Precision machining industry develops towards high-efficiency and high-precision

Global precision manufacturing market keeping steady

In recent years, global mechanic technologies develop fast with the enhancement of production and technology. Meanwhile, production improvement is originated by automatic application, and technology was implemented more by ultra-precision manufacturing transformation.

Because precision machinery development improves the precision technologies of modern products, VLSI (Very Large Scale Integration Circuit) requires hundreds of thousands of components or more parts to be integrated on a square millimeter plane. The line width only can be 1 μm and the error should be less than 0.05μm. Therefore, there are much higher standards for machine tool and machining technologies to satisfy customers' needs.

As so far, precision machinery manufacturing is adopted in fields of various industries such as aerospace, medical, automotive, 3C electronics and others to complete complex parts. Global precision manufacturing market keeps steady because of the wide support from those down-stream sectors. 

According to Roland Berger Agency, CAGR (composition annual rate of growth) of global manufacturing market was 0.2% from 2011 to 2018. While, it has achieved 216 billion dollars with the yoy growth of 1.9%.

To satisfy different market segments about independent production, precision machining market can be divided into outsourcing market and non-outsourcing market. Outsourcing is prevailing in precision machining market, especially the scale was up to 148 billion dollars, which occupied 69% around the world.

In the outsourcing market, precision machining market can be divided into high-end market, mid-end market and low-end market according to the vale of machine tool. The high-end market is referred to the high precision machining centers with more than 500,000 euros, mainly covering the whole process, high degree of automation, high speed and reliability, and able to manufacture different products. In 2018, global high-end machining market reached 38 billion dollars.

The mid-end market is referred to general automated machining center with 250,000-500,000 euros, covering a wide range of process and products. From 2011 to 2018, global precision machining market maintained the small growth, and it achieved 29 billion dollars in 2018.

The low-end market is referred to the machine tool production with less than 250,000 euros, mainly dealing with the single process, occupying a large share of the external insurance market. The scale of global precision machining market reached 81 billion dollars, up to 55% of the external insurance market.

Global precision machining industry trend analysis: towards higher precision

Firstly, the theme of precision machining technology is always high-efficiency and high-precision. The targets of precision index are sub-nanometer, nano-scale and deep sub-micron, machining index has been improving. At present, many of the precision machining technical indicators have been in nanometers, and still are developed in the direction of the nanometer.

Secondly, one of the research hotspots is about how to control the machining process perfectly in face of current precision machining technology. The processing efficiency and processing stability are directly related to the intelligence degree of the equipment. And it is the biggest goal of manufacturing is to reduce the dependence of processing results on labor experience by introducing advanced equipment. At same time, there are higher requirements for intelligence and automation in the fields of optoelectronic, micro-electro-mechanical, aerospace, aviation and others.

Lastly, outsourcing has been more common, particularly in high-end market. OEM and primary suppliers outsource services to precision machining suppliers in order to optimizing management, save costs and avoid the investment of large equipment and high-tech barriers. Under the circumstance, independent precision machining suppliers are expected to gain more market share.