China plastic industry is knocking on the door of industry 4.0
China plastic industry is knocking on the door of industry 4.0
Industry 4.0 is a term used in German industry to describe the combination of information technology and manufacturing that is emerging in manufacturing plants. The concept will help China's plastics industry to upgrade, although it is not entirely clear what the situation will be. As a step forward in the industry, the President of China plastics machinery association is calling for the establishment of a manufacturing innovation center with plastic related industries. At the end of April at the China international xiangsu exhibition, the industry 4.0 BBS, which was hosted by the German industry, became the focus of the industry upgrade. China plastics machinery industry association Zhu Kangjian said at the meeting, the German industrial 4.0 advancement will help China to achieve the goal of industrial upgrading, this also is the Chinese government announced last year as part of the "made in China 2025" planning. A key part of "made in China 2025" is to require more localisation of core components and materials, with a need to increase the localisation rate to 40% by 2020 and 70% by 2025. Zhu said it is important for the local machinery industry to participate in "made in China 2025", adding that plastics companies should seek government attention and support. He called plastic machinery "a sunrise industry" and will continue to improve technology. He said last year was of great significance to the Chinese plastics machinery industry, and the export of plastic machinery exceeded imports for the first time. China's plastic machinery sector has been the world's largest market since 2005, with annual sales of more than 50 billion yuan ($7.7 billion). "We're still on the growth curve," he said. China's plastic machinery industry association data show that domestic plastic machinery in the Chinese market share of the larger and larger. Plastic machinery made in China accounted for 80% of the market in China in 2015, up from 50% in 2008. But the figures do not indicate whether the decade's growth has come mainly from investments by multinationals in the Chinese plastics industry or from local Chinese companies. Zhu pointed out that China is still weak in the advanced manufacturing economy, and the skilled labor force is not enough. He called for the creation of a plastic industry innovation center that would bring technology from other industries into plastic manufacturing to help upgrade the local plastics industry. A report by the center for strategic and international studies in Washington says "made in China 2025" is "directly inspired" by industry 4.0, but is more extensive than Germany's industrial plan. For example, China plans to create 40 state-level manufacturing innovation centers. Report said: "China's strategy is more widely, because the efficiency and quality of Chinese manufacturers very unequal, if you want to avoid being low-cost producers in emerging regional extrusion, China needs to overcome many challenges in a short time, more effectively with the advanced industrial economies cooperation and competition". In the VDMA German plastic machinery trade association on the BBS, the speaker from Germany leading companies mentioned how their equipment can help Chinese enterprises to advance the automation, many speakers industrial 4.0 on the meaning of China's industry is discussed. Attending one of the audience is the supplier quality engineer from Shanghai hewlett-packard, he said HP China supply chain in the plastic industry companies often heard about 4.0, but they need not clear what investment, they put forward a lot of problems. The engineer is Roger Dong, an engineer at HP's global sourcing office in Shanghai. In an interview at the Shanghai international rubber & plastic show, executives have different ideas about industry 4.0 and its prospects in China, because the Chinese market has traditionally focused on low costs. Some think that as more Chinese companies start investing abroad, attention to industry 4.0 is growing. Gero Willmeroth, President of sales and services at engle Shanghai, said: "there are companies like yanfeng in China, and they have become a partner of multinationals like Johnson controls. They certainly did a lot of work to get that. Yanfeng was already the world's largest car interior manufacturer last year, accounting for 70 per cent of the joint venture with Johnson controls (in greendale, Wisconsin). He added that Chinese processing companies want to be more transparent in manufacturing, to be able to show customers the quality of their parts, which are more interested in industry 4.0. However, there are some who mention the potential constraints. IHS, a consultancy, published research in April that said China's manufacturing overcapacity could limit growth in the robot market, forcing companies to continue to rely on Labour. But as labor-intensive industries become more automated, demand for robots will continue to grow. Foreign robot brands accounted for 80 percent of China's robot market in 2015, the study said. Machinery manufacturers, Klaus murphy group's China chief executive Christian Blatt, interconnection of mechanical, industrial 4.0 broad concept, customers are more concerned with the specific technical problems, such as specific controller or reduce scrap.
