The forging industry, as a fundamental manufacturing sector within the equipment manufacturing industry, has a broad application base in many fields such as automotive, shipbuilding, rail transportation, aerospace, and agricultural technology. The production and manufacturing processes of its key components mostly use forging forming methods. Traditional forging methods mainly rely on manual operations, which involve high labor intensity and significant danger. The environmental issues such as smoke, harmful gases, noise, and vibrations generated during the forging process pose serious threats to the physical and mental health of employees. This has led to a decreasing number of people willing to work in the forging industry. With the advent of population aging in China, labor shortages and increasing labor costs are becoming more severe. Therefore, difficulties in recruiting workers and the shortage of frontline workers have greatly impacted the development of the forging industry.

Manual-based forging production methods can no longer meet the huge market demand under rapid development. Shortening the product production cycle as much as possible has increasingly become one of the prerequisites for forging enterprises to improve their competitiveness. Immediate delivery and on-demand supply are urgent needs of the current era. As customer orders become more centralized, traditional production models increasingly affect the development and order acceptance of enterprises. In the future, only forging enterprises that achieve efficient and low-cost production will have the opportunity to receive orders. Manual-based production enterprises will gradually move away from the main market and eventually be eliminated by the market. Enterprises must upgrade their technology. The adoption of automation and information technology will be the direction that forging enterprises must develop.

We will be providing ongoing updates on the current state and advancements in China’s forging automation technology through a series of reports. We encourage everyone to stay tuned and follow along.

Source Reference: “Forging and Stamping,” Issue 9, 2024