Shan Gao: The tool industry competitiveness lies in service capabilities

Not long ago, Seco Tools (Shanghai) Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as Seco) held a new product launch conference in autumn in Wuyi Mountain, Fujian Province.

At the meeting, Jiang Wende, chairman of Seco, made its own expectations for the market for a period of time in the future. To sum up, it is cautious and optimistic and remains to be seen.

He analyzed that from the current perspective of 1,700 cars in 2010, there should be no problem, but how much can be sold is not certain, and from now on, the emerging investment rhythm in this area seems to him to slow down. trend. And from the industry data, the increase in the total number of international knives in the first quarter (Shandwick, Kenner, Wackert, and Seco) was over 70%, so that the industry was really shocked that the market demand can really jump so high. However, since the second half of the year, the growth rate has slowed down significantly. By the end of September, the accumulated growth of all companies has also dropped to 50%. It is estimated that the fourth quarter will have to fall back.

“There are two reasons. First, from the current situation, the absolute value of sales will decline. Second, from the fourth quarter of the industry in 2009, the value of its own sales is higher than the first three quarters of 2009, so the relative growth The rate will drop."

"Although the market is uncertain, but it is certain that the competition will become more and more intense." Jiang Wende told reporters, "The competition of tool products is one aspect, and now all four cutting tool companies are also working hard to strengthen the industry services."

An obvious example is that, as evident from the CIMT exhibition at the China Machine Tool International Exhibition last year, the product layout of the tool companies is no longer based on product categories, but is set according to industry solutions. This will give you a complete solution when you introduce it to your customers.

He believes that due to the current competitive pressures of companies, customers are increasingly relying on tools in the processing of equipment. Taking the automotive engine as an example, in the past, the configuration of the production line equipment was first developed by the diesel engine factory, and then slowly moved to the hands of the machine tool supplier. However, there is a trend that the tool supplier slowly assumes this responsibility.

“To increase market share in market competition is to do better than others, it needs a reliable foundation: a reliable product foundation and a reliable service foundation. Seco has always been actively listening to and focusing on the needs of customers. Not only can we provide a complete series of excellent tool products, but also provide more value-added services with the goal of being a trusted partner of our customers. From the user's needs, we can use our technical expertise and experience to help them achieve high efficiency, safety, and low Cost, high-margin processing, thus helping users to increase production efficiency, improve their production efficiency while improving their market competitiveness.” Jiang Wende told reporters that for this reason the company has carried out a series of Work to enhance the company's service capabilities.

At this new product launch, Seco introduced Power4, a new milling product. This is a copy milling cutter suitable for steam turbine blade machining. The cutter was developed in cooperation with Seco and customers in the power generation industry. The blade seat is designed with a blade anti-rotation system, which ensures that the blade will not rotate during processing in the four facets, thereby improving the processing stability and ensuring the safety of the processing process.

In addition, the cutter seat also considers the seal leak-proof, which can avoid the intrusion of chips or impurities during the processing, so as to always maintain high accuracy to provide high-quality processing. The cutter body is hardened with nickel-cadmium coating hardness HRC65-70 to extend the service life of the cutter body.

In terms of services, Seco established a tool management company to assist customers with a series of tasks such as procurement, inventory, logistics, on-site, installation, commissioning, dressing, and optimization. Its purpose is to reduce the cost of equipment operations with customers.

In addition, from the feedback point of view, customer attention is more focused on the delivery date and quality, and the delivery date is very strict. Jiang Wende analyzed that this has a direct relationship with the changes in the business model of the tool service object. In the past, some companies only conducted one or two centralized procurements and caused some backlogs of capital, but now companies are concerned about the circulation of funds and have launched zero. The concept of inventory. "Simply put it is hope that when I want to, you will give when." Jiang Wende joked: "The best is to make money from the money, then give you pay."

Therefore, Seco will also make some adjustments in the organizational structure of the company so that it can supply customers quickly and on time.

"Now most of the competition in the industry is a product-level contest, but in the future it must be a contest of the core competitiveness of the company." Jiang Wende said, how to embody the core competitiveness of a company is to better integrate technology and services. Shangao will invest more effort in the establishment of the cutter program team to strengthen its core competitiveness.