In order to meet the changing needs of customers, the factory has higher and higher requirements for manufacturing capacity, which vaguely points to the manufacturing gene of an enterprise. Over the years, in addition to the specialized division of labor, there has always been a non mainstream integrated manufacturing: deep manufacturing. Brand manufacturers not only manufacture products, but also produce their own machines to ensure unique manufacturing advantages. "Invisible champion" has noticed this phenomenon. Most invisible champion enterprises have the tradition of making machines at the same time. This manufacturing belief against specialization is finding more markets. At the limit of manufacturing and above the peak, manufacturing itself needs to take a tough King attitude to realize the "unwarranted dream" of more crafty designers.

Will all the industrial hens fighting alone be eaten?

Mitsubishi Heavy Industry Group, Japan's largest arms dealer, announced the sale of its Mitsubishi Heavy Industry Machine Tools earlier this month. This is one of the three major gear machine tools in the world, which is as famous as MAG of leshall in Switzerland and Gleason machine tool in the United States. The annual sales volume is 2.5 billion yuan. This time, I'm going to sell myself.

Mitsubishi Heavy Industries has been unlucky in recent years. The heavy gas turbine market is sluggish, and the civil aircraft business is deeply dragged down by Boeing. The MRJ plan of Japan's Mitsubishi regional jet, which has struggled for many years, has always been a bottomless pit of losses. Last year, Japan officially froze the plan of large aircraft, which greatly damaged its vitality. So Mitsubishi Heavy Industries had to give up its heavy machine tools. In fact, Mitsubishi Heavy Industry Group has long wavered in the machine tool industry. The action of looking for sellers has been under negotiation since 2018, when the dream of Japanese made regional aircraft has not completely stopped.

Mitsubishi Heavy Machinery's gear machine accounts for more than 60% in Japan. It has a complete process chain from machine tools to cutting tools and testing equipment, and has strong solution ability. However, this small machine tool focusing on gears, especially automobile gears, may be difficult to ensure its long-term existence in the niche market.

The acquirer took over the whole with RMB 2 billion, which is really a leak in the price of cabbage.

Unusual catcher

Jiepanxia is a Japanese power product Nidec company. This is the king of hard disk motors, with a global market share of more than 80%. The creaking sound often heard in the computer comes from the hard disk. The revenue of power industry in fiscal year 2020 is about 90 billion yuan, including precision small motors, large motors and motors for household appliances and automobiles.

In the past, its core technology was the small motor with hydrodynamic bearing. It took the lead in the era of the rise of computers. Now it's the turn of the car. With the development trend of automobile electrification and intellectualization, there are more than 100 motors in a car, and the electric products are here. In China, 70% of the electric motors for window glass are made in Japan. These are just small motors, and there is a bigger business in electricity.

In 2014, Honda electric power acquired axis with technologies such as anti lock ABS, power steering EPS and body stability VSA. Its business scope also expanded from micro motors to super large motors. Frequent acquisitions have created conditions for the on-board motor business. In 2018, the power industry officially launched the three in one motor drive system e-axis of "motor, gearbox and inverter", including GAC new energy aion and Weilai. In this electric vehicle motor, the electric industry hopes to continue its position as the king of hard disk motor.

However, as a user of Mitsubishi Heavy Industry machine tools for many years, why does Japan's power industry swallow up equipment manufacturers? The scene behind it is greatly worth pondering.

Push down and redesign

Nedco's motor solved a manufacturing problem. In the process of miniaturization and thinness of PC, the biggest challenge is the slicing of built-in equipment. Around 2012, it was the world of "thin and light notebook computers", and Toshiba of Japan was also one of the major brands. The Seagate hard disk with it adopted the motor of Nico. At that time, the thickness of the mainstream hard disk products used in notebook computers was 7mm, while the thickness of the built-in spindle motor was about 70% of the disk thickness, about 5mm. With such a thin gap, it is difficult to ensure that enough space is left between the bearing supporting the rotor and the magnetic track, and miniaturization has come to a dead end.

Instead of the miniaturization of the internal stop, nedco considered the design in reverse and extended it to the drive outside the motor. It combines motor technology with drivers, sensors and so on. Like SOC, a very popular technology in semiconductors, it emphasizes integrated manufacturing.

The design scheme has been fundamentally changed. The overall manufacturing has also changed, so it breaks through the market bottleneck in one fell swoop. It can mass produce 7mm thick hard disk drives in 2010, and then further reduce to 5mm thick.

