Looking at the future opportunities and challenges from the current situation of China's instrumentation industry

Instruments are defined as "instruments or devices used to check, measure, control, analyze, calculate and display the physical quantity, chemical quantity, biomass, electrical parameters, geometric quantity and movement status of the measured object." Instruments have a wide range of applications, covering industry, agriculture, transportation, science and technology, environmental protection, national defense, culture, education, health, people's life and so on. They are responsible for the task of gatekeeper and guide in the operation of all walks of life in national economic construction. According to the industrial classification of the National Bureau of Statistics, the instrumentation industry includes 20 small specialties such as industrial automatic control system devices, electrical instrumentation, optical instrumentation, laboratory instrumentation, analytical instrumentation, testing machines, industrial instrumentation, and special instrumentation for environmental monitoring. In recent years, China's instrumentation industry has developed rapidly, but the technical market of high-end products is still occupied by imported products, which still needs some time to develop. Present situation of instrumentation industry in China

With the rapid development of China's national economy and the rapid growth of high-tech industries, China's instrumentation industry has maintained a relatively good growth trend in recent years. Especially in 2019, the scale of China's instrumentation industry continued to expand, and the trend of the whole year was first suppressed and then increased. Both revenue and profit increased positively, and both of them were higher than the average growth rate of machinery industry and national industry. In the whole year, there were 4,948 enterprises above designated size, with an operating income of 831.5 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 6.52%; The total profit was 85.8 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 5.12%. In 2019, the whole industry imported USD 52.8 billion, an increase of 1.29%; Exports amounted to $32.5 billion, up by 7.62%, with a deficit of about $20.3 billion. According to a research report released by the Prospective Industry Research Institute, in 2019, among the major categories of products in the instrumentation industry, except for the electrical instrumentation and environmental monitoring instruments, the output of other products decreased. In 2019, the output of electrical instruments and meters was 287,533,100 units, up by 15.47% year-on-year, which was the highest output among the main categories of instruments and meters; The output of special instruments and meters for environmental monitoring was 5,284,200 sets, up by 36.32% year-on-year. In 2019, except for the total asset utilization rate, product inventory rate, sales expense rate and financial expense rate, which decreased compared with the same period of 2018, all other indicators of the instrumentation industry achieved growth. Among them, in 2019, the instrument and meter industry achieved sales revenue of 724.264 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 5.54%; The total profit was 70.041 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 5.94%. Overall, the operation of the instrumentation industry is relatively stable. At the same time of industrial development, we should also be soberly aware of the new challenges we are facing.

First, the technical indexes and performance parameters of domestic instruments are generally lower than those of foreign similar products. Although some main technical indexes of some products can reach or approach those of foreign instruments, due to the lack of domestic enterprises' ability to master the manufacturing technology and process of products, they have not mastered or thoroughly understood a large number of key manufacturing technologies in instruments and meters, and their ability to carry out technological innovation on the basis of imported technologies is not strong. Generally speaking, the technical indexes and application performance of products are lower than those of foreign advanced similar products.

Second, there is a big gap between the performance and level of functional components and accessories of domestic scientific instruments and foreign products. The foundation of precision processing and component products in China is weak, and the professional supporting ability around the instrument industry is insufficient, which leads to the low technology and quality level of functional components and accessories of products, and affects the overall technical effect and testing ability of instruments.

Third, the reliability and stability of domestic instruments and meters are outstanding. Domestic enterprises don't know enough about the technology of high-performance products, and the low-price market competition makes enterprises not invest enough in the cost of products, and the technological level and industry foundation are poor. As a result, some domestic instruments that have been produced for many years are inferior to foreign similar products in terms of reliability and stability, and users have great distrust of domestic instruments.

Fourthly, the intelligence level of instruments and meters is not high, and the applicability of products is not good. With the development of information technology, automation, intelligence and integration of instruments are indispensable conditions for the development of instruments at present, and they are also good ways to reduce errors, improve efficiency, precision and expand applications. Domestic enterprises don't have a deep understanding of the application of products, do not study the application of users enough, and have shortcomings in the functional accessories, application software and application operation of products. They often only pay attention to the host or only produce bare metal, which results in the narrow application range or inconvenience of domestic products, and affects the popularization and application of domestic instruments.

According to the above analysis, it is not difficult to see that the problems of stability, reliability, cost performance, etc. are prominent, and these are also common problems in China's equipment manufacturing industry. Although many enterprises have invested heavily in R&D, introduced advanced manufacturing equipment and strengthened basic management, the lean and intelligent degree of the whole production chain still needs to be improved, and the stability, reliability and comprehensive cost performance of  products are still far behind those of foreign products. Opportunities for the development of China's instrumentation industry

Under the background of globalization and the eastward shift of the world economic center, facing the complex and changeable environment in 2020, especially the continuous influence of the global novel coronavirus epidemic, there may be various uncertainties in the development of instruments and meters in China, and the export expectation will be greatly affected. As China will strengthen the internal circulation construction, domestic demand will become the main driving force for the development of instrumentation industry, and the new infrastructure will also promote the development of instrumentation technology.

