On March 29-30, themed with “technology innovation and sustainable development”, the 7th CEO Forum on China Foundry Industry was held in Shanghai Everbright Hotel. There were more than 600 representatives including CFA members and other enterprises, especially the president of World Foundry Organization (WFO) Mr. Vinod Kapur, as well as the president of Japan Foundry Society Mr. Kimura, attended the forum to discuss the foundry industry development in the New Normal situation.
In the keynote reports on March 29, the Academician Mr. Liu Baicheng made a summary of the research results of “Made in China 2025” and put forward that China foundry industry should reinforce the R&D of advanced basic technology, he pointed out the industry should pay more attention to near net shape foundry technology, lightweight material casting technology, extra large key components production process, digital and intelligent casting technology. The supervisor of CFA, president of KOCEL Group Mr. Peng Fan put his wisdom and insight into the future, sharing his management philosophy based on the big data and describing his digital foundry plant that under construction. The president of WFO Mr. Vinod Kapur made an analysis on the world foundry industry’s situation with abundant and accurate data of 30 member countries. He also put forward a lot of relevant questions to promote the sustainable development of world foundry industry. Mr. Thomas Lange from Siemens had a unique view on how to improve enterprises’ competitiveness. Especially, “China Foundry Industry Data 2014”was released by the Executive Vice-president and the Secretary General of CFA Mr. Wen Ping. The castings output in 2014 reached 46.2 million tons, which was a 3.8% increase year on year. He also introduced the outlook for China foundry industry in the next 5 years.
During the Interaction and Discussion session on March 29, there were seven experts from the upstream and downstream industry, institutes and foundry enterprises exchanged their views on foundry industry policies and market demand of its upstream and downstream industries. And there were also another 9 entrepreneurs exchanged their views on the sustainable development of foundry industry.
From March 31 to April 3, “Metal China 2015” and the “11th China International Die Casting Industry Exhibition”, sponsored by China Foundry Association, were concurrently held in Shanghai. There were 1,026 exhibitors from China mainland and Taiwan, as well as more than 20 countries including Germany, the United States, Japan, Italy, Turkey, etc. covering the nearly 70,000 square meters exhibition area. The exhibition received 61,349 person-time visits in four days.
Metal China is leading the foundry industry. In the Big Data era, automation, intelligence and digital have been the trend for foundry industry. The exhibition displayed the automatic, intelligent and digital technologies that have been adopted now and also the future technologies.
ABB, KUKA, Grenzebach, Laiyin Robotic,Hawk-tech, Wanfeng, Hidea brought their transfer robots, core assembly robots, automatic pouring robots, and casting post-processing robots on the show. Some robots already have primary intelligence function for simple human-computer interaction.
Die casting industry is currently the most robust branch in foundry industry. With the growing trend for lightweight automobile, the die casting industry in China will continuously maintain a double-digit growth in the next 10 years. There were more than 230 exhibitors of die castings manufacturers, die casting equipment and die suppliers, as well as relevant auxiliary products manufacturers.
Metal China and the Die Casting Exhibition have seen the big progress of China foundry industry. The technology research and development ability is increasing significantly and foundry companies are more professional than before. High-end equipment, automatic equipment and information technology have been widely applied. A complete industry chain has come into being. However, Chinese foundry companies should pay more attention to their social responsibilities, environment protection and green foundry technology.