Analysis of the status quo and future of instrumentation in China

China's analytical instrument industry also experienced a period of brilliant development in the 1960s and 1970s. With the reform and opening up, instrumentation has experienced a downturn. In recent years, with the development of science and technology, the instrumentation industry has gradually returned to the previous brilliant moments. “In the past, we always thought that the state paid insufficient attention to its own brands and did not invest enough, and it always called on the state to give more support to the industry. Now, especially after carrying out on-the-spot investigation and understanding of the real needs of users, We found that the previous ideas were too one-sided and that the high-end market for domestic analytical instruments was monopolized by foreign brands. The most important reason was that the industry had a long-term mentality of quick success and instant benefit, and lacked a long-term development strategy to promote the sound development of the industry as a whole. The point is this,

An expert from the China Instrument and Meter Association pointed out that in the process of reforming state-owned enterprises, the original scientific research system was broken, but new systems and channels were not established. Loss of old corporate technicians, aging products, although the business direction has improved, but the ability of scientific and technological innovation is still not enough. Although a batch of private enterprises that have been reformed and are operating flexibly are becoming new highlights, most of them have not yet mastered advanced core technologies. The strength of scientific research is weak, and innovation results rarely compete with large foreign companies. Compared with the high investment and high returns in the field of analytical instrumentation in foreign countries, the R&D strength of China's instrument industry is weak. Most companies invest insufficient research resources and funds, and human and financial resources cannot support sufficient long-term investment in technological innovation. In the contest of foreign products with strong capital and technology, the domestic analytical instrument industry had to be defeated. Some people even think that compared with the 1980s, the technological gap between China's instrument industry and developed countries has not only not been narrowed, but has also grown.

“The analytical instrument industry is a highly-intensified, technology-intensive industry. From the moment it was born, local companies meant that they had to compete face-to-face with internationally recognized brands in the same industry. However, shopping malls such as battlefields and markets cannot develop better products. In terms of excellent performance, high precision, good stability, foreign products and domestic products that are still growing, the market will certainly choose the former. This leaves few opportunities for domestic companies.” Wang Yan, Tianjin University It is important to think that the market is nurturing.

Jiang Shiqiang, executive vice chairman of the Agricultural Instrument Application Technology Branch of the China Instrument and Control Association, believes that China's analytical instrument companies have a weak technical base and weak R&D strength in new products. They are all crowded into a few varieties. Under the fierce competition in the current market, they lack the industry. The rules of healthy competition, in order to survive, have to reduce the performance of the equipment, competing prices, resulting in vicious struggle, it is difficult to enhance the performance and quality of the instrument.

Gao Hongbin, deputy general manager of Beijing Nake Analytical Instrument Co., Ltd., said with deep feelings: “The market is expanding and the opportunities are increasing. The key to the company’s business is to have a long-term strategic vision. The improvement of quality and the establishment of the brand require business The long-term accumulation and investment in R&D cannot be expected to pay off in the short term, especially in basic R&D. It will not be possible to leapfrog over decades of accumulation.

Wang Jialong and Deng Aiqun, experts of the China Instrument and Instrument Association, introduced that with our laboratory instrument manufacturers as examples, there are only five companies with annual sales of over 100 million yuan, and there are no flagship companies with comprehensive strength exceeding one billion yuan. Foreign scientific instrument company's development investment accounts for about 10% of sales, while our country only accounts for 2% to 3%. In general, the combination of independent innovation achievements and applications is not much. There are many scientific research achievements in the institutions of higher learning, but the practicality is poor, especially the depth and intensity of the study are not enough, so the secondary development of the large amount of work, the cost is high, resulting in relatively low conversion of instrument technology results.

Yan Zengxuan gave an example. An old domestic analytical instrument manufacturer had invested 10 million yuan to develop a high-end analytical instrument. After 4 years, the two prototypes completed can only detect more than 40 indicators, while the detection index of similar foreign products is 150,000. The gap between domestic technology level and foreign level is evident. To catch up with the development of foreign technology levels for several decades, China's analytical instrument industry has a long way to go.

“Some instruments have a good level of technology. The problem lies in the reliability and stability of the products.” Yan Zengxuan introduced that restrictions on raw materials and processing and production also affected the quality of analytical instrument products in China. "The quality of the prototype is often good, but once the batch is produced, the process will not reach the standard and the quality level will decline."

Li Lan, chairman and general manager of Dalian Elite Analysis Instrument Co., Ltd., also expressed his deep feelings. “Although the analytical instrument industry is a small industry, it is closely related to machinery, optics, electronics, materials and other industries. For example, our products require the use of a stainless steel 316L raw material, but there are few domestic products that meet our requirements. It is very difficult to choose good quality raw materials."

"The great development of scientific instruments in China is something that we have been looking forward to for decades." More than 80-year-old Lu Shizhen, an academician of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, said with emotion.

Speaking of the future development plan for China's analytical instrument industry, Yan Zengxuan believes that high-end products must be targeted and vicious competition at the low end can no longer be done. This will only harm the interests of the entire industry. “A lot of domestic companies have already agreed with this point of view. Some companies have started targeting high-end markets and even have developed and produced high-end products such as automotive portable mass spectrometers. We encourage companies to do so.” Some powerful companies are also active Seek new ways of production, learning, research and use. “In recent years, there have been more and more analytical instrument companies listed on the market. Some companies have also gone abroad to acquire foreign high-tech companies; some are preparing to build an R&D center in Europe; more companies have begun to pay attention to product application research and established applications. Laboratory to make products more suitable for market needs."

Wang Yan of Tianjin University believes that the state's investment in the analytical instrument industry is essential to promote the development of the industry. "While drawing lessons from foreign technologies and researching alternative products, the state should encourage principle innovation and increase research and development investment in new technologies and new products such as biosensor technology." Wang Yan believes that only such original innovations are available. Only in this way can we finally get rid of dependence on foreign technology and products, and it is more conducive to China’s economic security.

Li Yi of Dalian Elite, although he believes that the development of the industry is very difficult, he still expressed "confidence to compete face-to-face with foreign products." "All of our products have independent intellectual property rights. Since the creation of Elite, we have never relaxed. Research and development of technology. Now, four generations of products have been developed and produced, and research and development of the fifth generation of products has already started."

In recent years, the appeal of the instrumentation industry for many years is also being answered by the government. The person in charge of the Department of Equipment Industry of the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology once said that in the “12th Five-Year Plan” period, China’s key high-end equipment manufacturing industries will be locked in five major fields: aviation, aerospace, high-speed railways, marine engineering equipment, and intelligent manufacturing equipment. Many policies are tilted. “The field of smart manufacturing equipment mainly includes the instrumentation industry.” Last year, the Yangtze River Delta Scientific Instruments Industry Technology Innovation Strategic Alliance was officially approved as a strategic alliance for the pilot six-nation ministries' technological innovation; in addition, China’s The pilot project for the development of national major scientific research equipment and equipment launched in April this year will also encourage and cultivate the development of exploratory scientific research instruments with original ideas, and will focus on supporting the development of original scientific research equipment.

Yan Zengxu describes the development goals of the analytical instrument industry in the next five years: “Now, domestic products occupy only less than 5% of the market for high-end analytical instruments. We hope that through the efforts of the entire industry and the support of the relevant departments, we will 'At the end, the ratio can be increased to 30%.'