China's industrial control industry to build a universal PLC platform imminent

Industrial automation control is an important direction of industrial technological progress, and it is the basic work of mechatronics integration and promotion of integration. However, over the years there has been a lack of attention and strategic arrangements at the national level. It is in a severely backward stage and there are major hidden dangers.

What is the automatic control technology in the field of factory automation? Simply speaking, DCS used in continuous processes (electricity, chemical industry) is used in discontinuous processes (manufacturing fields such as metallurgy, papermaking, textiles, and mechanical processing, and environmental protection, etc.). It is widely used for PLC and PLC, and it not only solves single-machine self-control, but also Pipeline and factory automation solutions are also provided.

China's continuous process automation (DCS) develops relatively fast. It focuses on energy and heavy chemical industry. It is mainly used in applications and has been supported by national policies for many years. Therefore, the level of awareness and attention within the industry is relatively high, and the gap with the international advanced level is being improved. shorten. In the field of intermittent process automation (abroad, often referred to as "Factory Automation" Factory Automation, referred to as FA), the problems faced have become more and more urgent.

International Industrial Control Technology and Industrial Development Trends

Industrial automation control is an important direction of industrial technological progress: basic technologies that address efficiency, product quality, reliability, and consistency.

The popularization of industrial control is to promote the optimization and upgrading of industrial structure, and the basic work of “information technology to transform traditional industries” to promote the integration of the two.

In recent decades, with the rapid development of ICT technology, industrial automation systems and instrumentation technology have progressed rapidly, being characterized by miniaturization, digitization, intelligence, networking, and integration.

It is generally accepted that there are two main areas of industrial automation: process automation (PA) supported by process (fluid motion) control technology and factory automation supported by motion control technology (FA or discrete production automation). The former starts from the traditional analog loop meter and integrates the ICT control technology into a distributed (or distributed) control system DCS. Its high reliability, convenient configuration software, rich control algorithms, open networking capabilities, etc. The advantages have become the mainstream of the computer industry's control system, and are widely used in the automatic control of large-scale, large-scale equipment, and complex process-type equipment, such as large-scale chemical plants and thermal power plants.

Programmable controller (PLC): based on relay technology, integrated ICT technology, to achieve the electrical control of the device in a procedural way. PLC's compact structure, fast response, good field environment adaptability and reliability (vibration resistance, noise, dust, oil, etc.), strong anti-interference ability, and low price are another mainstream control system that is in parallel with DCS.

The industrial automation control technology line shows the trend of mutual penetration and integration. The scope of PLC applications has expanded to small and medium-sized process control systems, short-range maintenance service systems, and energy-saving monitoring. In some applications, DCS.DCS has also been replaced by a combination of PLC and industrial control computers. The general trend is to be more open (detailed division of labor cooperation), standardization, productization, and integration.

Since the 1990s, fieldbus technology FCS has developed rapidly. This is a multi-point communication, fully decentralized, and open bottom control network system that is installed between the digital intelligent instrumentation and measurement and control equipment at the production site and the automatic control device or system.

The world's industrial control industry has become a oligopolistic situation in which a few transnational corporations have scaled up production and carved out the global market. The original hundreds of manufacturers currently have only dozens of them, the most famous ones such as Siemens, ABB, HONEYWELL, Mitsubishi, Phoenix, etc. Their industrial control products are both known as both DCS/PLC/FCS functions, in quality, price, after-sales service Has already won the market reputation.

Industrial informatization is a product of the convergence of electronic communication technology (ICT) and advanced manufacturing technologies. It is a comprehensive achievement of device controllability, measurement and control device suitability, and information optimization applications. Automatic control systems and instrumentation equipment are the nerve center, operation center and safety barrier of modern industrial equipment and transportation, energy, national defense, and major public welfare equipment. Their functions are to monitor and control the entire process flow and product quality, and to ensure the safe and reliable operation of major industrial equipment. Realize efficient optimization.

Therefore, advancing the automation of manufacturing processes is one of the core technologies that will enhance the competitiveness of China's industries and is the basis for the integration of the two. Promoting the independent innovation of industrial control technology, mastering the development of industry control industry, and reversing the current passive situation of relying too much on foreign technology and being controlled by people is a core issue in the current revitalization of the equipment industry and a strategic task that cannot be evaded.

The status quo and causes of the overall backwardness of China's industrial control industry

It is difficult for domestic control systems to enter the key, core, and main equipment of major projects. Most of this market is still monopolized by foreign industrial control systems.

The lagging development of industrial control is one of the key reasons why China’s industry is large and not strong, and it also poses a threat to industrial security and national economic security.

At present, China's self-development of PLC industrial control system, the most needed is to form a highly versatile industrial control system platform.

