Instrumentation industry development status, gaps and reasons

1, the status quo

At present, the vast majority of domestic instrumentation products are at the international level in the early and mid-1990s. The mid-range and low-end product varieties are basically complete and can be mass-produced with stable quality; for example, electrical instrumentation has a 95% market share in the domestic market and 13% of its products are exported. Each year, Shenzhen produces a digital universal expression of 7 million units and exports it to more than 90 countries around the world. The output of middle and low-end digital multimeters accounts for 80% of the world's total output. A small number of high-end products have reached the international level. In terms of engineering application technology, it has been able to undertake a complete set of major national engineering instrumentation systems. For example, 600,000 kilowatts of thermal power units, 3.5 million tons of oil refining units, 20000 m3/h of air separation units, conventional island control systems for nuclear power stations, etc., began to get rid of the state monopolization of major national projects. However, in the competition of high-tech automated instrumentation and systems, scientific test instruments, and sensor components, the domestic instrumentation industry is basically in a very passive position. In general, the domestic instrumentation market experienced strong demand in 2003 and grew rapidly. Affected by power plants, automobiles, utility facilities, residential construction, and international market warming, industrial automation instrumentation and control systems, automotive instrumentation, water and gas metering instruments, and low-end optical instruments have grown rapidly. According to statistics from the National Bureau of Statistics and relevant industry departments, the total sales of domestic production instrumentation in 2003 was 92.1 billion yuan, an increase of 25.8% compared with the same period of last year. Process control systems and instrumentation were 17.4 billion yuan, an increase of 29.9% over the same period; scientific instruments were 15.4 billion yuan, an increase of 40.18% over the same period; environmental instruments were approximately 1.6 billion yuan, an increase of 35.6% over the same period; Instrumentation was 18 billion yuan, an increase of 36.3% over the same period; medical equipment exceeded 8 billion yuan, an increase of 11.9% over the same period. According to statistics from the State Customs and relevant industry departments, in 2003, the total value of export goods of China's instrumentation industry was 2.94 billion U.S. dollars, an increase of 52.6% compared with the same period of the previous year; in 2003, the import value of instruments and meters was 9.15 billion U.S. dollars. The year-on-year increase of 67.8%. The total number of process control systems and instrumentation is 1.67 billion U.S. dollars, scientific instruments (including experimental analysis instruments and optical instruments) are 2.88 billion U.S. dollars, and medical instruments are 1 billion U.S. dollars. According to the above data, the total market demand of China Instrumentation in 2003 was: total sales of domestic production instrumentation in 2003 – total export sales of domestic production instrumentation in 2003 + import amount of instrumentation in 2003 = 921–29.4*8.3+91.5 ×8.3=921–244.02+759.45=1436.43 (billion yuan). Among them, the ratio of the renminbi to the US dollar is 1:8.3. Therefore, it is no exaggeration to say that one-half of the demand for instrumentation in China is met by imported products (actually 52.87%). Foreign companies’ mid-range products and many key components account for more than 60% of domestic products. The market share, large-scale and high-precision instrumentation almost all rely on imports.

2. Differences

2.1 Technical gaps The technical gaps are mainly reflected in:

● The reliability of the product is poor. The research on basic technologies and manufacturing processes is not enough, and some key technologies that affect reliability, such as precision machining technology, sealing technology, and welding technology, have not yet been well resolved, resulting in the insufficiency of the performance of products (especially high-end products). reliable. Existing domestic high-end product reliability indicators (mean time between failures) compared with foreign products, roughly a difference of 1 to 2 orders of magnitude.

●The product's performance and function are behind. Existing domestic products must differ by one order of magnitude from foreign products in terms of measurement accuracy. In terms of function, the current level of intelligence in foreign products is quite high. Through digital processing of original information, the influence of external interference on information is better eliminated, and the environmental resistance and measurement authenticity of products are improved. However, the current level of domestic product intelligence is still relatively low. In addition, the networking of products has entered a practical stage in foreign countries, and China is basically in its infancy.

