After nearly a decade of rapid development, China's hydraulic automatic lathe industry has made significant progress in both production capacity and product technology level. However, overall, there is still a big gap between China's hydraulic automatic lathe product level and the international level, and it is still at the middle and low end of the international division of labor and industrial chain.
Due to the weak market competitiveness of mid to high end hydraulic automatic lathe products, they are currently unable to compete with international products. The gap between domestic hydraulic automatic lathes and international products mainly lies in the low reliability and stability of the machine tools, the lack of overall manufacturing technology and quality, the need to improve the technical level of core operating components, and the insufficient ability to provide comprehensive solutions. This has become one of the main reasons why domestic hydraulic automatic lathe products have been in a passive position in market competition for a long time.
Firstly, there is still a significant gap between the reliability, stability, and manufacturing technology level of machine tools and the world level. The average working time of domestically produced mid to high end hydraulic automatic lathes is not more than 300 hours, while most imported high-end products have a working time of over 2000 hours and high precision retention and stability.
Secondly, the ability for independent innovation is weak, and key core technologies constrain the development level of the industry. At present, China's hydraulic automatic lathe industry can basically meet the domestic market's demand for various types of mid to high end heavy-duty and ultra hydraulic automatic lathes, but there is still no enterprise with international market competitiveness. This is because China's hydraulic automatic lathe industry has long lacked independent innovation and research on basic common technologies, key core technologies, and forward-looking technologies.
Thirdly, there is a lack of original innovation and high-quality technical talents and workers. Due to historical reasons, hydraulic automatic lathe enterprises in China still face the problem of "emphasizing hard over soft", that is, "emphasizing technological transformation over process, design over foundation, and short-term over long-term". At the same time, there is a lack of original innovation and high-quality technical talents, industrial technical workers, and a corporate culture that pursues manufacturing quality in the industry.
Fourthly, there is an imbalance in production capacity structure and prominent supply-demand contradictions. Since entering the new century, due to the rapid development of the hydraulic automatic lathe market, enterprises or other investors who did not originally produce hydraulic automatic lathes have entered this field one after another. The products they produce basically cover all categories and varieties of hydraulic automatic lathe products, but the vast majority are universal and mid to low end products. However, the high-end CNC hydraulic automatic lathes and services required by key user areas in China, especially specialized products for segmented markets, are insufficient in supply capacity and have to rely on imports.