, the domestic market demand for various types of piston will reach 150 million or more. From a production point of view, our country has now become the world's piston-producing countries, but in order to become a world power piston industry, there is still a long way to go, it is urgent to crack five major problems.

Low concentration of production

  According to statistics, at present, there are nearly 200 piston enterprises in our country and the number of enterprises with sales income over 5 million yuan is above 90, the number of which is the highest in the world. However, most enterprises are not large-scale enterprises, their competitiveness is not strong and their anti-risk ability is weak. Most of the piston companies because of the limited production scale and can not achieve economies of scale. It is understood that more than 30 billion US dollars in global sales of piston, the world's eight multinational companies accounted for 75% to 80%; while China's annual sales of more than 1 billion yuan in piston business, sales accounted for only 28.3% of the industry, the former The concentration of production in 30 companies is only 43.6%.

  The low concentration of production is a major factor restricting the accelerated development of China's piston industry. Low level of duplication of construction and production capacity expansion, there is a huge market risk. As soon as possible to change this situation, in addition to their own growth factors, the most effective way is through joint ventures, mergers and reorganization of enterprises to achieve the expansion of capital with 3 to 5 years and strive to create a number of output value of more than 100 million yuan Of the enterprise groups, improve China's piston industry production concentration, optimize the allocation of resources.

   Weak innovation and development capabilities

   At present, the indigenous piston enterprises in our country are less capable of independent innovation and product development. The whole industry "two weaker and two less" serious phenomenon - weak basic research, participation in the development of international standards weak; less original technology, less patented product. This led to China's general GM piston production capacity surplus, the proportion of low-grade products up to 80%; high-precision, high-tech and high value-added products, the proportion of low, high quality local pistons, especially high-class cars with piston Inadequate development capacity, can not fully meet the demand, which relies heavily on imports.

  At present, the market of China's saloon car, especially the mid-to-high-end saloon market, has developed rapidly, and the requirements on the accuracy, performance, life span and variety of piston products are getting higher and higher. However, the development of piston industry in our country lags behind, which is still dominated by ordinary, small and medium-sized pistons. The product quality is not high, and the piston products produced can only meet about 70% of the market demand. The shortage of pressurized piston piston and in the varieties and materials there is a contradiction between production and demand of high pressure piston, piston enterprises need to increase research and development efforts.

  Product reliability is not high

  China's automobile piston manufacturing technology is still low, the slow development of manufacturing processes, processing and equipment backward, casting low level of automation, making piston life and reliability of technical breakthroughs failed to achieve a breakthrough. The current overall view, the domestic piston can basically meet the demand, but the product is relatively poor stability, low reliability, short life expectancy.

  Domestic piston life is short because on the one hand the piston hardness is not high, wear resistance is not strong; the other hand, due to manufacturing processes are not in place, processing technology and there is still a gap compared with foreign countries. Enterprises should continue to increase investment in research and development, the introduction of equipment, and from the piston material, tooling mold development, ferrule manufacturing and heat treatment and other production of the whole process of multi-series, continuing technical research and technological transformation, through materials, tooling, heat treatment Etc. The whole process of technological research and technological innovation to improve the life of piston products.

  Profit margins narrowed

  In recent years, although the piston production and marketing growth continued to decrease, but due to cost pressures, the industry profit margins further narrowed.

  First of all, the piston industry is facing substantial price increases of raw materials. As the prices of major non-ferrous metals and precious metals continue to stay high, especially when the price of nickel has risen and then risen, reaching a new high for more than 10 years. With the soaring price of raw materials, the larger enterprises in the industry feel that "Powerless", many small and medium-sized piston enterprises due to financing difficulties, have discontinued or converted.

  Second, product upgrades and restructuring have resulted in increased costs. As the state increasingly stringent emission standards, the host plant of the piston product safety, environmental protection, energy saving, etc. also increased requirements, resulting in Piston product upgrades and structural adjustment, an increase of Piston technology and product R & D investment, Resulting in increased costs.

  Disorder in the industry

  In order to compete for market share, the domestic Piston market, among the prices of each other, engaged in homogenization of competition, the price war intensified; and disorderly competition, fake and shoddy, the market is not standardized, resulting in substantial losses in some piston manufacturing companies year after year.

  In addition, the piston market of our country is facing the encroachment of foreign piston manufacturers. Mahler and other famous multinational corporations step up their efforts to build factories in China to seize the market. The amount of pistons imported from abroad each year shows a large increase.

  The main reason for the above problems is that the industry lacks a unified market regulation, which has led many domestic piston enterprises to fight each other and can not see the general trend of market development, resulting in the waste of resources to some extent.