At the beginning of 2023, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology issued the "Robot +" application action Implementation Plan, which clearly stated that in the field of manufacturing, "promote the construction of intelligent manufacturing demonstration factories and create typical application scenarios of industrial robots." Develop intelligent manufacturing systems based on industrial robots to help the digital transformation and intelligent transformation of the manufacturing industry."

Industry Overview: From "manufacturing" to "intelligent" critical infrastructure

In the context of a new round of technological revolution and industrial change, the world's major economies are actively engaged in fierce competition around the intelligent manufacturing industry dominated by industrial robots. As a key infrastructure for building from "manufacturing" to "intelligent manufacturing", industrial robots are playing an increasingly important role.

Industrial robots are multi-joint manipulators or multi-degree of freedom machine devices widely used in the industrial field, with a certain degree of automaticity, can rely on their own power energy and control capabilities to achieve a variety of industrial processing and manufacturing functions. Industrial robots are widely used in various industrial fields such as electronics, logistics, and chemical industry. In general, industrial robots are composed of three major parts and six sub-systems. The three major parts are the mechanical part, the sensing part and the control part. The six sub-systems can be divided into mechanical structure system, drive system, sensing system, robot-environment interaction system, human-computer interaction system and control system.

With the continuous development of robotics, the intelligent manufacturing model with digitalization, networking and intelligence as the core characteristics is becoming an important direction of industrial development and change. Compared with traditional industrial equipment, industrial robots have many advantages, such as ease of use, high intelligence level, high production efficiency and safety, easy management and significant economic benefits, so that they can operate in high-risk environments. The development of industrial robots can not only improve the quality and quantity of products, but also have a very important significance to ensure personal safety, improve the working environment, reduce labor intensity, improve labor productivity, save material consumption and reduce production costs.

According to Tianyan data, there are more than 231,000 existing industrial robot-related enterprises, of which more than 22,000 newly registered related enterprises are registered from January to October 2023.

From the perspective of geographical distribution, Jiangsu leads the provinces with more than 42,000 related enterprises, followed by Guangdong and Shandong, with more than 38,000 and 23,000 related enterprises respectively.

From the point of view of establishment time, 52.8% of industrial robot-related enterprises were established within 1-5 years, and about 27.2% were established within 1 year.

Industrial robot industry chain link: core components account for relatively high technical barriers

The industrial robot industry chain is mainly composed of raw materials, parts (upstream), robot ontology (midstream), system integration (downstream) and industry applications. In the production cost structure of industrial robots, the upstream core components account for a relatively high proportion, the cost of servo systems, controllers and reducers accounts for more than 70%, of which the reducers account for half, and the bulk manufacturing accounts for only 15%. The reason is that the drive and control functions of industrial robots come from the core parts, and the technical barriers of the core parts are higher than that of the bulk manufacturing, so the production cost accounts for a high proportion.

Upstream: the core parts account for a relatively high proportion, and the production cost is high

The upstream parts mainly include: controller, servo motor, reducer and execution system. Among them, the controller, servo motor and reducer are the key parts of the production of industrial robots, and they are also the core competitiveness of industrial robots at home and abroad. In terms of the difficulty of development, the controller is a supporting equipment for the development of industrial robots, and the development difficulty is medium; Servo motor is the core driving mechanism of industrial robot, and the development difficulty is medium. The reducer is an independent component composed of gear drive, worm drive and gear-worm drive, which is closed in the rigid shell of industrial robot, and the development is the most difficult.

Midstream: robot body

Industrial robot ontology manufacturers are mainly responsible for the assembly and integration of industrial robot ontology. At present, the proportion of domestic brand robot sales is rising. According to the data of the machine economy network, from 2015 to 2020, the proportion of domestic investment in the Chinese robot ontology market increased from 18.6% to 28.6%, and the proportion of domestic investment further increased to 33.7% in 2021. At present, domestic industrial robot manufacturers are mainly concentrated in the low-end market, and the high-end application market is still occupied by Fanuc, Kuka, ABB and Yaskawa four foreign enterprises. The high-end market is monopolized by the "four big families", and the domestic brand Eston is close to the leader. According to China's industrial robot shipment data compiled by MIR Databank, in 2021, the "four big families" accounted for 41.5% of the market share, respectively, Fanuc (13%), ABB (12.3%), Yaskawa (8.8%) and Kuka (7.4%). Domestic leader Eston market share of 2.4%, ranked 11th, and domestic brands such as Huichuan and Xinshida also ranked top.

Downstream: Robot integration systems

Industrial robot system integrators are in the downstream application end of the industrial chain, and are responsible for targeted system integration and software secondary development of industrial robot ontology according to different scenarios and uses, so that it has specific working capabilities.

Application fields of industrial robots: automated production, automobile manufacturing, logistics and other fields are widely used

In 2022, the installed capacity of industrial robots accounted for more than 50% of the world's total, ranking the world's largest market, and the density of manufacturing robots reached 392 units per 10,000 workers. Industrial robots are widely used in automated production, automobile manufacturing, logistics, medical care, 3c electronics and other fields.

Automated production. In the field of automated production, industrial robots are a very important equipment. It can do repetitive, tedious, dangerous or high-precision work, freeing up traditional labor to learn more innovative work. On the production line, industrial robots can autonomously carry out tasks such as parts assembly, inspection and packaging, increasing the production efficiency of enterprises. In addition, the programmable and high-precision control technology of industrial robots can also quickly adapt to changing production needs and achieve rapid conversion of batch or small-batch production.

