Instrumentation: Technology Leads Market Security

With the continuous development of economy and technology, during the “11th Five-Year Plan” period, the instrumentation industry is also showing a constantly changing appearance. The data shows that during the “Eleventh Five-Year Plan” period, China’s GDP grew at an average annual rate of 11.2%, while the instrumentation industry achieved an ultra-high-speed increase of 20% per year, which really delighted the instrumentation people.

The reasons why the instrumentation industry can develop so rapidly are the following: First, the rapid development of the entire national economy and the deepening integration of the two industries have led to the need for automation in various economic fields. The prosperity of the instrumentation industry has come. Specifically, the highlights of the implementation of national key projects, food safety and pharmaceutical safety and other issues related to the national economy and people's livelihood have provided instrumentation that plays a vital role in the intelligentization of manufacturing equipment, automation of production processes, and quality supervision and quarantine. opportunity. Secondly, during the “11th Five-Year Plan” period, the significant increase in domestic instrumentation technology resulted in the gradual replacement of some foreign market shares by the domestic market, which increased the market share of domestic instrumentation. Third, the demand for instruments and meters in the Chinese market has made many multinational companies attach great importance to the cake in the Chinese market. More and more foreign companies are starting to set up factories in China. Since the products that need to be imported have been transformed into localized production, the market scale of the instrumentation industry has been expanded to some extent.

However, with the continuous deterioration of the international economic environment and the instability of the domestic market environment, such as overcapacity in steel, cement, glass and other industries, safety risks have been exposed in wind power, solar energy, rail transit, and food industries. The instrumentation industry has also begun to show a cooling trend. During the “Twelfth Five-Year Plan” period, how the instrumentation industry will develop will become the focus that industry insiders must pay attention to.

The lack of core technology is worrying about the market competition Despite the guidance of the national macro-control policies, China's instrumentation industry has experienced unprecedented rapid development in recent years. However, the lack of core technologies, high-end products still rely on foreign imports, and other issues highlighted, making China's instrumentation The instrument industry is facing a severe test.

In a recent exchange, Dong Jingchen, consultant to the China Instrument and Meter Industry Association, pointed out to reporters: “In fact, it has long been recognized that the small, scattered and chaotic situation in the instrumentation industry is one of the important reasons that hinder the development of the industry. But in the economy, In the period of rapid development, there is a large market demand, and products produced by small, scattered, and chaotic enterprises can also be sold. Therefore, there is no incentive for enterprises to change this situation. In fact, the disorderly competition in the market economy is indeed necessary. Buy one part for the status quo of the instrumentation industry. However, due to the fact that the strength of the company is not strong, resulting in a serious shortage of investment in technology research and development and manufacturing processes, resulting in a large gap between domestic products and foreign countries is the more important reason.

In this regard, Mr. Tu Shenghua, manager of instrument and meter maintenance department of Fujian United Petroleum & Chemical Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as “Fujian Lianhua”), disclosed to reporters: “At present, there is still a certain gap between domestic instrumentation companies and large foreign companies, especially in products. For performance, for our petroleum and petrochemical industry, we will pay more attention to the reliability and safety of products, and foreign technologies can better ensure the stability of our production process, and therefore we are more inclined to choose products when we choose partners. Highly reliable foreign companies."

Indeed, Mr. Tu Shenghua’s concerns are also the concern of most users. Up to now, most of the technologies and product R&D in China's instrumentation industry are still in the state of “tracking abroad”. There are few domestic technologies that can be used by well-known international companies. Therefore, when users select products, domestic companies occupy the price advantage. A part of the market, but in the face of large-scale projects, the lack of technical skills of domestic companies in the face of competition inevitably passive, market competition pressure doubled.

In this regard, Dong Jingchen consultant pointed out: "The enhancement of the Chinese company's own connotation will become a necessary condition for its competition with international brands on the same platform in the future."

A number of technologies co-cast "new face"

Undoubtedly, with the further development of the market economy, the integration of the two industries will continue to deepen, and the demand of industrial users for the instrumentation industry will continue to increase. The “Twelfth Five-Year Plan” clearly puts forward the green and smart road of equipment manufacturing industry, which undoubtedly provides an excellent development opportunity for the instrumentation industry. This is especially true for Chinese companies.

Shanghai Institute of Industrial Automation Instrumentation professor Gao Jiqin pointed out to reporters: "In the future, the development of the instrumentation industry will be a transition to networking and intelligence."

In the exchange with Dong Jingchen’s consultants, he also put forward: “Sensors and sensing systems, smart instrumentation, control systems and robots will become the focus of development in the instrumentation industry.” And this is related to the “intelligent "It coincides.

