(Report Producer Author: Dongwu**, Zhou Ershuang, Luo Yue).
China's crude steel output ranks first in the world, and the demand for welding processing is large
Steel consumption is an important indicator to measure the level of welding, and China's crude steel output will account for 57% of the world's total in 2022, with a large demand for welding. According to the statistics of the World Steel Association, China's crude steel production in 2022 reached 10500 million tons, accounting for 56 percent of the world's total output5%；During the 13th Five-Year Plan period, China's annual average of 300 million tons of steel was used for welding, accounting for more than 50% of the world's total welding. The world's leading output of steel and welding processing.
Welding can be roughly divided into three categories: fusion welding, pressure welding, and brazing, and spot welding and arc welding are more application processes. Spot welding is a kind of pressure welding, mainly used for the welding of stamping parts of thin plate components with a thickness of less than 4mm, especially suitable for the welding of automobile bodies and cabins and aircraft fuselages, and is mainly used for mass production of metal partsArc welding is a type of fusion welding, which is suitable for welding workpieces with complex shapes, including curved surface welding.
The shortage of welders is prominent, and machines are the trend of people
There is a shortage of welders in China, and machines have become the main trend. According to the report "100 Shortage Industries for National Recruitment and Job Search in 2022" released by the Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security, welders rank tenth, and the demand is growing at an annual growth rate of 3%;And it is estimated that by 2024, the shortage of senior welders could reach around 400,000. And we think that the logic of the main trend of machines for people is:
1) The new generation of welders is insufficient: China's demographic dividend is gradually weakening, the previous generation of mature welders with rich welding experience is about to retire, and the new generation of young people are unwilling to engage in the welder profession, mainly welding and other manufacturing industries work for a long time, the content is boring, the working environment is dirty and messy, and the employment willingness of young people is insufficient
2) High employment costs: Due to the poor working environment & difficulty in recruitment, the salary of welders is higher than that of other industries, according to the data of the National Bureau of Statistics, the average annual salary of manufacturing employees in eastern China in 2021 is about 720,000 yuan, and Beijing, Shanghai and other popular areas of the average annual salary of welders is 9-110,000 yuan, much higher than the average salary of the manufacturing industry, senior welders annual salary even reached 200,000 yuan, the financial burden of enterprises is large, and the cost of welding robots is gradually reduced;
3) Welding quality & efficiency improvement demand: there are few professional welders in the market, the welding quality is uneven, the welding consistency is poor, and the weld is not beautifulConstruction, bridge, shipbuilding and other industries produce welding orders mostly in the hot summer, the construction period is short, and most of the labor works 6-6 per day5 hours, the welding efficiency is low, and the robot can work 24 hours a day, which greatly improves the welding efficiency.
The welding robot has excellent economy and can pay back within 1 year
The welding robot has excellent economy and can save a lot of labor costs. We take a 10,000-ton steel structure production line as an example to calculate the economy of welding robots. According to a welding robot can replace 2-3 welders, conservatively according to a robot to replace 25 welders calculate, a 10,000-ton steel structure production line welders weld 400 tons of steel a year, a 10,000-ton production line welding needs 25 welders, if the machine is used for people, only 10 robots are needed. The average salary of welders is about 100,000 yuan a year, and the welding robot ** is 280,000 yuan, according to the calculation of the service life of the welding robot for 2 years, a 10,000-ton steel structure production line can save 1.1 million yuan per year by replacing labor with intelligent welding robots, which has excellent economy.
Welding robot structure splitting
The welding robot is mainly composed of three parts: the robot body, welding equipment and welding system. Most of the robot bodies are six-axis industrial robots or collaborative robots. The welding equipment part, taking spot welding as an example, is composed of a welding power supply, a welding gun, a sensor, a grinder and other parts. Taking Panasonic teaching welding robot as an example, the components include a robot control cabinet, a teaching pendant, a body, a welding gun (actuator), a wire feeding device (filling solder and sending the solder to the front of the welding gun), an all-digital welding machine (providing a heat source and converting electrical energy into heat energy), auxiliary devices, etc.
