The purchasing power of Chinese people has always been unquestionable in the world. From small household goods, household appliances, cars, machine tools, industrial robots, etc., Chinese people seem to have been the favorite buyers of foreign businesses, only in Japan. It is said that every year China will bring huge consumption to it, and many 'made in Japan' have become products that Chinese people are rushing to buy. However, this situation is now changing quietly.
According to the "Nikkei Business News" reported on August 1, China's 'Beibu' has been supporting Japanese construction machinery, machine tools, industrial robots and other manufacturers, but this situation is gradually fading. Japanese construction machinery According to figures released by the Industry Association on July 31, construction machinery shipments from January to June were 1.3535 trillion yen, up 8.5% year-on-year. Exports increased by 21%, maintaining a good momentum, but with 32% in 2017 The growth rate has slowed down.
Machine tools and industrial robots account for a large share of the machinery exported from Japan. Today, demand for machine tools and industrial robots is ushered in an adjustment period. Figures released by the Japan Machine Tool Industry Association show that orders for June were 159.2 billion yen. , a year-on-year increase of 11.4%. Despite the refreshing June's monthly record, it remained at a relatively high level, but the growth rate has declined. In particular, China's demand, which has been a driving factor, has been negative for 4 consecutive months, a decrease of 7.7%. Large orders for electronic product foundry services (EMS) such as smartphones are considered to be decreasing, driving down overall levels.
According to statistics released by the Japan Robot Industry Association on July 26, the amount of industrial robot orders in June fell year-on-year after two years. The impact of the weakening demand in China's smart phone industry has also been greatly affected. There are also voices pointing out that the automobile industry is a major customer. The market prospects for industrial robots are overcast due to the delay in the production increase plan. The order for industrial robots from April to June 2018 in the same day (member companies) was 212.6 billion yen, up 3.8% year-on-year, and continued to grow for 8 consecutive quarters. Although quarterly data has maintained growth, orders for single months in June decreased by 0.6% to 68.8 billion yen. After 24 months, the year-on-year decline. Although the order amount remained at a high level, it showed signs of decline. obvious.
Although smart manufacturing continues to deepen, there are not many companies that can fully automate the entire production line in China. The reason is that industrial robots are expensive and not suitable for many small and medium-sized enterprises in China. According to the International Robotics Federation. 10% of the world's companies buy 45% of industrial robots. Moreover, it is mainly a large-scale production enterprise of more than 500 people. Usually, small companies are not interested in this issue because economically, manual labor is replaced by robots. The reason is that the production field is robotized, the technology is quite complicated, and the cost is huge. Only when the product is used in large-scale production, the robot has an economic return, and it is not cost-effective to use the robot.
In short, the existing robots on the market can only do repetitive work. If the task changes, they can't do anything. For example, you need to shrink a component by half a centimeter. To complete the production of this short component, you need Ask programmers and engineers to write programs for robots. This requires a lot of work and financial expenses. Therefore, most medium-sized companies usually choose manual labor, which is simple and clear. Not to mention small businesses. This is A worldwide problem that seriously hampers the use of robots.
Not only is the reduction in corporate orders, but the more serious situation is the signs of changes in the demand of the automotive industry. The report of the financial industry from April to June 2018, the president and CEO of FANUC, a large industrial robot manufacturer. At the meeting, the decline in the amount of orders indicated that 'although not canceling orders, but car manufacturers as major customers have postponed projects such as increasing production around the world'. In the United States, customers have delayed equipment investment plans for about half a year. Now the automotive industry is also Facing the dilemma of transformation and upgrading, new energy vehicles have formed an unstoppable situation. Therefore, how to use industrial robots, how to make better use of available resources has become a problem that car manufacturers need to consider.
From the beginning of the industrial robot market, the automotive industry is a major customer and now one of the largest customers. It is foreseeable that if the demand of the automotive industry declines, it will have a greater impact than smartphones. In the second half of the recovery, what kind of blockade will the industrial robots face? This is still a mystery.