China's automotive fastener industry has a good development

According to the latest China Association of Automobile Manufacturers, by the end of 2012, China's auto production and sales are expected to exceed 20 million vehicles. Key words for automobiles in the "2012 Government Work Report" - control of incremental pushes and reorganizations, and emphasis on energy-saving upgrades. China's anticipation of development goals and directions for the automotive industry is very clear: “Improve industrial concentration, promote mergers and acquisitions, promote industrial upgrading, and accelerate the development of new energy vehicles.” It is clear that the automotive industry is developing steadily in line with the country’s macroeconomic control. At present, there are more than 150 vehicle companies in China, including SAIC, FAW, Dongfeng, Chang'an, BAIC, Chery, Geely, Lifan, and BYD. During the "Twelfth Five-Year Plan" period, the development of the vehicle is far ahead of the automotive fasteners, and it will be a period of rapid development of automotive fasteners for some time to come. It is an opportunity to expand the production of fasteners.

According to statistics, there are more than 100 automobile fastener companies listed in the statistical category in China. The types of enterprises can be roughly divided into two types: one is a large-scale and fairly large-scale fastener enterprise, and a special department is responsible for manufacturing; The second is that enterprises only specialize in automotive non-standard fastener products. With the huge increase in total demand, the latter has developed rapidly in China. Due to the high added value of such products, it has also become the most competitive area. Among them, there are more than 20 joint ventures with a total staff of approximately 65,000 people and assets of approximately RMB 12 billion.

Some joint-venture or wholly-owned automotive companies have strong financial and technological advantages in most key automotive non-standard fasteners markets, and established a number of automotive fastener technology centers and R&D institutions in China. State-owned and privately-owned automotive fastener companies have a place in the market for some engine non-standard fasteners and most of the standard parts by virtue of their cost-competitive advantages, and they have actively digested and absorbed foreign products, and they have the supporting capabilities for the domestic market. , but the lack of high-tech engine non-standard fastener product independent development capability, remains to be a breakthrough; from 4.8 to 6.8 low-strength, or 8.8 to 12.9 high-strength fasteners, summarized as low-grade Products are flooded with dominant markets, and there is a lack of value-added services in the value chain. Product core technologies have obvious exogenous features.

It is worth noting that the lack of attention to the automotive fastener industry is one of the deficiencies in the development of China's auto industry in the 10 years after its accession to the WTO. The development of automotive fasteners lags behind the development of the overall automotive industry, which has become the biggest weakness of the Chinese auto industry. The status quo of China's automotive fastener industry is as follows:

First, auto fasteners companies have poor independent innovation capabilities. Most of them are modeled on foreign products, lacking original achievements and brands and products with independent intellectual property rights, and lacking effective scientific and technological innovation systems. R&D work focuses on internal and small-scale enterprises. The cooperation between enterprises, the results are difficult to form industrialization; automotive fastener materials basic technology research is very weak, non-standard fasteners do not have special steel grades, small batch production is difficult to achieve economic scale, and material technology standards are confusing, basic technical data Poor with industry statistics.

Second, automotive fastener companies lag behind the development of China's auto industry. Fastener companies like FAW and Dongfeng Motor are affiliated with the main engine plant, which results in the development and production of fasteners completely dependent on the research and development capabilities of the main engine plant and the upgrading; and some form of private automotive fastener companies in the entire automobile industry. The subtle "marginalized" region in the production supply chain. In the difficult and even survival phase of research and development, only the accumulation of technology and experience will continue to open up the future of the automotive industry.

Third, the level of equipment and testing is behind. With the development of the automotive fastener industry, fasteners impose higher requirements on equipment and testing. In terms of equipment and testing, China's automotive fastener companies have obvious shortcomings, except for a few joint ventures that have relatively strong capabilities. The entire equipment and testing are relatively backward and the level of testing skills is not high. For some automotive fastener companies, many special-purpose processing equipments are needed, and a large number of related testing equipments must be matched to lay a solid foundation for the value of goods.

In particular, the reliability of quality is uneven, and it is a major deficiency for the automotive industry, which is based on automated assembly. With the gradual progress of the requirement for “zero defects” in automotive fasteners, the quality of automotive fasteners has become higher and higher. For example, the rate of defectives is controlled at 60 to 90 ppm, which is very difficult to achieve. In accordance with very strict standards, manual selection, control at 150 ~ 200PPm, is already a very good level. The quality of automotive fasteners is actually guaranteed from the materials and equipment to the process and the inspection of the entire system, instead of simply picking out defective products. Full-automatic eddy current testing screening machine or various types of sensor research and development, automatic detection of defects and cracks increase detection function, to achieve the "zero defect" final-level goal management, but the input cost is high, the popularization will take time, may It will develop in the next three to five years.

Fourth, there is a big gap between the relevant resources such as materials and logistics and the international advanced level. Nowadays, some of the world's most famous automotive fastener manufacturers have their own special materials and special technologies. The United States, Japan, and other manufacturing giants have formed scale, automation, and digital production. The numerical control technology, network technology, and digital control technology are mature. From design to production sharing, the production management has a high level of informatization. China's automotive fastener companies still need to be developed and improved in terms of material and logistics resources.

China's automotive fastener industry issues

In view of the good prospects for the development of China's automotive fastener industry, on the whole, the status quo of China's automotive fastener industry still cannot meet the needs of China's auto industry development, and there are still a series of major issues to be resolved. Although the demand is large, there are many ordinary goods in the middle and low grades, while the high-end specialty goods are very scarce, and the quality is uneven, and the business services are still not in place.

(1) Lack of high-end specialty products. Although fasteners used in automobile manufacturing are mostly standard fasteners, they are mostly oversupply, but special products such as anti-loosening, easy installation, high assembly efficiency, and improved vehicle safety are particularly slow. . Such products often must develop special technologies and equipment, or require new technologies and equipment. Such as automatic gluing, automatic assembly or assembly of gaskets, continuous delivery, etc. Fortunately, in recent years, these technologies have been developed to meet the needs of automotive manufacturing development more quickly and efficiently.

(2) The lack of high-grade products. Non-standard fasteners are key components for automotive connections. From a technical point of view, fastener companies in China all have the conditions to supply such products, but due to various reasons, the localization rate of these products is not optimistic. Except for those vehicles that were originally designed by China, all the importers of the technology, the supply of non-standard fasteners, still mainly come from imports. The low localization rate of non-standard fasteners has both the intellectual property rights of foreign companies and the monopoly profits, as well as the lack of trust in Chinese products by those who control the purchasing power. In addition, the gap between the technology and management of China's automotive fastener companies and foreign countries is also one of the main reasons. In order to ensure the healthy development of the entire automotive industry, the automotive fastener industry must work hard to improve its performance.

(3) Business services are not in place. As a fastener product that supplies general market demand, the demand for delivery deadlines, related technical support and services is more relaxed. However, in the face of high-speed, high-volume, high-volume, and cost-intensive automotive industries, rapid, timely, convenient, and even "zero inventory" and other supply requirements have become the basic conditions for China's auto industry, to adapt to such requirements on China's fasteners. Enterprises are more challenging to technology and quality. In addition, in the high-growth production process, fastener technology (product standards and selection, performance characteristics, production line assembly, failure analysis, etc.) are not common in terms of material and manpower, and collaboration, cooperation, and service between enterprises Especially important. The current automotive fastener companies have carried out and explored various service activity modes, from providing single sets of fasteners to providing mechanical fastening solutions, customized services, remote monitoring, etc., and future services in the sales revenue of fastener manufacturers. The proportion will gradually increase.