In recent days, the main economic indicators of the first quarter have been announced, and the national economy has achieved a good start. It can be said that the word "entering" has become a distinctive feature of China's economy in 2024.
From today on, the news channel of the main station will launch a special program, "China's economy is moving forward", and multiple journalists will go deep into factory sites and business district exhibitions to interview and investigate, and gain insight into the driving force of China's economic progress.
Focusing on China's economy in the first quarter, today's key word is "advanced". This indicates a process from low level to high level, and also means that it has been greatly improved on the original basis. Our traditional industry is in such a process.
First, let's look at a figure. In the first quarter, the national industrial added value increased by 6.1%, which was significantly higher than the same period last year and the fourth quarter. The contribution rate of industrial growth to GDP growth was 37.3%, pulling nearly two points of GDP growth. It is worth mentioning that among 41 major industries, 37 industries achieved year-on-year growth in added value. Among these 37 industries, traditional industries account for more than 75%. It can be said that accelerating the transformation of traditional industries has become an important engine to promote economic recovery.
Casting industry is an indispensable part of equipment manufacturing, so it is also known as one of the "bases" of industry. In the first quarter of this year, like many traditional industries, the transformation and upgrading of the foundry industry accelerated.
"Sand making without sand"
Advanced password
The core process of the sand mold foundry is to make the sand mold used for pouring, that is, the sand core. Therefore, many foundries were also called sand foundry before. When the reporter came to a foundry enterprise located in Wujiang District, Suzhou, he did not see the sand that should be everywhere.
Where has the sand gone?
It turns out that the raw materials for sand core making are placed in the pipe on the top of the plant, and automatically enter the core making machine for molding after receiving the sand falling command. Zhang Hongliang, the manager of the foundry department of the enterprise, told the reporter that now all production is automatically controlled by computer programs. Previously, "manual work" such as sand turning, handling and pouring were also completed by industrial robots in a closed environment.
During the interview, the reporter accidentally broke a sand core. It was only then that he found that the sand core moved back and forth by the manipulator was broken at the first touch. Zhang Hongliang said that developing this kind of manipulator for sand core clamping was a big challenge for them. If the manipulator is too powerful, the sand core will break, and it will not be clamped when the strength is too small. Finally, it took more than half a year before the test was successful.
Transformation and upgrading are not achieved overnight. In order to better integrate industrial robots with people and casting processes, enterprises have decided to independently develop the background system used in intelligent production lines, and at the same time develop new materials that adapt to new processes.
Now, the second intelligent production line of the enterprise is ready to be put into use these days. After several rounds of transformation, the product customization cycle has been reduced from 7 days to half a day, and the per capita production efficiency has increased by 221%. The market competitiveness is also improving. Now the heat exchanger castings exported by the enterprise have occupied one third of the global market share, and the precision of the process has reached the world's leading level.
This foundry
And strawberry garden are neighbors
During the interview, the reporter saw that there was a large equipment with a height of 11 meters beside the intelligent production line. Zhang Hongliang told the reporter that the sand core should be broken after pouring aluminum water. The new sand recycling system they put into use recently not only made the sand recycling rate reach more than 98%, but also basically removed the odor in the exhaust gas treatment.
Zhang Hongliang said that there is a strawberry garden of nearly 100 mu across the street. Now some advanced casting enterprises abroad can integrate well with the surrounding residential areas and other industries, and they also meet this standard.
Generally speaking, foundry enterprises are often shunned because of their large potential dust emissions. The reporter interviewed several strawberry growers at random. They told the reporter that the foundry opposite had not affected their business, and the employees of the factory often bought strawberries from them.
New forces cast a new future for traditional industries
The logo of the green factory makes the original business of the enterprise obtain more orders, but they are not satisfied with this. Since this year, the enterprise has developed new casting products for many emerging industries. So what did they do to enter the new track? The reporter found the answer from the newly built R&D building of the enterprise. Here, the reporter met Wu Qinfang, the person in charge of the enterprise. As a doctor graduated from Tsinghua University, he attaches great importance to talents. In order to enhance their innovation ability, they increased their talent recruitment efforts in the first quarter of this year.
To the surprise of the reporter, most of these new employees are doctors and masters, but almost all of them are not majoring in casting. The reporter sat down and talked with them. Among them, there were doctors studying metal materials, automotive engineers who had returned from studying abroad, and many young people who had just left campus. Although they came from different fields, they gave an almost identical answer: "The traditional manufacturing industry needs the participation of young people. We are very confident in the foundry industry, which will certainly move forward."
Wu Qinfang told reporters that his confidence in opening up new fields also comes from these young people who are full of vitality. In the recent days, the team completed the development of integrated accessories for photovoltaic enterprises. The new attempt is not like the previous pattern of processing according to drawings, but provides customers with full process services integrating manufacturing and design. Wu Qinfang said that in the future, not only in the photovoltaic industry, but also in new energy vehicles, including hydrogen engines, and so on, they can use this way to develop.
The data shows that China's total export of castings from January to February 2024 is 885000 tons, an increase of 21.2% year on year.
Up to now, there are 39 single champion enterprises, 21 single champion products and 214 specialized and special new enterprises in China's foundry industry.
The beautiful blueprint of the foundry industry is slowly developing towards new and green.
Traditional industries move forward step by step
In Zibo, Shandong Province, a stainless steel enterprise recently invested in the introduction of the world's first 40000 watt groove laser cutting machine. The use of intelligent equipment enables the one-time completion of stainless steel parts with multiple sizes and shapes on the production line. The products can be used in marine ships, medical devices, high-end equipment manufacturing and other fields.
Green transformation has been constantly broken through. A ceramic enterprise located in Jingdezhen, Jiangxi Province, has just launched a batch of newly developed sesame white light stone new materials, which are made of industrial solid wastes such as fly ash and coal gangue. At present, more than 80% of each piece of light stone material transported from this factory comes from industrial solid waste.
The Industrial Research Office of the Economic Forecast Department of the National Information Center has made a new discovery by studying the product output, value-added growth, profit and other data of key traditional industries:
Since the first quarter of this year, the activity of traditional industries has been rising.
Wei Qijia, director of the Industrial Research Office of the Economic Forecast Department of the National Information Center, said that this data shows that with the support of various favorable policies, the potential for the development of China's traditional industries is constantly emerging, especially the trend of technology empowering industries is very significant.
In the first quarter of this year, the balance between supply and demand of traditional industries was further improved, and the impetus for transformation and upgrading was more obvious. Many places realized the coordinated development of all links of the industrial chain through the development of advanced manufacturing clusters. The traditional industry will go further and play an important role in promoting high-quality economic development.
Prepared by Director Shen Yong, Yan Shuai, Nan Zhang Qin
Supervised by: Wang Yan, Li Zhe
Producer Yi Yuequn
Reporter Wu Hao, Yang Yaoyu, Yang Guang, Cui Shanpeng, Wang Xiaofan, Xie Yuansen, Jiangxi TV Station, Zibo TV Station, Wu Jiangrong Media
New Media: Yang Xiaobo, Zhang Hao, Xie Rui, Li Jie
(CCTV News Client)