Now in the field of electric vehicles, electric products are replicating the thinking of "overall design" again. It integrates discrete inverters to form a traction motor system (e-axis) including traction motor, gearbox and inverter. It is also an integrated design, which greatly simplifies the external wiring between parts and components, and realizes the miniaturization and lightweight of the drive system. Very light weight. Japan's electric drive motor e-axis expands the supply of 6 models already supplied in China, including GAC new energy, Geely geometry C, etc. This product is becoming a new fist of power industry. It is expected to reach 6 billion yuan in sales in 2025. By 2030, it is intended to have a global share of 35% in the drive motor market for new energy vehicles.

The legend of notebook hard disk drive is growing again in the new market of electric vehicles.

This also benefits from the use of industrial software.

Independent development of simulation software

Since 1994, Nico has been mass producing liquid bearings for hard disk drives. With the amazing progress of hard disk drive in data storage density, the traditional ball bearing can not make the size of each ball exactly the same in principle. In order to explore the best structure of liquid bearing, nedco has gradually embarked on the road of independent research and development of modeling and simulation software.

In the process of increasing the output from tens of thousands and hundreds of thousands to millions, it is obviously inappropriate to check the quality management method in the production of a small number of trial products. In order to detect abnormal phenomena, it is often necessary to make more than 1000 trial parts to represent different modes, which is time-consuming, labor-intensive and costly.

How to turn this work from workshop to design room? Nedco decided to use the simulation software CAE for testing, so as to change the traditional trial and error detection process of "creativity, modification and redesign", and design right at one time. However, the general simulation software in the market was unable to cope with this special product, so nedco decided to develop a unique analysis software in the company. The biggest advantage of this is that the range can be locked as the unique function of the hydrodynamic bearing, the three-dimensional model can be defined with the two-dimensional model, the degree of freedom of the vibration model can be reduced, and only the phenomena specially needed in the design can be used as the object for modeling and calculation. In this way, the necessary rigid and attenuation simulation calculation can be carried out within the limited computing power.

With the simulation calculation, the clearance parameters between shaft and bearing can be changed to 1000 ~ 2000 different modes at any time, and the calculation results can be obtained quickly in dozens of minutes. Finally, this technology has been used in fans and blowers using hydraulic dynamic bearings. With the development of social re electrification, automobile, household appliances and other products have higher and higher requirements for high efficiency, silence and low vibration. This highly targeted CAE technology is gradually playing a greater role.

From part design to module and unit design, to the structural design of the shell side where the module or unit is installed, nedco can independently complete it through CAE technology. From a motor and bearing supplier, it has gradually evolved into a key strategic partner relied on by an OEM manufacturer, in which the independently developed CAE software has played a major role.

Challenge the peak: unusual manufacturing

The breakthrough of design concept and the use of design tools have greatly expanded the territory of manufacturing. This makes the traditional manufacturing also enter a new vision. Many talented designers' unconventional imagination has left many problems for manufacturing engineers. Designers like apple are always challenging the nerves of engineers. When many device manufacturers get Apple's new generation design, their first reaction is, "it's impossible".

Japan's power industry has a unique design perspective, which is generally not limited to the performance of a single product, but considers platform support and series products. It often considers the design breakthrough of future generations of product lines at the same time, which undoubtedly forces the manufacturing capacity to the limit. It often makes equipment suppliers nervous. The standard machines on the market began to become clumsy. They are usually suitable for machining routine tasks rather than accepting design challenges. For example, electric vehicles need lower mute effect than before, and gears need high precision, which makes the drive system composed of motor, frequency converter and reducer move towards integrated processing. In this context, the upstream processing equipment and technology of auto parts manufacturers will begin to make changes and take new steps for modular and systematic users.

However, the manufacturer did not wait for the machine supplier to provide the solution. It must have the processing ability matching the excellent design ability. Apple chose to work with equipment manufacturers to master equipment technology but not participate in manufacturing. More ambitious manufacturers began to challenge the professional division of labor, establish their own equipment manufacturing capacity, and use their own machines to complete the creativity of their own designers. Japan's power industry has embarked on such a path of in-depth manufacturing.

This is why the power industry is very fond of machine manufacturing itself. Just as Gree Electric invested in the establishment of Gree machine tools and Midea acquired KUKA robot, electric products pay great attention to forming an industrial chain in terms of stamping machines and other factory automation equipment.

