(This chapter is explained in more detail, may have more professional knowledge, and seems to be brain-burning; but all the data are real, and the author has been responsible for this in the past few years, so it can be regarded as the author's experience, and it is a novel, which has been processed.)
The business opportunity Mu Yang sees is the surfacing of valve sealing surfaces:
Special surfacing materials, cobalt-based hard alloy STL6 and nickel-based alloy 625, had a global market size of US$2 to 3 billion in 2007.
In the production and manufacturing of industrial valves, welding is the most prone to problems. Leakage, cracks, corrosion, etc. are mostly caused by welds.
Therefore, in special material valves, welding costs account for a large part of the cost.
It will be easier to understand by comparing and explaining it with a relatively easy-to-understand example.
For example, the steel bar material used in residential buildings is Q235B (Q means "yield strength", 235 means the minimum yield strength of the material is 235MPa, and the tensile strength is not less than 375MPa), and the matching domestic brand solid wire welding material ER50-6 is used
(50 means the minimum tensile strength of the weld is 500PAa, and the strength of the welding consumables is stronger than the base metal). In 2008, the price of a certain brand of welding consumables was 8 yuan/KG, which was about twice the cost of steel.
As for the special welding material cobalt-based hard alloy STL6, the current domestic market price is 250 yuan/KG, and the imported price is double.
The price is expensive because STL6 contains high cobalt content, accounting for about 50%. The target cobalt market price is about 320,000 yuan/ton.
A 10-inch gate (an important part of the valve, equivalent to the sealing structure of the faucet, must have wear resistance), the wear-resistant material cobalt-based alloy STL6 is overlay welded on the wear-resistant part. The weight is about 2KG, and the cost of bare welding materials is not
Less than five hundred dollars.
If the size of the valve is larger, the amount of welding materials will be greater. For some valves, more than tens of kilograms of special welding materials are required for each valve, and the cost of bare welding materials will be tens of thousands of yuan.
If Mu Yang wants to engage in this industry, he has to talk about its background and development.
The research work on valve sealing surface surfacing technology in my country began in the early 1960s. After 40 to 50 years of development, valve surfacing methods have evolved from manual arc welding and oxygen-ethyl flame surfacing to non-automated, low-efficiency The traditional cladding welding method has developed into the widespread use of efficient and automated cladding methods, such as flame cladding, plasma arc cladding and laser cladding.
However, the development of automated cladding welding is not smooth, and there are many technical problems that need to be overcome.
So what are Muyang’s advantages?
First, equipment.
He is going to use plasma spray welding, and the welding efficiency is several times faster than traditional methods!
What about the amount of welding?
Only 0.7 times the amount of conventional welding!
(It can be welded more evenly, with less machining allowance)
Don’t underestimate the coefficient of 0.7. Among special welding materials, the welding materials are so expensive. A coefficient of 0.3 is a major technological reform.
The cost of light soldering materials is saved a lot.
At present, most valve manufacturers have not yet applied plasma spray welding. It will be two or three years before the application starts, and it will not be widely used until five or six years later.
Second, the repair rate.
Since the hardness of STL6 reaches 330-450HV (the hardness of ordinary steel Q235B is only about 150HV)!
Among metal materials, the greater the hardness, the worse the plasticity, so they are prone to cracking.
The repair rate of conventional manufacturing is very high, reaching 20%!
Such a high repair rate delays the cycle, and the cost of repairing a workpiece is almost the same as manufacturing a new one.
However, the repair rate of the equipment and processes that Mu Yang had explored over the past few years was as low as 1%.
Third, craftsmanship.
Conventionally manufactured cladding STL6 contains excessive iron content (corrosion resistance will deteriorate), making it difficult to meet the requirements of foreign customers.
Most of these products with excessive iron content can be exported because foreign customers are looking for cheaper Chinese valves and cannot find qualified manufacturers, so they have no choice but to give in and accept them, or the manufacturers have made fake products and passed the re-inspection without being strict.
Or because the valve is small in size and has already been assembled, it is inconvenient to use a spectrometer to detect alloy elements due to the small space. Therefore, the customer only looks at the leakage and does not detect alloy elements.
However, if you want to detect medium and large size valves, you can still detect them.
If the problem of excessive iron content can be solved and production capacity can keep up, domestic manufacturers can easily win international orders with their price advantage.
In his previous life, Mu Yang worked as the head of welding in a valve company. In order to solve this problem, he visited many welding equipment manufacturers and explored the process. It took him three or four years to completely solve the problem of excessive iron content. The process used
The advanced level has reached the top level at home and abroad.
He was familiar with the manufacturing of plasma spray welding equipment and commissioned a non-standard manufacturer to build one. The company spent 450,000!
But it failed to meet the requirements for use, so I personally rectified it for half a year, and then copied four units for the company. The cost of one copy was less than 70,000 yuan.
If it is copied again, the cost will be even lower.
Then Mu Yang, how to make money?
Why do these valve manufacturers provide OEM services for him?
In fact, Muyang just grasped the technical information gap and the uniqueness of the valve sealing surface surfacing process.
For example, the conventional process is artificial argon arc welding cladding STL6. It takes more than 2 hours for one person to clad an 8-inch gate. The labor cost is about 50 yuan. The welding material requires more than 2 kilograms and the cost of the welding material is 500 yuan.
