Textile Machinery Industry Accelerates Technology Upgrades Automation Products or Synchronous Growth

Textile machinery automation began to pick up

China's textile machinery industry can be described as a fully competitive market. If any company wants to avoid being eliminated in such fierce competition, it must speed up the pace of product structure adjustment and improve its core competitiveness. This is also an area for automation product providers. There is a certain opportunity.

According to the data released by the National Bureau of Statistics, in 2009, textile machinery continued its downward trend in 2008, its growth was slow, coupled with the competition of foreign products and the impact of the global financial crisis, China's textile machinery companies faced a severe situation. challenge. In the first quarter of 2010, the textile machinery industry experienced a slight drop, which was a drop of 5% to 10% from the previous quarter and an increase of more than 70% year-on-year. Affected by the double pull of exports and domestic demand, the second quarter of 2010 is expected to increase slightly from the previous quarter.

The decline in the textile machinery industry has brought certain impact on suppliers of automation products. Information from the National Bureau of Statistics shows that in 2009, the total market size of automation products for the Chinese textile machinery industry was close to 2.4 billion yuan, reaching 2.39 billion yuan, up year-on-year. Declined by 7.0%. However, in the first quarter of 2010, the market for automation products in the textile machinery industry increased by 70.5% year-on-year, down by 9% month-on-month.

As far as textile machinery products are concerned, the market capacity of traditional textile machinery with a low technological content has been drastically reduced, while textile machinery products with high efficiency, energy saving, and high added value have been greatly improved, which also brings certain degree of automation products. market.

Distribution of automation products in the textile machinery industry

The survey also showed that the larger the scale of textile machinery manufacturing enterprises and the wider the product coverage, the higher the level of automation and information, and the more automation products used.

Automation is the only way to improve the performance of mechanical products and enhance the competitiveness of enterprises. With the development and application of computer networks and power electronics, its importance is increasingly prominent, and its application in textile machinery will become increasingly widespread. . The survey results show that more high-end textile machinery manufacturers have gone from the initial application of single automation products such as PLCs, inverters, and servos to the demand for integrated application of multi-automation products and digital integration of equipment networks.

The majority of companies participating in the survey stated that due to the impact of the crisis, in the first quarter of 2010, new research and development of new products in the textile machinery industry was relatively small, but in the second half of the year, the investment in new product research and development is expected to increase due to the demand for the project. . Most of the interviewed companies continued their technical improvements or upgrades in terms of software, machinery, etc. For the sake of product reliability and stability, they basically did not change the configuration and brand of automation products.

The survey shows that the brand name of automation products used in the textile machinery industry is very broad. From Siemens, ABB, Mitsubishi, to B & R, Delta, Lenze, almost all automation manufacturers can find themselves in the textile machinery enterprises. User. The questionnaire also shows that the same textile machinery company uses at least three or more automation brands at the same time. A questionnaire from Shanghai Yifang Machinery Co., Ltd. shows that the brands they use for automation products involve Siemens, ABB, B & R, and Phoenix. , Mitsubishi, Schneider, Omron, Fuji Electric and other at least 8 brands. The smaller scale textile machinery enterprises, such as the automation products used by Changzhou Tonghe Textile Machinery Manufacturing Co., Ltd., also include Mitsubishi, Delta, Lenz, and at least three brands.

Textile Machinery Enterprises Purchase Automation Products

Sixty-four textile machinery manufacturers participating in the survey all indicated that they will purchase new automation products within the next year.

The survey shows that 55 companies will consider buying motors and drives in the near future, accounting for 85.9% of the surveyed companies. As the main drive device, the frequency converter has the largest demand in the textile machinery automation market. According to previous data, textile machine users need 80,000 to 90,000 units of general-purpose inverters a year, while for converters such as weft feeders and slotted drums, the annual demand is around tens of thousands of units.

At present, AC frequency conversion technology has increasingly become the mainstream method of driving three-phase asynchronous motors, and the growth rate of low-voltage inverters is higher than the average value of the growth of automation products. China's inverter technology still has a certain gap compared with developed countries. The market of low-voltage inverters in the textile machinery industry can be said to be firmly controlled by Taiwanese and Japanese manufacturers. Copyright of CONTROL ENGINEERING China, China's inverter manufacturers Should seize the opportunity of upgrading and upgrading products in textile machinery and other industries in the past two years, and improve their own strength.

