The status quo of the seal industry

In recent years, the production and quality of rubber sealing products in my country has gradually entered a new stage and a new period. However, these alone are far from meeting the needs of other industries for the standardization and serialization of various rubber sealing products. Especially compared with advanced international countries, our products have both in terms of product quality and product variety. A considerable gap. This issue of Hundred Forums focuses on the concept, research content and research significance of sealing science, summarizes the status quo of rubber and plastic sealing, mechanical seal and packing sealing technology, and analyzes the research level and new products of advanced countries in my country and the world’s advanced sealing technology Develop the gap in capacity, and put forward a number of suggestions on the focus of my country's future research in the field of sealing.

The overall competitiveness of my country's sealing industry is not strong. It is well known that in our country, the sealing industry can be said to be the smallest industry, but the products can be used in conjunction with large industries. No matter aviation, navigation, petroleum, chemical industry, or machinery, power generation, metallurgy, mining, etc., seals are inseparable. In short, all organic, pumps, pipes, and valves rely on seals. Therefore, although the industry is small, it involves a wide range of areas. In recent years, with the development of the economy, the sealing industry has also developed rapidly. But unlike other industries, although the sealing industry develops fast, the changes of sealing enterprises are slower. For example, in the late 1970s and early 1980s, there were only a few manufacturers in Jiangsu, Zhejiang, and Shandong. Sealing factories were everywhere in the coastal, inland, or in the south and north. The entire sealing industry has grown from the previous ones. There are as many as 300, this kind of development speed can be said to be very fast. However, as far as individual companies are concerned, many companies have not changed much, their production scale has been in a roundabout way, and some have even regressed. Not only has the technological power not increased greatly, but some have weakened. Many manufacturers still hold on to the "four olds". , Namely old products, old technology, old equipment, old scale. Of course, there are some companies that have a strong ability to imitate some products, but there are not many companies that have the ability to independently develop new products in the entire industry. In terms of products, most manufacturers still have some old products such as spiral wound gaskets, packing rings, packing and high-strength gaskets. The slightly innovative PTFE products lag far behind foreign countries in technology and quality, such as PTFE packing and expanded PTFE tape. Looking around, there are very few new products. In terms of technical strength, most companies have a small proportion of scientific and technical personnel. Many companies lack technical personnel with a professional background and their technical strength is weak. Therefore, companies lack the corresponding development and transformation capabilities. Since the establishment of the European Union, the strength brought about by the union has prompted the European Union to raise and establish new European sealing quality standards, replacing the previous series of standards set by the American Fluid Association. The leak rate appears and emphasizes in the new European sealing quality standards. The leakage rate of products in our country is generally at the level of 10-1mg/s, while in Europe there have been high-strength graphite composite panels with a leakage rate of 10-4mg/s! As far as equipment is concerned, most companies have only a few old ones. Weaving machines, several earthen-made winding machines, simple punching machines and shearing machines, etc., rely on the ability of old workers to organize production; and the equipment of many manufacturers has been in a state of unsaturated production tasks for a long time. As far as quality management is concerned, most companies rely on the proficiency of operators to make their products, and do not follow the standardized process standards for production, and they also have necessary management methods. Although many manufacturers have obtained the ISO9000 series certification, the internal process documents, quality control plans or work instruction documents and equipment management documents are often ineffective and far from the international level. In terms of scale, most companies have sales of less than 5 million yuan, few of which are 10 million, and only a handful of them are above 10 million. Frankly speaking, a large part of the sales of many manufacturers are purchased parts from outsourcing, and the proportion of real self-produced parts is not very high. Therefore, it is difficult for many small companies to compete with some well-known foreign companies and manufacturers.

Analysis of the advantages and disadvantages of my country's sealing industry among its international counterparts. To sum up, our sealing industry is relatively weak in competitiveness, but this refers to some small enterprises, and we also have some powerful companies or factories. Although there are a few well-known large companies abroad, there are also many small companies, and many commercial companies specializing in sealing business buy products from China and sell them in their own countries or other countries. Therefore, the entire international counterparts, Each has its own advantages and disadvantages. In terms of advantages, we have advantages in three main areas: raw material advantages Whether it is asbestos, graphite and other non-metallic materials, we are a large producer, and many countries lack this resource. Price advantage At present, seals are still labor-intensive products, and the manufacturing cost in China is low (US: 1,500 USD/person·month for operators; Japan: 200,000 yuan/person·month for young workers, and more than 300,000 yen for the elderly; we The price is less than 1,000 yuan/person·month), the current 60% of the success of the seal competition depends on price factors. In the domestic market, the phenomenon of OEM (OEM form) is already obvious, especially in the international market. With the further deepening and improvement of domestic reforms. The role of price factors in the maintenance market is becoming more and more obvious. Humanistic advantage The current marketing of seals in the domestic market mainly relies on interpersonal relationships. We are blessed with time and people. In the domestic market, we have many advantages under the same quality conditions. From the perspective of market competition, with these three advantages, you can embark on the road of competition.

Conversely, the disadvantages may be more

The first to bear the brunt is technical backwardness. On the one hand, in order to meet the increasing requirements of human beings for environmental protection, the ISO14000 standard has begun to be valued by Chinese companies, and people’s requirements for sealing have become increasingly strict. Just as the entry of a large number of joint ventures has brought new quality requirements and new environmental protection concepts. On the other hand, the new standards objectively bring about the redistribution of the market. The new and stricter quality standards will become the biggest obstacle to the export of my country's sealing products; and it will become the killer for foreign companies to enter the Chinese market. Companies that do not attach importance to technological progress will be eliminated in the next five years. The subject of technology is people. As far as the status quo is concerned, the sealing industry is relatively loose and the individual scale is small, so the ability to hide the dragon and the tiger is small, and the overall quality of the company's employees is low. In addition, there may be a need for correctness in the business philosophy. Capitalism has been around for more than 200 years. Many of our peers, that is, competitors, have gone through the continuation of four generations. They have long since gotten rid of the mentality of seeking wealth from poverty to a moderately prosperous life, and have moved towards a mature mentality. Brand and culture. The reason why our enterprise has so many repeated establishments at this stage is largely because many people are eager to get rich by taking advantage of the various irregularities in the reform process. This is a very natural process of alternation, and capitalist countries also have this experience. But what is before us is how to accelerate the evolution, from eager to get rich and start a business, to a mature business culture. After careful consideration on this basis, it is not difficult to see all the shortcomings in the individual behavior of our enterprise. Insufficient alliances and increased competition have resulted in a market decline, which is the number one problem in business operations. In fact, blindly lowering prices and blindly pursuing orders will destroy the market. The market is not a cake, but a field. It needs to be paid, nurtured, and cared for, and it will be harvested and lasting. In terms of quality awareness, after-sales service, product packaging, equipment investment, etc., refer to the ISO9000 standard, and each company naturally has its own evaluation. Although there are management problems with "three-point technique and seven-point management", it is easy to improve as long as there is confidence.