“Because the current order volume is large, no new orders will be accepted.”
“We have to service the orders we have received, and no longer accept new orders.”
“Because the material cost of market suppliers has risen sharply and the supply of regular parts and channels is tight, the original mask machine price has been unable to cover the current purchase cost. In order to protect the quality of equipment and the rights and interests of customers, the company will no longer accept a large number of orders.”
…
In the past two days, more and more friends in the circle of friends have seen news that mask machine manufacturers have stopped ordering, including many manufacturers in Dongguan.
Recalling this month, in the “great leap forward” of the huge mask production, the automation industry can be described as too busy to increase the business of manufacturing mask machines. In the circle of friends, the purchase demand and sales information of the mask machine are more and more one after another. Overnight, the automation companies seem to start to produce the mask machine. According to incomplete statistics of the circle of friends of high-tech robot staff, there are hundreds of companies that send mask machine supply information.
“Mask machine” has undoubtedly become the starting point of the automation industry this year.
Some people think that the production of mask machines under the epidemic allows us to see the future of intelligent manufacturing, which is also what smart manufacturing should be; others say that the epidemic is like a mirror of a demon mirror, which reflects a “downlord” who disrupts the market .
The market is still fanatical, but will eventually become rational and calm. Who can rationally view their own advantages as early as possible and act within their capacity, who may be able to grasp the next turning point against the trend.
Price chaos
The production of mask machines is largely a behavior triggered by the “bottom-up natural production order” of the market. It is encouraged and guided by the government, connected by value, adjusted by prices, and driven by profits.
According to the information on the change of the industrial and commercial registration on the Tianyan check, from January 1 to February 7 this year, more than 3,000 enterprises across the country have added new businesses such as “masks, protective clothing, disinfectants, thermometers, medical devices”, etc. . Large companies including Sinopec, BYD, Shanghai GM Wuling, Foxconn, etc., as well as related textile products, sanitary products manufacturers Hongdou, Sanqiang, Daddy Baby, etc.
The mask production lines of various regions and companies were put into operation in an emergency, and the demand for key raw materials increased. The supply of upstream parts and components is tight, and prices rise accordingly, and the price of emergency cargo adjustment is even higher.
According to the understanding of high-tech robots, ultrasonic power supplies, transducers, and welding heads are called the three major parts of mask machines. Due to the shortage of piezoelectric ceramics, the price of transducers has increased; some ultrasonic welding parts are even more expensive than usual. 7 times, aluminum profiles and other prices have also increased significantly.
According to industry sources, the original price of the mask machine ranged from 100,000 RMB to 300,000 depending on the speed of the mask production (one drag one / one drag two) and the type (semi-automatic / automatic).
The survey found that the spot had been fired up to 1.2 million a while ago, but the spot is almost impossible at present, and the second mobile phone on the market is basically out of stock. The price of the mask machine within half a month of the delivery period has approached one million, the 25-day delivery period is 450,000, most manufacturers have a delivery period of about 6-8 weeks, and the 60-day delivery price has been raised to about 400,000; 80 days after the reservation Delivery, automatic mask machine quoted at around 300,000 yuan.
On February 20, there was a real story circulating on the Internet: 300,000 did not buy, 400,000 was on the sidelines, more than 500,000 started asking for prices, and more than 600,000 should be bought in a few days.
The hateful thing is that there are a lot of second-hand sellers who are making money while robbing the fire. , You can brag about delivery time.
However, most of the mask equipment manufacturers are really forced to do so. At this time, rational manufacturers will choose to “collect as soon as they see it”, keep a steady stream, and serve existing customers well.
Supply chain stuck
How scarce is the supply chain before it leads to skyrocketing prices?
For example, the polypropylene raw materials used in mask nonwoven fabrics may come from Zhenhai Refining and Chemicals in Zhejiang. These raw materials are processed into intermediate product melt-blown nonwoven fabrics in Shandong. Introduce nose bridge, ear straps and adhesive to make a mask. In fact, this is a standard modular product.
Further considering the production equipment, the mask machine involves “secondary raw materials” such as material processing, electrical control, and pneumatic components, such as gears, sprockets, timing pulleys, ultrasonic controllers, transducers, and digital control circuits. The equipment in Henan may come from Dongguan, Guangdong, where mask machine production is concentrated. It is very likely that ultrasonic welding equipment will be purchased from Suzhou, automatic packaging equipment will be purchased from Shanghai, and relevant disinfection equipment and raw materials will also be imported from other places …
Many twists and turns have affected dozens of large and small industrial chains. After hundreds of thousands of kilometers of logistics, a small mask was born.
