Valve Companies Can Develop Faster By Accelerating Their Innovation Capabilities

The current Lined Valve enterprises lack the ability to innovate technology, which is a stumbling block to the development of our valve industry. At present, many domestic valve enterprises rarely make innovations after introducing advanced technologies. When overseas customers visit Chinese heavy industry projects, such as power and petrochemical, they find that the valve products of many projects have only been changed based on Western design prototypes. The current 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 their R&D and technical service capabilities are relatively closed. 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.
Compared with developed countries, the domestic valve design level is far behind. The processing technology is also relatively backward. Although some domestic valve manufacturers have modern equipment that can realize automatic operation, they even make some Western companies pale in comparison. Many valve companies have relatively poor casting equipment. They use cast steel, iron, aluminum, copper, composite materials and other valve products. However, 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. At present, most valve manufacturers in my country cannot independently conduct effective analysis such as valve seismic resistance, and these manufacturers must entrust design colleges to conduct seismic analysis. Only a few manufacturers have a relatively complete grasp of valve stress calculation and seismic analysis, valve fatigue analysis, and impact analysis, which to a certain extent restricts the improvement of domestic manufacturers' R&D capabilities. The degree of domestic industry-university-research cooperation is also low, and the technical content of independently developed products is also low. Although some colleges and universities and research and design institutes have set up specialties, departments, and offices to carry out valve technology research, they only put forward technical requirements for the role and required characteristics of the valve in the entire device, and do not carry out the research and development of valve product design and manufacturing technology. Even if there are design drawings, they often lack processability and are not compatible with actual operations. Some of the key ones lack actual verification methods, which are the main reasons for the low overall technical level of domestic valve products.
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 and excellent technical engineers to support them. These R&D centers are often equipped with special laboratories and testing institutions as needed, 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 based on statistical data, so as to obtain a series of effective analysis methods for valve performance and technical characteristics, and such methods can be applied to the development of subsequent valve technology, so as to reduce R&D costs and make their research results more effective. Although many companies have obtained many national patents for valve products, many patents are only utility patents with low technical content. Many patents have only made partial improvements in structure without substantial improvement inventions. Some still have imitation and plagiarism. Since many valve users have been using traditional products for many years, the internal and external structures of many products have not been substantially improved and improved for many years. 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? But in reality, the difference is in the word "serious". There is such a product, which was originally a patented water valve product of a German company. Several different companies are producing it at the same time, one is a foreign company, one is a Taiwanese company, and one is a domestic company. The same product picture, but the actual valves produced are different. The internal quality and appearance of the first two companies are better than those made in China. What is puzzling is that these companies all produce this product in China, and the casting blanks are all from domestic factories, but the results are very different. 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 we also reflect on. The practices of foreign valve enterprises are different from those of Chinese enterprises. Chinese valve 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, and seriously lacking product stamina. Most of the products produced are imitations, only ordinary low-end products are produced, too much energy is invested in market operations, and unfair means are used to promote product competition, thus lacking core competitiveness. Many domestic enterprises refer to the designs of other manufacturers when conducting research and development, thus ignoring the importance of original experimental data, so that the products developed have only appearance but no real soul. As a whole industrial system, valves also have certain problems. Our R&D system is quite weak, but our innovation ability is relatively weak. 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 insufficient R&D teams, R&D means, R&D product testing measures, and type test equipment 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 my country's economy is gradually integrating with the world economy, and foreign-funded enterprises with strong strength are rushing to China's valve market. These foreign legions have strong funds and high-tech, as well as rich business strategies, which pose a certain threat to China's valve market and are also the main competitors of our valve industry. At present, they are acquiring valve companies in China, recruiting technical design talents in the valve industry with high salaries, and using well-known brands to seize my country's high-end valve market. Some have invested in building factories in my country, some have moved their headquarters to China, and some have established R&D centers in China.
Foreign valve companies have complete and advanced quality control methods, complete hot and cold test equipment, advanced coordinate measuring instruments, and strict inspection of various flaw detection equipment. Quality assurance is in place in every link, and each part is clear at a glance in any process. The records are very detailed and the responsibilities are clear. The surface quality is also good, including forging quality, surface grinding, and weld quality, which almost eliminates bumps and scratches. The cleanliness is also high, including civilized production in the workshop and environmental hygiene, dust prevention, and rust prevention. The burrs in each link of the product parts, the flash cleaning, grinding, cleaning, and cleaning and drying before assembly are all done in place without leaving any traces. The employees are also dedicated and meticulous. The concept is high quality and high price, mainly for high-end valves.
In comparison, there are still many defects in quality management in China. First of all, the process is more or less neglected. Many companies have a quality assurance system, but they have no place to use it in actual work. Quality management is implemented arbitrarily and arbitrarily; secondly, the assembly process is also sloppy, and if it can't be installed, it will be hard to make up. As for the painting process, it is also possible to save as much as possible. Many paints have no standard and are self-defined. The previous workpieces are not handled well and the surface is rough. Some of the topcoats cover the defects. There is no strict control in the debugging. No wonder some valves have leakage, bubbling, dripping and leaking as soon as they are installed. At the same time, the valve processing sites of many domestic manufacturers are in a mess. Some of the ground is uneven, and large pieces are piled on the ground, which damages the site; some have poor environmental awareness and cannot effectively handle and prevent dust from iron filings after processing. The workpieces are covered with dust. Some are not coated with anti-rust oil and have many rust marks; currently, most domestic valve screws are processed by machine tools, and the concentricity and finish are poor. In order to save costs, many domestic factories do not even spray the valve paint, and some use ordinary paint and do not apply anti-rust oil on the surface. They also cut corners in the painting process. How can such a processing process guarantee the appearance quality? Some valves are cheap, which has a lot to do with the material composition and process simplification, cutting corners and doing tricks.
Some large domestic state-owned enterprises can currently produce parts for overseas valve industry enterprises. However, these enterprises have advanced computer data control processing centers and CNC machine tools, computer-aided design, three-coordinate measurement and other equipment. However, these equipment are rarely used in the processing of domestic products. This also hinders the improvement of China's valve industry design capabilities. Therefore, the design capabilities of most domestic valve companies can only meet the domestic market. Due to the successive adoption of foreign advanced technical standards by the domestic valve manufacturing industry, and the popularization and improvement of new materials, new technologies, and new processes. As well as the connection with foreign advanced technical standards, it seems that the existing national standards and industry standards are somewhat lagging behind. Many national standards currently implemented by the valve manufacturing industry were formulated in 1989 and cannot keep up with the needs of market development. The lag in standard formulation and modification also restricts the development of the industry. Because some users and owners lack understanding of domestic valve manufacturers and the performance of existing valve products, and domestic enterprises have no performance and are unwilling to purchase domestic products that have reached international standards, this is also one of the reasons that affect the rapid development of domestic enterprises and narrow the gap with foreign countries.
Obviously, it is not terrible to have gaps and problems. The person in charge of Shanghai Mingbao Valve, a well-known valve manufacturer, believes that as long as we adjust our development ideas, enhance our confidence in development, strengthen enterprise management, promote technological progress, attach importance to technological innovation and the research and development of core technologies, and improve the core competitiveness of enterprises, in the near future, my country's valve backbone enterprises will surely catch up with and surpass similar foreign enterprises, contribute to the localization of major national technical equipment, occupy a certain share in the world valve market competition, and become a powerful country in the world valve manufacturing industry.