Judging from the “Twelfth Five-Year Plan”, for a long time to come, strategic emerging industries will be strongly supported by national policies, and the new generation of information technology industry is undoubtedly one of them. As a new generation of information industry with Internet of Things and cloud computing as the core, the information industry is bound to promote the development of the instrumentation industry. Sensors, as the basic components of the Internet of Things, will surely attract more attention in the future, especially in sensor intelligence and sensor networks. Technology, miniaturization and low-power technologies, sensor arrays, and high-end technology fields such as the design, manufacture, and packaging of multi-sensor and multi-sensor parameters sensors will certainly lead to a technological revolution in the instrumentation industry, which will lead to “smart The construction of the factory.

In fact, far more than the innovation of the Internet of Things technology, he also told reporters in the process of exchanges with students and students that the future of wireless communication technology and industrial software technology will become the key development direction of the instrumentation industry. He pointed out that the current development of wireless technology has been able to reach the level of wired technology, and the wired field bus always has some insurmountable technical defects, and these can completely solve the problem through wireless communication technology, that is, use wireless technology to build the scene The internet. According to the expectation of Qin Xueqin, the application of wireless communication technology in the field of industrial automation will increase at a rate of 40% per year. It can be seen that the formulation of industrial wireless communication network standards and the development and certification of industrial wireless communication networks will also become the focus areas of the domestic instrumentation industry in the future.

On the aspect of industrial software platform technology, Geng Xueqin pointed out that before industrial software was divided into industrial automation software and lifecycle management software, these two softwares will be programmed and run on a unified engineering technology platform in the future. In order to achieve integration, improve programming efficiency, shorten the project cycle, and the availability of Siemens TIA Portal is in line with this technology trend.

Not only that, Dong Jingchen's consultant also talked about the sports control, visual recognition technology and servo drive, servo motor and other industries. With the continuous development of these technologies, it is not difficult to foresee that in the coming “Twelfth Five-Year Plan” period, the technology of the instrumentation industry will inevitably show a trend of “flower blossoming”, while Chinese instrumentation companies will cast “new The industry landscape is also just around the corner.

Security and continuous warming will be the key to the establishment of a unified system In recent years, the topic of “security” never seems to lack news, whether it is the "food safety crisis" triggered by the dairy industry or the succession of industries such as rail transit, petroleum and petrochemical, and wind power. "Safety accidents" all put "safety" to the forefront to a certain extent.

Perhaps because of the repeated attention of the media and the public to the topic of "security," the continuously rising "security issue" makes "safety production" even more important during this period. On October 14, 2011, the General Office of the State Council officially issued the "12th Five-year Plan for Safe Production". The third article in its main task column also proposes to establish a security technology innovation system that combines enterprise-oriented, market-oriented, and government-industry-based research. For the instrumentation industry, functional safety technology and safety instrumentation, as one of the most popular international research topics in the world, are impressively included in the “12th Five-year Plan” of the instrumentation industry.

It is understood that at present, large-scale petrochemical engineering construction projects in China have stipulated that functional safety assessment must be conducted in advance. In the exchange with Mr. Tu Shenghua, it is the best evidence that he constantly lifts the safety and reliability of instruments. He pointed out: "The oil industry as a strategic special industry, safety and reliability is the development theme, like multi-redundant control technology, redundant measurement and its implementing agency design and application will all be 'safety instrument' in the petrochemical industry Focus on R&D direction."

Obviously it is not just the petroleum and petrochemical industry. Safety instruments will penetrate into various fields in the future and have become an industry consensus. In this regard, Yan Xueqin clearly stated that "the functional safety and information security of industrial automation systems will be highly valued by all parties."

Since its development, functional safety and safety instrumentation technology have been no strangers in foreign countries, but it is still a new field for the Chinese market. How to develop “safety instruments” still makes it difficult for some Chinese companies to start. In this regard, Dong Jingchen pointed out that “the functional safety certification” is not only a quantified indicator, but also runs through the entire process of product design and manufacturing. Its particularity is that from the beginning of the development, it requires that the entire process must satisfy functional safety at every step. In the process of safety certification, the hardware and software of the product must all be open to the certification body, so for the certification body, the product is not 'secret' at all, but at present our country's product functional safety certification also requires Relying on foreign institutions, it is very necessary and urgent to establish a domestic security certification system as soon as possible."

Indeed, China's products "safety certification" must rely on German TüV and other certification bodies is clearly not a long-term plan. However, in the current Chinese market, there is such a phenomenon. With the continuous warming up of “security”, all walks of life are doing their own “safety certification,” which in itself is a good indication that Chinese industry users have realized that "Security" is important in production, but it also adds a certain degree of difficulty to the establishment of China's unified safety certification system in the future. It can be seen that there will be a long way to go before Chinese users establish a unified safety certification system.