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Chinese Molds Are 'Far behind' Global Standards
China’s indigenous mold industry is behind in almost every possible respect: capacity, sophistication, and skilled labor
Doug Smock, Contributing Editor -- Design News, March 17, 2008
There is one big caveat if you want to take a major product development project to China. The tooling industry there remains substandard and largely incapable of making highly complex, sophisticated products.
That’s not an opinion; it’s a statement from the director of the China Die & Mold Industry Association (CDMIA) in his end-of-the-year report.
“Products developed by some of China's enterprises are close to meeting international level, yet the precision, cavity surface roughness, production cycle and life cycle offered by their mold are still far behind from international standard,” says Zhou Yongtai, vice secretary general of the CDMIA.
One of the biggest problems plaguing Chinese mold making is lack of skilled workers. “The deficient system and shortage of qualified professionals are problems to be solved,” says Yongtai. “The operating system of traditional state ownership and collective ownership cannot deal with these challenges.” As a result Chinese mold makers lag in innovation and invest little in research and development.
Molds made in China by Chinese mold makers meet only 74 percent of booming demand. The problem is even more severe for sophisticated tools, where local capacity can only meet 60 percent of demand.
The situation for indigenous tool makers is in stark contrast to foreign-owned mold making in China. Sophisticated American mold makers such as NyproMold have built extensive new mold making capacity in China with the best possible equipment. Taiwanese and Hong Kong mold makers have also built capacity in China that is not reflected in the CDMIA data. That, by itself, is an interesting reflection on the Chinese socialist market economy (it’s no longer considered communist). American companies do not report production or investment data to a government. Chinese companies do.
Growing trade gap
The total value of molds made for plastic production in China by Chinese mold makers was $3.1 billion in 2006, the most recent year for which data is available. China had to import $1 billion in molds to meet demand. Imports were heavy on specialized tools for automotive, telecommunications, electronics and appliance applications. Chinese mold makers exported $700 million in molds, mostly medium- or low-grade. Those cheap “low-grade” tools have created significant damage to American mold makers, many of whom are moving to higher-level technical work or closing their doors.
Capabilities of Chinese mold makers are improving. According to the CDMIA, they can manufacture injection molds exceeding 50 tons and precision molds with 2µm (µm is one micron or one millionth of a meter) in precision. “Also, they can manufacture high-precision low-modulus gear molds and car lamp molds, meeting high optical requirements,” says Yongtai. Chinese mold makers are increasingly using CAD/CAM/CAE technology, high-speed machining and even some rapid tooling/prototyping. Improvements are being made in mold component standardization.
But it’s a rapidly moving target. High-tech plastic manufacturing continues to boom in China, and its trade deficit gap in molds grows yearly.
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 Chinese mold makers lack capability to make sophisticated molds, such as this 48-cavity syringe tool. |
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Talkback
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In the field of precision polymer coating ,this conclusion seems not so accurate.Please refer...
- 2008-03-26 21:51:45 -
I work with the PM industry and the Materials Processing industry in general. I have heard...
- 2008-01-29 04:03:32 -
I agree with Russel, I have been in China along time too and I would say more is reported by...
- 2008-01-28 17:38:49
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