Gas, electricity and other costs are about 80 yuan, and light welding production costs about 700 yuan.
That is, the production cost of welding materials, 1KG = 350 yuan!
Workers will also be tired. In fact, a welder working for eleven hours can weld up to 9 kilograms of cobalt-based alloy welding material STL6.
If the repair rate is high, the welding production cost will reach more than one thousand yuan.
Including the repair rate and welding material production cost, 1KG ≥ 500 yuan!
The most important thing is that the repair work is delayed, resulting in delivery delays.
In 2008, the general OEM fee for 8-inch gate plate surfacing STL6 was 1,200 yuan (depending on the price of welding materials).
That is, the OEM fee for 1KG welding consumables = about 600 yuan!
The production cost of 1KG welding consumables is only 350 yuan, with a gross profit margin of 250 yuan.
But the 600 yuan processing fee includes not only the material cost, but also the repair cost. If the repair ratio is high, the OEM will lose money.
If you don't do it well, you will have to pay for the cost of the workpiece for nothing, and you won't get the OEM fee.
Therefore, there are not many outsourced manufacturers that can do OEM work, so they just earn a hard fee, and most of the products they produce can only be accepted as concessions.
But if it is handed over to Muyang as an OEM, he can save 75 yuan (0.3×250=75 yuan) for every 1KG of welding material in terms of material cost alone.
The labor cost is about 15 yuan, and other costs are slightly less, about 30 yuan. The repair rate can be controlled to less than 1%.
Comprehensive cost: 1KG welding material processing cost = (0.7×250+15+30)/0.99
=about 220 yuan!
Therefore, the OEM fee for an 8-inch gate is 1,200 yuan, and the gross profit is about 760 yuan, which is no lower than the profit of selling finished valves.
That is, the gross profit for processing 1KG of welding materials = 380 yuan!
If it is a large-size valve, using tens of kilograms of welding material, you can earn tens of thousands of yuan by OEM.
Using machine welding, one worker can weld 10 tons of welding materials a year!
With conventional equipment and processes, one worker can only weld 2.5 tons of welding materials per year.
Because the machine welds well, the welding amount is only 0.7 times, and the actual welding efficiency is 5.7 times that of manual welding.
If factors such as low repair rate, small amount of machining, high quality welds and easier post-processing, centralized technology, high quantity, and less picky foreign customers are taken into account, the overall production efficiency is higher than that of valve manufacturers with traditional surfacing processes.
7-10 times higher.
The above are Muyang’s advantages and ways to make money.
For example, his old employer Huazheng Valve in his previous life had an annual output value of about 500 million yuan and about 800 employees. There were only 20 welders. There were 7 welders responsible for cladding STL6, and the annual consumption of STL6 welding materials amounted to
18 tons, the cost of light welding materials is 4.5 million.
The cost of welding materials, gas and electricity charges, wages of production workers and withdrawal of employee welfare funds, scrap loss and repair costs, workshop expenses, corporate management fees, production delays, customer fines due to welding quality, and other costs of all welding factors.
Huazheng Valve's annual expenditure on welding cobalt-based alloy STL6 alone is 11-15 million yuan.
If they spend about 10 million yuan to solve the headache of STL6 welding, there is no doubt that they will be happy.
Moreover, if we meet the requirements of foreign customers, we can also accept more foreign orders of this kind.
This current situation is not limited to Huazheng Valve, Muyang’s old employer in his previous life.
Nowadays, most domestic valve manufacturers are struggling with the problem of surfacing ST6L, which cannot be solved after years of exploration.
As long as we have the strength to solve this problem, we can never finish this type of order.
However, the production capacity is limited and there are many problems, so we have to leave a lot of welding business to capable outsourcing manufacturers.
Of course, outsourced manufacturers use traditional craftsmanship. Even if the repair rate is high, as long as there is enough quantity, they are happy to make hard money.
In addition, in order to reduce operating costs, improve quality, and concentrate human resources, if the outsourcing quality meets the requirements and the cost is not high, the factory will outsource some of the uncontrollable business, freeing the organization to focus more on the core business. This is also
The reason why most companies outsource part of their business.
If Muyang can make plasma surfacing equipment and then produce it according to his new process, even if it is OEM production, the profit will not be much lower than Party A's profit from selling finished valves. Moreover, it has a monopoly technology and can earn four to five years.
Of course, the biggest fear in doing business is not getting the money back.
Therefore, it seems that the profit is very high, but the money you get in the end is definitely not that much.
After thinking about this, Mu Yang started planning and making preparations to make his own plasma spray welding equipment for surfacing cobalt-based alloys.
Many parts of this equipment can be purchased, such as the motor of the positioner, but some can only be made by yourself, such as the welding gun structure.
To make these parts, you must first have CAD drawings, otherwise workers will not be able to make them.
Using a laptop to run the Three Difficulties software may cause lag, so Mu Yang had to buy a desktop computer, first create a 3D Soliwoks, and then convert it into a 2D drawing for CAD drawings.
He had forged this device before, and he definitely remembered the structure, but some of the dimensions were a bit blurry. There were probably more than a hundred pictures to be drawn, and it could be completed in ten days at a faster time, and half a month at a slower time.
After the drawings are drawn, rent a factory building, hire personnel, purchase materials and equipment for manufacturing, debug, and then weld samples to valve manufacturers to negotiate cooperation.
Chapter completed!