Among the automation products that textile machinery plans to purchase, the second largest is industrial control products, and 52 companies said that they will purchase related products in the near future. The survey shows that the current industrial control products used by textile machinery enterprises are mainly PLC (64), servo systems (55), human-machine interface (48), industrial Ethernet (38) and field bus (32) The use of industrial computers and machine vision is still relatively small, with 10 and 20 companies respectively, accounting for only 15.6% and 31.2% of the enterprises surveyed. Previous investigations have shown that most textile equipment can meet the control requirements of the production process with a PLC. Only a few equipment use the IPC plus PLC to form a control system to achieve more complex control requirements, such as sizing machines, new roving machines, and some chemical fiber equipment. Therefore, the use of IPCs in the textile industry is still relatively small.

According to experts in the textile machinery industry, among the major textile machinery products, the largest annual demand is for various looms. On average, these looms each have a small PLC, which is mainly used for related inspections and alarms. Speed ​​control and machine start and stop. Although the number of spinning machines is less than 5% of the total number of various types of textile machinery, the number of PLCs used on spinning machines is relatively high. A single spinning machine generally uses more than 10 PLCs. The number of carding machines is About 12% of the total textile machinery is mainly controlled by small PLCs. Other types of textile machinery basically all use PLC control, there are some relatively simple devices using single-chip or other control methods. However, with the industrial upgrading of the textile machinery industry, the use of dedicated controllers and industrial PCs, especially fanless IPCs, is gaining popularity in the textile machinery industry.

In addition, there are 31 companies that will purchase the appropriate software, 30 companies that will purchase power and voltage regulators, 26 companies will buy automated instruments. There are only a few companies that have selected general electrical equipment. There are only 15 companies. In the subsequent telephone survey, respondents indicated that basic products such as general electric appliances and electrical instrumentation are not updated quickly. At the beginning of production, it is purchased in advance.

How Textile Machinery Manufacturers Choose Automation Products

The results of the survey on how companies choose products are consistent with the results of the survey conducted by Automation Today in the past few times for various industries. Six respondents ranked brand awareness as the first element, and the most important factor in ranking technical support and services showed the recognition of textile machinery users for automated brands. Of the 15 respondents who ranked technology support and services as the first element, 8 also ranked brand awareness as the most important factor. In addition, of the 40 companies surveyed, 50 readers listed prices as the second factor influencing selection. The reliability and stability of products have become the most important factor for textile machinery companies in selecting automation products, and 60 readers have listed this element as the first element. In addition, the cost of the manufacturer's technical training for the enterprise and the maintenance of the system in the later period is another factor to be considered.

According to four surveys conducted by various industries, mechanical users have become more sophisticated in selecting automation products.

As an automation product provider, what aspects should we start from providing services to users in the textile machinery industry, so as to smoothly expand the market? In this survey, 75 participants clearly expressed the hope that automation product providers could provide case analysis and product design services, and 60 people said that the existing successful cases were helpful to their actual work. Participating investigators agreed that suppliers of automation products should regularly hold technical and case training.

Yan Guixiang, deputy general manager of Yancheng Textile Machinery Co., Ltd., told reporters: “The popularization of knowledge held by general workshops held by automation vendors is of great significance to the average technician, but it is the advanced technology of the textile machinery factory. For engineers, we often need further detailed application and design knowledge ceremonies.However, this deeper technical training for automation vendors often requires fees.I hope automation companies can provide more technical support for our textile machinery factory. and service."

In actual production, the high cost of maintaining the system due to system instability has become a consensus, and 90 readers have chosen this one. Similar to the previous survey results, respondents generally believed that the increased frequency of repairs caused by repeated software modifications and system instability affected the efficiency of production. Therefore, whether automated product suppliers can provide timely services has become a consideration when textile machinery manufacturers select products. the elements of.

According to the reporter’s visit during the exhibition, from the point of view of the textile machinery products participating in the textile exhibition, as the latest textile machinery and equipment developed in the world, these products not only embody the automation and continuous features of the production process, but also have Energy saving, high efficiency, green, environmental protection and other characteristics.