The Gap Between My Country's High-end Valve Technology And International Level

Lined Valve, the valve industry has experienced several years of ups and downs and has developed rapidly throughout the country, becoming one of the main industries with the fastest development in the domestic machinery industry. Although the valve industry in my country has developed rapidly, there are also many problems. The industry development level is low, the product technology content is low, and many control valve products are still low-end. Due to the late start of the domestic valve industry, it is still in the development stage, the valve design, manufacturing, production and testing capabilities are lower than the advanced level of foreign countries, many key valves still rely on imports, many valves do not have core technology, coupled with the limitation of automation control level, there is a certain gap in high-end valve technology compared with developed countries. What is the reason for such problems?
In my country's current valve market, except for low-pressure valves that have reached the level acceptable to the international market, high-pressure valves still rely on imports. Under the situation of continued optimism in the macro economy, most of the production and sales indicators of the valve industry have maintained rapid growth, but due to the impact of price wars, the industry's sales revenue and profits have dropped sharply compared with last year.
With the recovery of the world economy, the import and export of valve products in my country have also increased, but the competition in the international valve market is also intensifying. Since there is still a large gap between China and foreign large manufacturers in high-end technology, product technology will become a bottleneck restricting the development of valve products in my country in the future.
Valves are indispensable fluid control equipment in various sectors of the national economy, such as petroleum, chemical industry, power station, long-distance pipeline, shipbuilding, nuclear industry, various cryogenic engineering, aerospace and marine oil production. According to the expert survey of the Pump and Valve Talent Network, after years of development, the number of valve companies in my country ranks first in the world, with about 6,000 valve companies of various sizes, of which 900 have an annual output value of more than 5 million yuan. From the product situation, my country's valve industry can currently produce more than a dozen major categories of products, such as gate valves, stop valves, ball valves, butterfly valves, safety valves, check valves, throttle valves, plug valves, pressure reducing valves, diaphragm valves, steam traps, emergency shut-off valves, etc. The highest operating temperature reaches 570℃, the lowest is -196℃, the highest pressure is 600Mpa, and the maximum diameter reaches 5350mm.
In addition, according to statistics from relevant departments, the annual turnover of my country's valve market is as high as about 50 billion yuan, of which more than 10 billion yuan of the market is occupied by foreign valve companies. Although my country's valve industry has made great achievements after the reform and opening up, there are still some problems in my country's valve industry. For example, my country's valve companies are mainly low-level, small-scale, and family workshop-style enterprises. In terms of products, due to repeated investment, insufficient technology investment, and insufficient introduction, the leading products of my country's valve companies are still low-quality mass products. At present, various valves produced by Chinese companies generally have shortcomings such as external leakage, internal leakage, low appearance quality, short life, inflexible operation, and unreliable valve electric devices and pneumatic devices. Some products are only equivalent to the international level in the early 1980s. However, some valves required for high temperature, high pressure and key devices still rely on imports. In addition, my country's valve industry has a large gap with foreign companies in industrial structure, industrial chain of valve industry, and professional degree of the industry. The reason for the low quality of domestic valve products is that due to the rapid expansion of the market, the original state-owned valve enterprises have been shut down and transferred, and the level of the mechanical industry was not high, and township enterprises (private enterprises) have developed rapidly. However, township enterprises have a low starting point, very weak technical strength, simple equipment, and most of their products are imitation production, especially low-pressure valves for water supply and drainage, which are serious problems.
At present, the gap between my country's valve industry and foreign valve industries is relatively obvious. There are four major comprehensive gaps: one is the gap in technological innovation capabilities; the second is the gap in processing technology; the third is the gap in quality management and equipment; the fourth is the gap in process management. This also allows us to see our own shortcomings, so as to find the gap and the essence of the problem, so as to improve and improve.
1. The gap in technological innovation capabilities Insufficient technological innovation capabilities are a stumbling block to the development of our valve industry. At present, the design level of my country's valve industry is not high. Although domestic backbone enterprises have certain R&D conditions, the R&D centers of most valve enterprises are limited by personnel and facilities, lack sufficient capital investment, and have relatively closed R&D and technical service capabilities. They mainly serve enterprises according to their needs, design and process preparation according to sales orders, and their functions are relatively simple; such as on-site technical processing during valve production, or engaging in a small amount of new product development.
2. There is a big gap between the domestic valve design level and that of developed countries. At present, many domestic valve companies rarely make innovations after introducing advanced technologies. When overseas customers visit Chinese heavy industry projects, such as papermaking and petrochemicals, they find that the valve products of many projects have only been changed based on Western design prototypes. The processing technology is also backward. Although some domestic valve manufacturers have modern equipment that can realize automatic operation, they even make some Western companies pale in comparison. But most companies have outdated equipment and poor working environment. At present, Chinese valve companies can cast valve products made of steel, iron, aluminum, copper, composite materials, etc., but due to the backward casting process, raw materials such as cast steel and cast iron are wasted a lot in the production process, and the environmental protection is also poor. Foreign valve companies with higher technical levels are usually equipped with special R&D centers. In comparison, they have strong funds, various related research institutions and professional excellent technical engineers to support them. These R&D centers are often equipped with special laboratories and testing institutions according to needs, and the computer application software used for valve products is also quite complete: not only can the advanced performance of new products and new technologies be theoretically analyzed and predicted by analytical means, but also experimental methods can be used to predict the results for verification, and the correctness of the analysis methods can be verified at the same time according to statistical data, so as to obtain a series of effective valve performance and technical characteristics analysis methods, and such methods can be applied to the development of subsequent valve technology, so as to reduce R&D costs and make the research results more effective.
In fact, in terms of technical level, there is not much difference between us and well-known foreign companies in the design and material application of conventional valves, and there is no insurmountable gap in manufacturing technology. So what is the difference? The actual situation is the difference in the word "serious". In a sense, there is a big gap between our business philosophy and pursuit goals and those of foreign-funded enterprises, especially in the product blank processing technology. There are indeed certain problems, which is also our reflection. The practices of foreign enterprises are different from those of Chinese enterprises. Chinese enterprises first engage in infrastructure construction, expand production plants, add production equipment, and expand plants again and again, pursuing large and comprehensive, modern style, and only want to expand the scale of production, ignoring the research and development and investment of new products. The product stamina is seriously insufficient, and most of the products produced are imitations, only ordinary low-end products are produced, too much energy is invested in the market balance valve field operation, and improper means are used to promote product competition, thus lacking core competitiveness. Many domestic enterprises refer to the designs of other manufacturers when doing research and development, thus ignoring the importance of original experimental data, so that the products developed have only appearance but no real soul. As for the entire industrial system, there are certain problems. Our R&D system is quite weak, but it is relatively weak in innovation ability. Now some enterprises have many branches and joint ventures. Some enterprises have little investment in R&D ability, the construction of scientific and technological teams, and the establishment of R&D means and facilities. In fact, the R&D investment is very large. At present, the entire industry has R&D teams, R&D means, R&D product testing measures, and type test equipment. The plug valve is not enough to support our valve industry to implement scientific and technological R&D and develop new products, let alone develop high-end products.
At the same time, we must clearly realize that: as China has joined the WTO for several years, our economy has gradually been integrated with the world economy, and foreign-funded enterprises with strong strength have rushed to China's valve market. These foreign legions have strong funds and high-tech, and have rich business strategies. They pose a certain threat to the Chinese valve market and are also our main competitors in the valve industry.