China's industrial control industry is currently in a weak position overall, and it still has a gap of 10 to 15 years from the international advanced level. The industry situation can be summarized as: large technological gaps, low market trust, and strong foreign capital competition.

(I) DCS for major equipment has made important progress, and field instruments and top-level systems are weak.

In the 1980s, the DCS products used in China were all foreign products. At that time, the state organization organized the technical control of the imported automatic control systems for major equipment, and the original mechanical and electric power departments jointly tackled the problems and took the lead in achieving breakthroughs in the field of large-scale thermal power units. At present, the self-developed supercritical 300-600MW thermal power unit DCS system has been installed dozens of sets, has been tested for many years of operation. In this process, some Chinese-funded enterprises emerged, such as Beijing and Lishi, Zhejiang University Central Control, and Xinhua Central Control. Shanghai Automation Instrumentation and Guodian Zhishen also have the same capabilities as the 300- to 600-MW unit master DCS. However, due to engineering application capabilities, quality, reputation, etc., the applications of these products, in addition to electricity, are still dominated by small and medium-sized engineering projects, or used in non-major parts of large-scale engineering projects, and large-scale petrochemical engineering projects are used in larger quantities. The system has not yet entered.

The two ends of China's self-controlled industrial chain - the bottom of the field instrumentation (especially the transmitter and the implementing agency), the upper level of integrated automation software is the weakest link. China's self-designed and manufactured smart transmitters only account for 9% of the domestic market. The ability of the top level integrated control software is weak because, on the one hand, the industrial control companies do not have a deep understanding of the user's process features and experience is insufficient, which restricts the ability of the top level integration and the ability to quickly enter the market segment. (Industrial control companies are subject to the state's qualifications on designing enterprises. The threshold is also a reason on the one hand. The user market's disapproval of domestic industrial control technologies/products restricts the opportunities for self-developed industrial control product practices.

Due to the above reasons, it is difficult for domestic control systems to enter the key, core, and main equipment of major projects. Most of this market is still monopolized by foreign industrial control systems. (b) The PLC system used for automation of the vast number of discrete factories is not optimistic.

The scope of application of current PLC technology covers almost all industrial industries except large-scale chemical and power companies. However, at present, over 95% of the PLC application market in China is occupied by foreign products, and domestic companies are in absolute disadvantage.

The products of multinational corporations enjoy preferential policies such as tax exemptions for parts and components, and domestic manufacturers face strong international competitions at home and there is no room for reconciliation.

(3) The PLC system is difficult to stand on its own and the industry R&D platform is missing.

The first is that domestic companies and institutions are small in scale and dispersive in their business. Some of these companies are former institutes that undertake industrial common technologies or university research institutes, such as Helishi, Zheda Zhongguan, and Beijing Institute of Mechanical Automation.

Second, so far, Chinese enterprises have not yet mastered the core technologies of FA industrial control. The technology of domestic PLC manufacturers is based on foreign control technology. The backbone hardware is almost entirely provided by foreign companies, and the basic software also depends on imports. The business of PLC manufacturers in China is only limited to the use of imported hardware and basic software, and for the needs of specific process control, ICT technology is used for integration and application software. In the aspect of system design, there is still a big gap with the advanced foreign level in system reliability, product quality (consistency, reliability), and market reputation. This is the case with CNC systems that are proud of in China.

Third, as a scientific research-based industrial control enterprise, due to its small scale and scattered professionalism, it lacks the unified hardware and basic software support of the domestic standard, and it will not be scaled alone.

Fourth, foreign capital is controlled and squeezed, and its competitiveness is poor. Some companies in China have independently developed the PLC hardware platform, but the products have just taken shape and multinational companies immediately cut prices. As the PLC system is a mature, technology-intensive product, domestic products are available for the first time, and there is a lack of competitive advantage in performance and price. Coupled with the lack of national policy support, it is impossible to gain a foothold in the market, and it is trapped in a vicious cycle of “low market credibility — lack of opportunities for practice and improvement — further reduction of market credit”.

The fifth is the practical dilemma of the combination of production, education and research: The state industrial management organization has changed several times, and some common technology research institutes have changed enterprises, the original research process has been interrupted, and technology accumulation has been lost or aging.

Self-development ability relates to national industrial development strategy

The independent development capability of the industrial control industry is related to the country’s industrial development strategy, and it also tests its vision of strategic planning.

The construction of enterprises as the main body and the combined innovation system of government-owned research and production and the corresponding industry management mechanism is an international common model.

Through the investigation of the status and problems of the industrial control industry, we feel that there are several areas worth thinking about in terms of the guiding ideology and institutional policy of China's industry.