●New technology of instruments and meters for capital construction

Since March 2020, the state has vigorously promoted the construction of new infrastructure. The new infrastructure is an infrastructure system that is guided by new development concepts, driven by technological innovation, based on information networks, and oriented to the needs of high-quality development, and provides services such as digital transformation, intelligent upgrading, integration and innovation. The new infrastructure mainly includes seven major areas, such as 5G infrastructure, UHV, intercity high-speed railway and intercity rail transit, charging piles for new energy vehicles, big data centers, artificial intelligence, and industrial internet, and involves many key industries of people's livelihood, such as communication, electric power, transportation, and digital.

As an important guarantee for communication testing, equipment operation and maintenance, intelligent perception and big data acquisition, instruments and their core components will promote the instrument industry to speed up the technical development of new products, and carry out research on basic common technologies such as testing requirements, reliability methods, communication transmission and safety requirements to meet the needs of new infrastructure development.

●New demands give birth to new industries of instruments and meters.

A new round of industrial revolution with information technology as its core is the deep integration of information and long-distance communication, mobile Internet and other high-tech and manufacturing industries. In recent years, the intelligent manufacturing, smart city, intelligent transportation and intelligent building vigorously promoted by China will drive the deep integration of instrumentation and information technology, effectively promote the industrial structure adjustment, transformation and upgrading, and make full use of the existing conditions and foundations of the industry by combining the national policies such as the belt and road initiative, supply-side reform and internet plus and the needs of macro-economy. Accelerate the industrialization pace and system integration capability of intelligent products required by key directions such as intelligent manufacturing, intelligent (digital) factories (workshops), smart cities (smart water, smart gas, smart transportation, smart medical care, etc.), develop and form new industries, and gradually change the unbalanced development of process industrial automation and discrete industrial automation, process industrial sensors and discrete industrial sensors, laboratory instruments and online scientific instruments.

●Domestic substitution brings new development of instruments and meters.

For a long time, the instruments and meters used in key industries such as nuclear power, energy and petrochemical industry in China are mainly imported products. Domestic products are difficult to enter because they are mainly low-end products, poor reliability and stability of products, etc. Although China has been promoting localization, it is not strong enough. With the current international political situation, Sino-U.S. trade friction and the evolution of the world economic structure, taking the safety, autonomy and controllability of national key industries and national defense construction as an opportunity, China has promoted the process of core technology autonomy of key products, and strived to basically form the basic support capability of national large-scale engineering projects and key application fields for automatic control systems and precision testing instruments, and the basic support capability of automatic control systems and precision testing instruments required for major scientific and technological projects. From the point of view of ensuring information security, domestic substitution has become the general trend, which will give domestic instruments and meters more market opportunities. Therefore, the good products of "specialized, refined, special and new" enterprises in domestic instruments and meters will be able to seize the opportunity and usher in a round of development "east wind".

Since the founding of the People's Republic of China, the development of China's instruments and meters has gone through a period of establishing an instrument and meter industrial system from scratch, a period of growth and expansion from all over the world, a period of rapid growth from all over the world, and a new normal period of growth from imitation to self-design, from technology introduction to digestion and absorption, from joint venture and cooperation to full opening, and from domestic market to international market. Whether it is national large-scale industrial equipment and industrial control, food safety and water and electricity measurement related to people's livelihood, teaching and scientific research, or national defense and military affairs, all instruments and meters independently developed by our country are showing their talents. At present, China's instrumentation industry is still very young, and the road to development is still very long. Fortunately, the domestic market has a strong demand for instruments and meters, and the national policy constantly encourages Chinese manufacturing industry to realize self-creation and independent innovation. However, there is still a big gap between the overall level of domestic instruments and the international advanced technology, and the weak position is obvious, so the industry urgently needs to be optimized and upgraded. At present, governments at all levels, from central to local, attach great importance to the development of instruments and meters, give full play to policy advantages and financial guidance, and create conditions for the development of domestic instruments. We believe that with the policy support of governments at all levels, the understanding and trust of all sectors of society for domestic instruments and meters, and the hard work of many instrument manufacturers, in the near future, domestic instruments will surely live up to expectations, lay a strong foundation for China to become a world science and technology power, and take on new responsibilities for the development of China's science and technology undertakings and national economic construction.