When your supply chain reserves are not hard enough, the mask machine cannot be produced and it is difficult to deliver on time. Some business leaders who have been immersed in the automation industry for many years have said directly that the pressure on the delivery of mask machines is 100 times higher than that of general industrial equipment.
Ten thousand clean requirements
It is understood that the production of masks is not only a problem of equipment, but also has stricter cleanliness requirements for the production environment. Medical masks belong to the second category of medical devices, and they must be qualified for production of medical devices. Although the country has opened the application for green channels in special periods, it is difficult for ordinary small factories to obtain corresponding production qualifications.
A practitioner in the mask production industry said that the main upfront cost of producing masks is a dust-free sterile workshop and obtaining a license. In general, the prices of local enterprises are difficult to be compared with the production areas with larger production volume and lower raw material costs in the bidding process. Therefore, local manufacturers everywhere have no orders, no order, no money to make, and naturally no one produces.
Without a class 10,000 clean room, the masks produced cannot be used directly, but also go through various disinfection procedures, such as disinfection with ethylene oxide and standing for 7 days to half a month, to become a qualified and safe medical device that can isolate viruses Masks.
The construction of new workshops or the transformation of existing workshops with clean technology obviously cannot meet the current time requirements.
In the face of the epidemic, following the rapid introduction of the fully automatic one-for-two mask machine, both Topstar and Yuanrong Smart have recently designed a special clean shed specifically for mask production, which can build a “mini” mask factory in one day .
Combined with the rich experience in designing and implementing clean engineering for large enterprises, the clean workshop can be re-modeled, and a special clean shed designed for masks can be designed. The standard modular assembly can meet the expansion needs and increase the cleanliness to 10,000. With the automatic one-for-two mask production line, only 2 people can assemble successfully in 1 day.
Therefore, “production” and “use” are actually separated by multiple processes to reach the standard, and the clean room is a particularly critical part.
How to release the “rolling torrent”
According to industry estimates, 200 million masks are produced every day. Almost 2,000 standard mask machines are needed to maintain normal production every day. Together with spare machines and inventory machines, the market capacity of mask machines is optimistically estimated at about 3,000 . If the 500 companies claiming to make mask machines in the Pearl River Delta region are all in operation, there will be less than 10 orders per company on average.
But what is surprising is that the mask machine currently under production is said to have passed 10,000 sets! Although it is necessary to consider the utilization rate, foreign market factors, future strategic reserve factors, etc., is there really such a big demand? Some people in the industry predict that it is very likely that 1/3 of the equipment will be idle before unpacking. I dare not imagine how powerful the scene of chicken feathers is.
Some people have connected the recent hotspots to make an interesting analogy: automatic equipment factory transfers to the hood automation, such as African locusts, the crop leaves are eaten up in the front, the back should bite the rhizome, then what to eat later?
At the hearing of the US Secretary of Health on February 25, the US Secretary of Health Alex Aza responded: The current strategic reserve is only 30 million masks, but the demand for medical masks is 300 million, so it needs to request Congress to approve procurement Supplies. Li Guangxin, general manager of Aihua Road, ridiculed that it seems that the torrent of Chinese masking machines has found an outlet for catharsis.
After the epidemic, when the masks are no longer in short supply, how should the business route go? Is it to return to the original industry and continue to cultivate? Or use this as an opportunity to develop new application industries? Where is its own core competitiveness? This is a problem that every robot and intelligent manufacturing company should think rationally and calmly. “Do not do business right” must be adequate, and good customer service is the right way.
Finally, the five thoughts of this article-the mask machine let me see what the intelligent manufacturing industry should look like.
1. National standardization, a set of drawings to facilitate mass production, deep integration of the supply chain to achieve rapid delivery;
2. Cash transactions across the entire industry chain, with objective benefits, healthy development of the industry, and happiness;
3. Be kind to your suppliers. They decide how much you can deliver and how large the scale is;
4. Send a circle of friends to sell goods, customers do not bargain, do not bid, do not shop around;
5. Buying a machine can not only make money, but also become an entrepreneur with a sense of responsibility for the equipment.
Painful realization!