Car manufacturing. In the automobile manufacturing industry, industrial robots have a wide range of applications in the automobile manufacturing industry. In the automotive manufacturing process, industrial robots can undertake various tasks such as welding, painting, assembly and dispensing, thereby improving the efficiency of the production line as well as improving product quality. Moreover, in the manufacturing of auto parts, industrial robots can also be used in a variety of processes such as mold casting, milling and clamping, improving production efficiency and yield.

Logistics. In the logistics industry, the application of industrial robots in the logistics industry is also more and more extensive. It can be used for handling and sorting goods, warehousing management and transportation, and other links to improve the efficiency and safety of logistics. Industrial robots can also help companies reduce personnel costs and reduce operational risks.

Three C electrons. In the 3C electronics industry, industrial robots have been widely used in the manufacturing and packaging of electronic products such as mobile phones. They move and operate in a highly flexible manner and can perform complex assembly tasks with precision, providing critical support for efficient automation of production lines. Industrial robots can improve production efficiency. Their ability to automate repetitive tasks not only increases manufacturing speed, but also reduces human errors. In addition, the high-precision execution ability of the robot system can ensure that the accuracy and quality of the products produced meet the requirements, so as to effectively avoid the adverse impact of manual operation errors on product quality.

Medical treatment. In the medical industry, industrial robots also have many applications in the medical field, which can be used for surgery, treatment and rehabilitation and other work, improving the accuracy and safety of the work. In addition, industrial robots can also help hospitals solve the problem of insufficient medical staff and provide more diversified rehabilitation treatment programs for patients.

Investment and financing analysis: The number of financing events in Jiangsu, Shanghai and Guangdong ranked first

China's huge manufacturing volume has given birth to the world's largest industrial robot market, and since 2013, China has occupied the world's largest industrial robot consumer market for many years. Industrial robots, as the "pearl" in the field of intelligent manufacturing, continue to receive the attention of venture capital institutions.

From the perspective of industry distribution of financing events, the number of financing events related to robot ontology ranked the top, with 60; In addition, the downstream application fields closely related to intelligent equipment, logistics equipment, warehousing services and industrial robots are also hot spots for investment and financing.

In terms of the geographical distribution of financing events, at the provincial/municipal level, Jiangsu, Shanghai and Guangdong ranked first in terms of the number of financing events, with 16 (Jiangsu and Shanghai tied) and 15 respectively; At the city level, Shenzhen, Nanjing and Hefei had the highest number of financing events, with 11, 10 and 4 respectively. From the geographical distribution of financing events, it is obvious that the relationship between industrial robots and strong manufacturing provinces is also very close, which strongly supports the upgrading of the manufacturing industry.

From the distribution of financing events, strategic financing, series A, and series B were at the forefront, with 14, 12 and 11 cases respectively.

From the perspective of the "sale" of investment and financing institutions, Lanchi Venture Capital, Dao Son Capital and Lenovo Venture Capital and other institutions are listed; In addition to institutions, industrial capital such as: BYD, Haier, Cobos and other well-known enterprises have also appeared in the global movement technology, Tianchuang robot and other enterprises investor list.

Patent analysis: As of January 2023, more than 1,400 patent applications have been filed

As a technology-intensive industry, the number of applications for patent technology shows the scientific and technological content and technical level of industrial development from the side.

From the perspective of the total number of industrial robot patent applications, the number of patents applied for has exceeded 10,000, of which utility models ranked first with more than 6,200, invention patents ranked second with more than 5,100, and design ranked third with more than 880.

From the perspective of the annual distribution of patent applications, the number of patent applications has increased year by year in the past three years (2020-2022), from more than 1,500 to more than 2,100, which has been greatly improved. In addition, as of January 2023, more than 1,400 patent applications have been filed.

Development prospects: Performance improvement and price decline of domestic substitution prospects

The performance of domestic robots is improved, the price is reduced, and the economic effect is significant. According to the National Bureau of Statistics, the average import price of industrial robot products gradually declined from 162,300 / set in 2019 to 85,200 / set in 2022, and the price of domestic robots is generally lower than that of imported robots. With the improvement of performance and price decline, the economic effect of industrial robot application is more significant, which will help the industrial robot industry to broaden the application scenario and expand downstream demand.

Industrial upgrading and domestic substitution paint broad prospects. On the one hand, it stems from industrial upgrading. China's economy is in the critical period of transforming the development mode, optimizing the economic structure and transforming the growth engine, which urgently requires the transformation and upgrading of labor-intensive industries. Industrial upgrading will drive a large number of industrial robot market demand. On the other hand, the state has put forward the goal of localization of industrial robots. "Made in China 2025" set the goal of the development of domestic industrial robots, and put forward clear requirements for the localization rate of domestic robots and key components; The "14th Five-Year Plan" robot industry development Plan clearly states that "by 2025, a number of robot core technologies and high-end products will make breakthroughs, the overall index of the machine will reach the international advanced level, and the performance and reliability of key components will reach the international level of similar products." Domestic industrial robots have gradually increased their market share with rapidly breaking product performance, more advantageous cost performance and service level.

Robots going to sea will become an important direction of future development. The performance shortcomings of domestic industrial robots are gradually being supplemented, with the domestic manufacturing industry "going out" and the global manufacturing industry to Southeast Asia and Latin America, the robot will become an important direction of future development.

Tianyan Research Institute believes that under the guidance of the digital economy, under the background of the integration of data and reality, vigorously develop the industrial robot industry and effectively promote the structural transformation and upgrading of China's manufacturing industry, which will help continue to enhance and maintain the competitiveness of Chinese manufacturing in the international market.

-- The article is from the Internet