Driven by the intelligent upgrading of the manufacturing industry, the market demand is growing rapidly
The market demand for welding robots continues to increase, with a compound growth rate of 17% from 2016 to 2021. Welding robots have become a hot spot in the manufacturing industry, and the market demand is increasingly strong because it can greatly improve the level of welding automation and flexibility. From 2016 to 2021, the sales volume of China's welding robot market increased from 2840,000 units increased to 4850,000 units, with a compound annual growth rate of 17%. In 2022, due to the decline in market demand, sales volume will decline;The market will pick up in 2023, and sales are expected to rebound to 510,000 units. In terms of types, arc welding is the largest type of welding robot, with sales from 2016 to 2022 from 1410,000 units increased to 3080,000 units, the total sales accounted for more than 50%, mainly the downstream of arc welding for the general industry, the market demand is large.
Domestic manufacturers are concentrated in the field of arc welding, and the standardized automotive industry is the largest downstream
Spot welding and arc welding are traditional welding methods, and laser welding and friction stir welding are the future development trends. Spot welding: mainly used in the automotive field, the link is mainly for the automotive floor, side wall, top cover and other vehicle shell assembly welding;Arc welding: The downstream is more inclined to general industries, such as 3C electronic manufacturing, metal products manufacturing, etc. Laser welding: a new welding method that uses the laser beam of high energy density as a heat source, the advantage is that the welding workpiece has no deformation, the welding efficiency is high, and there is no need to clean up after welding, etc., it is the most advanced automobile body welding technology at present, but the disadvantage is that it can only weld thin plates. Friction stir welding: a solid-phase welding method that uses friction heat as a welding heat source (the metal is directly connected through surface contact, without the melting process), which is suitable for metal processing with low melting point such as aluminum alloy, and is widely used in the aircraft industry. With the gradual development of automobiles, aircraft and ships in the direction of lightweight, the development prospect of aluminum alloy welding is broad.
Domestic manufacturers are mainly concentrated in the field of arc welding, mainly arc welding equipment is small, with small and medium-sized robots, with low barriers, while spot welding needs to be matched with heavy-duty six-axis robots, with high barriers, and the layout of domestic manufacturers is less* It has strong stickiness with foreign-funded robots, while the general industry pursues more cost-effective, and domestic manufacturers have cost-effective advantages.
The steel structure and shipbuilding industry has started intelligent upgrading, which is expected to generate a large amount of demand
The welding market in steel structure, ship and other industries is broad, which is expected to give rise to a large demand for welding robots. Although the automotive industry is the largest downstream of welding robots, the industry demand has been relatively fixed and the penetration rate of robots is relatively high. We expect that the future development opportunities of welding robots are mainly in steel structure, shipbuilding and other industries, mainly because of the urgent demand for intelligent upgrading in the above-mentioned industries, and the penetration rate of robots is low. Based on the 100 million tons of steel structure output in China in 2022 and the penetration rate of 10% of welding robots, the demand for steel structure welding robots will reach 240,000 units in 2022, which is 5 times the current market shipment of welding robots.
Ships: The replacement cycle has started, and the demand for shipbuilding has started to boom
With the support of the three logics, the global shipbuilding industry has started a high boom. China is a major shipbuilding country in the world, and as of 2022, China has ranked first in the world's shipbuilding market share for 13 consecutive years.
1. The world's first new orders. Since 2021, the global shipbuilding market has opened a high-prosperity upward channel, and China's shipbuilding industry has fully benefited, mainly due to three main reasons to support the upward trend of the global shipbuilding market
The global ship cycle has opened an upward channel: the service life of merchant ships is about 20-30 years, so the "boom-bust" cycle of shipbuilding is about 20 years apart. In the last cycle, the number of new ship deliveries increased rapidly in 2005-2006, and the upward starting point of this cycle is about 2025-2026, but the centralized transportation in the first two years led to the early start of this cycle.
Environmental protection policies accelerate the upgrading of ships: The green transformation and development of shipping is the general trend, and the IMO international shipping regulations will officially come into effect in 2023, putting forward higher requirements for the treatment of shipping emissions. Under the policy constraints, the old ships that do not meet the regulations will be eliminated, and the replacement of ships will be accelerated.