(1) Strategic guiding ideology for industrial development.

The reform and opening up promoted our country to join the world industrial division of labor system under the conditions of marketization. In exchange for labor-intensive products for foreign technology-intensive products, it also relates to the strategic points that must be adhered to in the industrial structure (such as the industrial control industry), and does not consciously follow the “international division of labor”, which has an adverse effect on industrial upgrading.

In the 1980s, the introduction of foreign advanced production lines, in order to save foreign exchange only interested in a single automation technology, the guiding ideology is to use artificial as much as possible. Due to the incomplete understanding of the significance of factory automation at that time, the efficiency was considered, and the accuracy and quality of automatic production lines were placed at the second place, which missed the historical opportunity to catch up with the international trend of factory automation.

The state focuses on "strategic products with poor purchaseability" in the development plan of major equipment. The small- and medium-sized PLC systems with large market size are easily sought after by users because of their convenience in imports and policies, and their problems of digestion, innovation and independent development are easily overlooked by the management. The attitude of passively responding to the core technology related to the strategy of “buy it and buy it” and “cannot buy it by itself” is tantamount to unconsciously following the pattern of international division of labor defined by the West and blurring its own efforts.

(b) The tendency of industrial development planning.

In all kinds of development planning in China, key projects are usually selected through major products to drive R&D, especially for host products with significant signs and industrial pull, such as nuclear power, new energy, large aircraft, automobiles, and CNC machine tools. Wait. This principle is correct in itself. However, in the specific implementation, it is prone to distortion.

The first is "visible ahead of time, the whole machine is more important than components." Traditional thinking separates “manufacturing” from “electronic information”, but modern equipment manufacturing has basically achieved the integration of control systems and electromechanical systems. The industrial planning of our country still puts the automatic control of industry into the “supporting role” position. To promote the integration of the two, we must change the inherent "manufacturing" thinking.

The second is the lack of industrial awareness of overall development. The industrial structure is a pyramidal structure of "host-control-part-material-process". Industrial "middle sectors" such as internal-combustion engine, pump valve hydraulic seals and other general-purpose basic parts, materials, and common manufacturing technology, electromechanical integration of control devices, etc., its technology continues to improve, is the quality of various types of host can be improved The basis is the foundation of industrial competitiveness. The foundation relies on foreign technology for a long time. The country’s industrial development is equivalent to building on the beach.

In the field of industrial control, there are also terrible problems. The country pays more attention to the DCS system, especially the main control DCS part of the major equipment automatic control system, but the input to both ends is insufficient; for the PLC system with a large amount of extensive, it is difficult to buy, small companies, and industry organizations. Other issues have so far failed to be included in the "Twelfth Five-Year Plan" development plan.

In terms of intermediate products, basic materials and manufacturing processes, there is a big gap between the current and international advanced level. In particular, the intermediate product areas are mainly small and medium-sized enterprises. In the face of the strong oppression of such giant multinational companies as Siemens and Bosch, the majority of SMEs can only survive and do not have the strength to be the mainstay of technological innovation. And this area is exactly the need to strengthen basic scientific and technological support.

(III) It is an international common model to build enterprise-based innovation systems combined with government-industry-based research and development and corresponding industry management mechanisms.

It should be noted that the industries with large scale and high degree of industry concentration and industries with relatively small scale and low industrial concentration have very different technological advancement mechanisms. In the industrial control industry, DCS can stand in the field of thermal power, the first is to obtain the support of a monopoly power users. For most mechanical enterprises with sufficient competition and small and scattered enterprises, the R&D system with “as the main body of the enterprise” must be based on the organizational power of the industry.

Four aspects to solve the bottleneck problem of industrial control development

To revitalize the equipment industry, we must attach great importance to the support of basic science and attach importance to the simultaneous development of common technologies and the simultaneous development of basic components and parts.

It is suggested that the "Twelfth Five-Year Plan" should carry out scientific research and industrialization projects on the "factory automation control system platform" and support the integration and promotion of PLC common platform research and development and key application fields.

PLC has a wide range of applications. It is necessary to highly cooperate with R&D and manufacturing, pay attention to the coordinating role of related industry associations, and take the lead in R&D and application companies to form R&D teams.

Industry experts put forward relevant countermeasures on this issue: First, build a national-level, universal, common, comprehensive PLC platform.

Due to the problems of development stage, China currently places more emphasis on industries with poor purchaseability, strategic strength, and greater traction, such as nuclear power plants, wind power, solar power, large aircrafts, and automobiles. However, these industries are all due to PLCs. The machines are all controlled by one or more PLCs.

The control system should belong to the second level, but it does not mean that its importance is also the second level.