This time, the whole machine tool business of Mitsubishi Heavy Industry Group was transferred to Japan power industry group, including China Changshu factory. Machine tool factories in Japan generally live longer, which is a historical product from the mechanical age. This machine tool also has a history of 80 years and has developed the world's largest gantry machine. At present, the business mainly focuses on the comprehensive solutions of gear machines and large gantry machines. The biggest feature of this kind of proprietary machine tool is to ensure one-stop service capability. Among the leading gear machine tools in China, Shaanxi Qinchuan machine tool has a view that "be a craftsman and equipment engineer for users", which is the truth. Only when R & D and production cooperate with each other and can understand the voice of users, this special machine tool can form a best-selling product.

Mitsubishi Heavy Industry machine tool, as a machine tool for manufacturing automobile gears, has a 60% share of the similar equipment market in Japan. This acquisition of Nippon power forms a complete power chain from motor to gear. As a complete traction solution provider for electric vehicles, Nidec is making full preparations. It even plans an investment budget of US $10 billion by 2025.

The method of Japanese power industry can best show a new trend, that is, reverse integration of supply chain to win with manufacturing capacity. This reverse acquisition of the supply chain is unusual for Japanese companies that emphasize division of labor. But for Japan's power industry, this is a long-term road.

M & a maniac

This may also have something to do with the beliefs of the creator. Japan's power industry has a clear strategic origin, and it is highly focused on the field of "rotating body". The rotating motor, no matter where it is, is a possible focus of Japan's power industry.

"Must become the first in the world" is the concept of power production. The founder's name is "always keep faith". He can really name it. It sounds like he is defending an idea. The company attaches great importance to its own R & D, and the supporting strategy is rapid M & A, "exchanging money for time".

In the past few years, the strategy of Japanese power industry is to buy. It has acquired nearly ten automation and machine tool companies. From 2016 to 2019 alone, there were 20 cases in four years. This is not a whim. In fact, it runs through its development history. By the end of 2019, a total of 66 enterprises had been acquired. M & A is one of the driving forces for the growth of power industry.

After the acquisition of American punch Minster in 2012, it announced that it officially entered the field of servo punch in the second year, and launched seven large punch presses with a pressurization capacity of 200 ~ 1200 tons, for automobiles and construction machinery. Since then, it has successively acquired ARISA, a well-known Spanish punch company, and genmark automation, a top American feeder, to improve the capacity of large punch for the automotive industry. From 2018 to 2019, it acquired five machine tools and robot parts related to stamping machines and made a large-scale layout of factory automation. After acquiring MS GRAESSNER, a German manufacturer of robot reducers, it also included robot giant ABB in its supply scope. The acquisition cost is only about 300 million yuan. There are many small manufacturers like this in Germany. Many good little pearls are waiting for gold diggers to pick them. The Japanese are familiar with this and are making rapid progress.

Notes: future changes, double confusion

If these equipment are only used for their own use, it would be too extravagant. Therefore, after the merger and acquisition of such machine manufacturers, an independent business division will be formed and sold separately. For example, the income of the machinery and equipment department of Japan's power industry can account for about 10% of the enterprise's turnover. It sells the unmanned carrier AGV, which uses its own precision reducer products. The production of this reducer also adopts its own AGV. A typical example of "make your own" circular manufacturing.

Japan's power industry has eaten up its suppliers for many years, leaving us two confused thoughts.

On the one hand, in terms of Mitsubishi Heavy Industry machine tools, where is the future of professional machine tools? Small machine tools will either be eaten by large users or follow the strategy of the machine tool group. I'm afraid there are no small and beautiful machine tools in the world. This is the ice age of the machine tool industry under the trend of great integration.

On the one hand, the manufacture of electric vehicles seems to be quietly retro. In contrast to the fine division of labor over the years, it seems to move towards the integrated manufacturing era of Fordism. Many equipment are made by ourselves, and the parts are also made by ourselves. Tesla is the most typical. It has acquired automation equipment for many times to strengthen its manufacturing capacity. Japan's power industry has quietly followed.

With the extreme challenge of manufacturing capacity, the anti professional division of labor is ushering in a new climax.

Disclaimer: This article comes from the InternetReprinted from "intellectual automation", which supports the protection of intellectual property rights. Please indicate the original source and author. If there is infringement, please contact us for deletion.