Rising global natural gas demand drives demand for LNG carriers: Stimulated by continued greenhouse gas emission reduction policies and the energy crisis in Europe, the order volume of new LNG ships has remained at a high level since 2019, and the new orders for the whole year of 2022 have exceeded the orders of the past two years combined. According to Clarkson**, the energy landscape will not change significantly in the short term, and LNG demand will maintain a high increase in the next three years.
There is a dilemma in the promotion of welding robots, and the penetration rate of downstream applications is low
Welding robots are facing the dilemma of promotion, and the penetration rate of downstream applications is low. As early as the end of the last century, China developed the first welding robot, but until now, the penetration rate of welding robot in the downstream industry is still low, and there are many difficulties and pain points in the promotion and application of welding robots: The degree of standardization of downstream industries is low, taking the steel structure industry as an example, the design of domestic steel structure components is mostly not standardized, and the current welding robot technology has poor adaptability to non-standard industries, and every welding needs to be reprogrammed, consumes a lot of time, and is inefficient;The groove of robot welding component in China is mainly manual assembly, and the groove precision is poor, according to the current welding procedure is prone to the situation that it is not welded full, missing welding or multi-welding, often needs manual secondary repair, and the current welding robot technology is difficult to substantially improve the efficiency and quality of welding. The output of welding robots with a high degree of intelligence is low, * expensive, a complete set of welding robots + equipment + systems ** up to millions of yuan, most enterprises can not afford it.
The rise of teaching-free intelligent welding robots is expected to solve the dilemma of non-standard welding
The key to determining the degree of intelligence of the welding robot is the welding system. The key to determine the degree of intelligence of the humanoid robot lies in the control system, not the hardware such as joints and bodies, and the same is true for the welding robot, and the key to determine the degree of intelligence of the welding robot lies in the welding system, not the robot body or welding equipment. Compared with other industrial robots, such as handling and palletizing robots, the application scenario has a high degree of standardization, and the action path is fixed, while the welding object of the welding robot has a high degree of non-standardization, and a large number of non-standard parts cannot be welded with the same action. The welding of small batches and non-standard parts requires the robot to have the ability to identify and independently plan the welding path, and the welding system is the core that determines the robot's ability to identify and plan independently, and the body only plays the function of "mechanical arm", which is not much different from robots such as handling or palletizing.
Intelligent welding model: the difficulty lies in interdisciplinary technology + data accumulation
Industrial software such as CAD CAM NC has high barriers: Interdisciplinarity: Industrial software is based on mathematics and runs through the interdisciplinary disciplines of computer science, chemistry, mechanics, materials science and many other fields, so it is difficult to develop, the process is complex, and the professional knowledge of developers is required. Data accumulation: The development and iteration of industrial software requires data support from actual industry experience, and no industrial software can be developed without interactive engineering user feedback. The world's mainstream CAD companies are born out of the aviation industry, Boeing, Dassault, have given those CAD software manufacturers enough opportunities, full feedback, which makes foreign CAD manufacturers gradually grow.
Market competition pattern: domestic manufacturers are accelerating to catch up
China's welding robot market mainly includes Japanese, European and domestic brands. Japanese brands (Fanuc, Yaskawa, Panasonic, OTC, Nachi Fujikoshi, Kawasaki, etc.) mostly start from the field of core components such as upstream servo motors, motion control systems, welding machines, etc., and then slowly expand to the whole welding robot, with the characteristics of the whole industry chain;European brands (abb, kuka, comau, cloos, IGM, etc.) are mostly developed from general robots or integrated business to welding robots, with rich experience in terminal applications and perfect products, but they are relatively expensive.
Under the combined effect of many factors such as technological progress, first-class support, and local advantages, domestic brands have accelerated their catch-up. Domestic welding robots such as Eston, Efort, Kaierda, Peitian and other enterprises have developed rapidly by studying technology, cutting into subdivided industries, mergers and acquisitions, and establishing joint ventures. In the first half of 2023, domestic manufacturers will quickly cut into downstream customers through cost-effective and timely response service advantages.
This article is for informational purposes only and does not represent any investment advice from us. To use the information, please refer to the original report. ）
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