A PLC common platform, whether as an information product, a control technology product or a fusion of two key products, should be focused. Unfortunately, the country's equipment manufacturing industry revitalization plan only refers to the industrial automation control system in the last sentence of the basic components, but the relationship between basic components and industrial automation control system is not large, and the complexity and non-uniformity of the technology is more than that of the casting. Basic parts such as forgings and forgings are much stronger and it is unscientific to classify them as basic components.

Although some products have a high degree of maturity, mass production is not easy. For example, large aircrafts and PLCs do not have such problems. Well-known foreign companies have already perfected batch production. However, the more items that can be mass-produced, the more mature and the higher the threshold. If there is no national support, Chinese enterprises cannot have the strength to compete with foreign companies. The PLC platform to be built in China should be a comprehensive platform including R&D platforms, manufacturing platforms, and application platforms.

To solve the fundamental problems of PLC, the three platforms of R&D, manufacturing, and application are indispensable. This is a big project that can be completed in stages. It is difficult to achieve in a five-year plan. Therefore, it is necessary to list a project to organize and study this key product that is of great significance to the national economy. Under the support of the state, R&D, manufacturing, and application platforms are established, not just application platforms. As for how to organize and organize people who want to discuss further, but first of all put it in the right place. This involves the development of our entire intermittent process industry and the issue of becoming bigger and stronger. It involves whether or not the entire integration of the two industries can really be broken. The industry in the continued process is truly promoted.

Second, start with the market segmentation and use software to drive hardware development.

In order to compete positively with foreign advantageous enterprises, only relying on imitation and follow-up, what people do and what we do, Chinese companies have a very small chance of winning. Because from the price level, foreign countries have already formed mass production, the cost is controlled very well, the price is already very low, even if we are 20% cheaper, in terms of PLC, for the whole equipment purchase, the price difference is not It will be great. Therefore, only from the characteristics, from the market segmentation with foreign companies.

Therefore, the construction of China's application platform requires the participation of system integrators. For example, since Jin Zitian, the company has been able to do the automation package of the steel industry, and all application software for the steel production line is very clear. If such enterprises can participate in the construction of the PLC platform and develop it in the future, it is easy to get the user's approval of the product and use the alternative method to gradually establish the domestic PLC.

Therefore, the development of the public platform should be combined with the users, combined with powerful integrators and large equipment manufacturers that must use PLC to do market segmentation. In addition, it is necessary to study technologies that can be extracted with relatively high technological content, such as control algorithms, and provide these results to system integrators so that they can achieve software and become our unique application with intellectual property rights. Software, and on this basis do PLC hardware.

Third, the development and ownership of generic technology should be vested in the country, and promotion can learn from foreign experience.

The key to common technology lies in the promotion of its achievements, and the interests of all parties are in dispute. If common technology is developed, the state only allocates a portion of the money, and other companies need to raise funds themselves. The problem will become complicated: Who is the intellectual property right? Is all companies spending money to buy? What is the price of technical results? How to promote?

Using a small group to promote common technology, it may finally be that the organization engaged in scientific research becomes a competitor of the company. Recently, the United States has put forward a framework for rejuvenating the equipment manufacturing industry. One suggestion is that the most basic results, or results with common technologies, should be fully supported by the state and the final result should be owned by the state. After the country has achieved the results, it will conduct an open tender, and the companies themselves will analyze whether this outcome has any future and whether there is any market prospect. The country in which the product is tendered does not bear any cost. The company believes that investment will go in, industrialize, market, how much can be sold in the last year, and the bid will be taken with the indicator. The state gives this technology to the enterprise. If it really achieves the expected goal, the state will use the tax reduction method to give subsidies. In short, companies can only receive subsidies from the state if they are really promoted. There is no tax reduction without sales. This is a practical way to promote new technologies.

Specific policy recommendations:

First, it is proposed that the national "12th Five-Year Plan" in the field of equipment industry, set up a "factory automation and control system platform for scientific research and industrialization" project to support the common platform of PLC R & D and key areas of application promotion.

Second, it is proposed that the leaders of the relevant departments of the State Council and the Instrument and Meter Industry Association take the lead to organize the technical research organizations that combine the production, research, and research of the relevant unit companies as the main responsibility for undertaking the project.

The third is the main tasks of the project. The first is the establishment of an industrial control PLC platform that is more widely used in China.

The platform includes R&D/design, manufacturing, and application. It also provides the specific product target requirements (system hardware, software) and functional requirements of the general PLC platform (general technical indicators of hardware and software, advanced performance and reliability indicators). .

Fourth, follow-up supporting policies, such as the first set of sufficient support, funding of demonstration projects, trial operation improvement, the first set of procurement policies.