Precision test analysis instruments should be strengthened

In the series of reports on "Sixteen Major Equipment Special Attentions" launched by China Industrial News in 2006, in response to the special project for the development of automation control systems and key precision testing instruments for major engineering projects, Xi Jiacheng, chairman of the China Instrument Industry Association, once said that this is to meet the needs of highly automated and intelligent key construction projects and other major (complete sets) technical equipment, and is an important part of the implementation of the "Several Opinions of the State Council on Accelerating the Revitalization of the Equipment Manufacturing Industry".

At that time, the pattern of the domestic automation control system and instrumentation industry was: medium and low-end products were mainly domestic enterprises, high and medium-end products were mainly foreign-funded enterprises; large and medium-sized engineering projects relied on foreign countries, and small and medium-sized engineering projects used domestic products. "In a sense, automatic control systems and key precision testing instruments are becoming bottlenecks in the modernization of my country's equipment." This is Xi Jiacheng's summary at that time.

To this day, Xi Jiacheng said that the automation control system has made breakthroughs in foreign monopoly on major projects, mainly in the fields of petrochemicals, electricity, etc. However, the progress of key precision testing instruments is not obvious due to various reasons, and greater support is needed in the next step.

The automation control system project is progressing smoothly.

"The purpose of the major special project is to break the foreign monopoly on large-scale equipment in control and measurement areas including thermal power, petrochemical, metallurgy, etc.." Xi Jiacheng recalled that the above-mentioned large-scale projects in the key domestic industries used to basically use imported equipment. "When the special project was formulated, the 300,000 kilowatt units were just in the domestic equipment, while the 600,000 kilowatt units were all foreign equipment."

Three years later, the project of automation control system has made good progress. According to a reporter from China Industrial News, 8 projects are under implementation, 1 has been completed, 2 have been accepted, and 5 will be accepted next year.

"The implementation effect is the industrial control system of large thermal power." According to Xi Jiacheng, the 600,000 kilowatt domestic thermal power control system has been put into operation, and about 20 units have begun to use domestic systems. The 600,000 kilowatt and 1 million kilowatt large units of thermal power are the mainstream of future development. Therefore, breaking foreign monopoly is of great significance to China's thermal power industry. In terms of petrochemicals, Zhejiang Zhongkong undertakes the control system of large oil refining in October 2009, which is the first time that my country independently developed the control system to enter the large oil refining project. The large fertilizer control system produced by the company, which uses coal as raw materials, was successfully put into operation in Yanzhou, Shandong. "If the control systems in the three fields of large refining, large fertilizers and large ethylene can be independently developed, it means that the high-end control systems in the entire petrochemical field have been independent," said Xi Jiacheng. In addition, important supporting technologies and equipment in the control system have also begun to be developed. A typical transmitter. It is understood that the "High Precision Intelligent Pressure Transmitter Industrialization" project can be verified this year, and in addition, nuclear power instruments, process analysis projects, actuators projects, etc. are all under implementation.

Control technology is the specific technological progress of the key technology to promote informatization, and Xi Jiacheng's statement is "above all the international level." For example, the error of the original domestic transmitter was 0.1%, but it has now been reduced to 0.075%, which is the accuracy possessed by large international multinational corporations. "It turns out that we have the same type of products in principle, but it cannot meet the national requirements for indicators and reliability of large-scale projects. Now, our technological breakthroughs are mainly reflected in intelligence, digitalization and integration." Xi Jiacheng said. However, he also admitted that due to insufficient experience in large-scale engineering applications, domestic equipment has different reliability and application experience compared with similar foreign products. However, the benefits brought by technological breakthroughs are still obvious. It is understood that before the mid-1990s, the price ratio of imported equipment to domestic equipment was roughly 3:1, and even so, users are still unwilling to use domestic equipment. Now, the advancement of domestic equipment has pushed the price of imported equipment down, and the current price ratio has dropped to 1.2 or 1.3:1. "Especially after the international financial crisis, the advantages of domestic systems have become increasingly apparent. In the past, large enterprises could import equipment regardless of costs, but now they need to fully consider cost factors." Xi Jiacheng said.

The old problems of promotion and application still need to be solved with focus. Xi Jiacheng introduced that companies in the current application field rarely use domestic equipment for independent innovation. Therefore, although the indicators of domestic equipment have been met, it requires effort to promote and apply it. He believes that the guidelines for independent innovation are to combine the manufacturing department and the application department, and the first (set) policy needs to be implemented specifically and the departments in charge are clarified. "The technology and products have been broken through, the project has been successful with the support of the state, and it has a certain production capacity. However, if the application department does not actively create promotion conditions with the manufacturing department, it will not play a role in the implementation of major special projects."

It is understood that in major engineering automation control systems and key precision testing instruments, it is very difficult to achieve the goal of 30% of domestic market share in ten years. "It's just a breakthrough, and there's no question of market share." In addition, many of the projects currently underway are in the aspects of automation control systems, but projects related to key precision instruments and instruments have not been implemented. "Because the technology is more difficult and it is impossible to scale, in this case, the company lacks support and is not very motivated." Xi Jiacheng initially estimated that if the key precision instrumentation projects are implemented, they will need 30% to 50% of the country's financial support. Otherwise, even if the project is successful, the amount is small and the profit is small, which will not make up for the company's investment in the project.

Xi Jiacheng believes that under the promotion of major special projects, "the control and monopoly of foreign control systems on China's important economic fields has been broken, which has played a great role in the independent innovation of core technologies of measurement and control automation applied to power, petrochemical, metallurgy, building materials and other industries." He said that automatic control systems and instruments are important equipment for informatization, and industrial informatization is a comprehensive achievement of the controllability of major equipment main equipment, the applicability of measurement and control equipment and the application of information optimization. To promote informatization in the industrial field, control systems and control technology are one of the key contents. It is difficult to achieve the shareholding target, and it is necessary to increase support. Although the implementation of major projects of the automatic control system has achieved the above results, Xi Jiacheng still called on the state to provide greater support for this.

It is understood that the total investment in the projects involved in the automation control systems and key precision testing instruments of major engineering projects is 800 million yuan, while the state investment is about 100 million yuan. "There are few projects and small projects, and the support is not enough." Xi Jiacheng believes that the newly launched equipment manufacturing industry adjustment and revitalization plan does not focus on automated control systems and instruments. In the adjustment and revitalization plan of the equipment manufacturing industry, there is not enough attention to industrial automation control systems and key precision testing equipment. "The original major projects should be combined with the current adjustment and revitalization plan." Xi Jiacheng said.