● The product technology update cycle is slow. The current update cycle of foreign products is about 2 to 3 years. The reserves of new technologies can often be advanced to ten years. However, Chinese companies often introduce new technologies to update their products. They cannot be well-digested after introduction, and there are few original results in the development of new products. Some products that adopt new principles are still in a blank state in China. Although the research institutes have made achievements in tracking new technologies, it has been difficult to integrate industrialization with enterprises.

● There is a lack of dedicated solutions developed for the use of objects. In recent years, the development trend of measurement control and instrumentation in foreign countries is to develop software products in which instrumentation and application objects are tightly integrated, and ultimately provide users with personalized solutions. For example, the unit performance calculation software for the 600,000-kilowatt thermal power unit and the optimization software for the oil refining process are specifically used for medical instrument graphics processing software. Chinese enterprises have not yet formed industries in this regard.

2.2 The gap in the overall strength of the enterprise The gap in the overall strength of the enterprise is mainly reflected in:

● The scale of the industry is small, and the total output value of the measurement control and instrumentation industry is low. Not only is the absolute amount small, but the proportion in the total economy is also very small. In 2003, the total output value of domestic instruments and meters only accounted for 0.82% of the gross domestic product (GDP) and 1.79% of the total domestic industrial output value. According to a report submitted by the National Institute of Technology and Standards (NIST) of the US Department of Commerce, the United States’ industrial production value of instrumentation accounted for 4% of the total industrial output value in the 1990s. The vast majority of companies in the instrumentation industry are SMEs. There are 1887 enterprises above designated size in the industry, with less than 15 annual sales of more than 1 billion yuan. The total number of employees in the industry is 510,000, and there is a lack of "flagship" companies with comprehensive strength. The domestic companies' single product market has strong operating capability but lacks comprehensive strength. Neither manpower nor financial resources can compete with foreign multinational groups in the market. Therefore, it is in a weak position in market competition. The company lacks engineering capabilities for large projects.

● The company's labor productivity is low. As instrumentation is a high-tech industry, the role of low labor costs is not obvious. The management level of domestic enterprises is generally lower than that of foreign companies. Therefore, the productivity of enterprises that manufacture high-tech products is far lower than that of foreign enterprises.

● The general lack of investment in corporate technology development. As almost all domestic enterprises are small and medium-sized enterprises, they cannot support sufficient long-term investment in technological innovation in human and financial resources. Taking scientific instruments as an example, the development investment of foreign companies in general accounts for 10% of sales, while China only accounts for 3%.

3, the reason

The main reason for the above gap is that the operating mechanism cannot adapt to the requirements of the development of the market economy. In the process of development, a group of key companies that have invested in the country are faced with a grim situation of product aging and the loss of technicians. Production and business operations are difficult. A group of companies with innovative mechanisms and flexible operations are gradually becoming new bright spots, but most of them have not yet been able to Grasping advanced core technologies and having few innovation results can not yet compete with foreign large companies.

● The systems and policies for the organic integration of production, education, research, finance, government, and households have not been formed. Measurement control and instrumentation are typical knowledge-intensive, technology-intensive products that are sensitive to high-tech development and are a combination of high-tech and new technologies. Therefore, the organic combination of production, learning, research, government, gold, and use is extremely important. Blocks are divided, each fighting, low-level repetition, it is difficult to form a joint force, lack of effective guidance. The problem of low industrialization rate of research results is still very prominent.

● Lack of a strong national research support system. The measurement control and instrumentation industries have many varieties and small quantities, and require long-term, unremitting efforts. However, the current total investment is insufficient and the investment efficiency is not good. The investment approach is scattered and it is difficult to focus on the focus. The selection of topics and the fair and transparent evaluation system for research results are not yet complete. Businesses can neither compete in full compliance with market economic rules like foreign countries, but also lack national strategies such as the strategic investment including research resources and the rectification of the market environment needed for new technology marketization.

In addition, the lack of high-level composite talents and comprehensive talents who are familiar with and versed in the interdisciplinary disciplines are also an important cause of the gap.

Internationally, the technology development of the measurement control and instrumentation industry is very rapid. If we fail to make breakthroughs in some key technologies and products, it will have a far-reaching impact on the independence, integrity, and safety of China's national economic development.