Strategies for Japan's mold industry to deal with the economic crisis

Status Quo For many years, the Japanese mold industry has maintained the status of the world's largest mold country and mold power. At its peak in 1998, its total domestic mold output reached 1,895.4 billion yen. However, in the 10 years since then, although the annual output value has risen or fallen, the overall situation has remained stagnant, and has not recovered or exceeded the level in 1998, and the number of mold manufacturers has also decreased year by year. Due to the impact of the global financial crisis, especially the slump in the auto industry and semiconductor industry, the major users of molds, the output value of the Japanese mold industry in January 2009 fell by 13.9% compared with the same period of the previous year. At present, the order volume of many companies is only 20% to 40% of their best years, and many factories are under-operated, only operating 3-4 days a week, some have begun to close down, and the number of companies is decreasing month by month. Countermeasures Faced with this situation, people in the Japanese mold industry are very worried about the brain drain, especially for some older and experienced talents to flow abroad. The brain drain will bring disadvantages to the future development of the Japanese industry. How to actively deal with the current difficulties has become a major issue in the Japanese mold industry. The Japanese mold industry and even the relevant government departments have already given a lot of consideration to the future development direction of its mold industry. From a private point of view, the development directions that Japan has proposed mainly include the following six aspects, and the plans for each aspect are detailed and detailed, which can be used for reference by China. Adopt high-tech as much as possible to improve the level of digitization and informatization; develop new fields of mold use, such as various new energy, new materials, medical, aerospace and other fields; extend mold industry chain; carry out diversified operations; update knowledge; engage in Good development and combination of production, education and research. At the government level, the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry of Japan has organized the 'Study Committee on Material Technology StrategyThe goal of implementing this technology strategy is very clear, that is, 'to grasp the lifeline of the world's manufacturing industry by mastering the important technology of raw materials'. This technology strategy has released a total of 344 key technology development project guides in 6 industries, of which 47 involve molds. At the same time, there are 25 projects in other fields related to molds (casting, forging, stamping, powder metallurgy, heat treatment and surface treatment). This total of 72 key technology development projects will serve the future development direction of Japanese mold forming parts. The future development direction of Japanese mold forming parts is summarized as: thin wall, lightweight; defect-free, high strength; excellent surface characteristics and appearance quality; integral forming and precision forming. Of course, fast delivery, cost saving, high automation and green manufacturing are still the requirements that mold manufacturing must follow. Based on this, the characteristics of mold technology in the future will be: the design and production technology of good molds can be developed without relying on skills; highly automated mold production technology; mold technology that can save mold trial engineering; molds that can deliver ultra-short-term delivery technology. All of the above are worthy of research by the Chinese mold industry.