Jiatuo Intelligent Weekly Research: Review of Lithium Battery Equipment Industry for 13 Years

"Looking for 100 lithium battery people and dictating 10-year memory" is one of the important plans for a series of ten-year activities of China's power battery industry. Gaogong lithium battery will select 100 representative practitioners, including policy makers, experts and scholars, enterprise leaders, representatives of various links such as technology R & D, market and sales, to introduce their personal experiences and observe the changes of the industry from a personal perspective.

In 2007, Zhou Yan, who graduated from Hefei University of technology, went south to Shenzhen to work for BYD, thus starting his career in the lithium battery industry.

At the beginning, Zhou Yan only disassembled the equipment and drew drawings. His first task was to draw the folding ear equipment made by his colleagues into drawings. Later, he disassembled foreign equipment and developed the side adhesive tape machine proposed by the process.

In the past few years working at BYD, Zhou Yan was most impressed by being responsible for a project of on-board high-power DC relay. "I remember it took more than 8 million yuan. When the leaders held a financial meeting at the end of the month, it attracted attention. The personnel and resources behind it increased and became a key project. It is said that the annual output value is now more than 10 billion. Now in retrospect, Shenzhen is a magical place. It seems that whatever you do, it's ok as long as you stick to it." he sighed.

After working for BYD for two years, Zhou Yan entered Jiatuo intelligence in 2009, focusing on the development and market development of lithium battery equipment. In these ten years, he witnessed the transformation of China's lithium battery from the digital lithium battery era to the power battery era. Jiatuo intelligence has also grown from a small equipment factory in Shenzhen to an international lithium battery equipment enterprise. His obvious feeling is that great changes have taken place in the personnel level, competition situation, production efficiency and production types of the equipment factory.

From the background of industry employees, during his visit to the industry five years ago, he found that the chief engineers of many battery factories have only worked in large factories and know some process formulas. In the past five years, battery factories have gradually become centralized, and Dr. returnees and big players in the industry have gradually become the leading force of the new generation.

From the perspective of the enterprise competition pattern in the equipment field, only two domestic lithium battery coating equipment plants have the ability to bid for large domestic projects from Boyuan, 706, Shaoyang Dali and far-reaching Daneng.

In terms of technical indicators of coating equipment, Zhou Yan said: "at the beginning, 100% of our sales came from transfer coating, and now all the sales of pole coating came from extrusion coating. From 'single side, 6m / min, 500mm coating width' to 'double side, 90m / min, 1000mm coating width' has become the mainstream, and the production efficiency of single machine has been improved by 50 times."

From the development trend of the equipment, the production types of the equipment factory were comprehensive single machine, special machine and whole line at the beginning. At that time, it was "forced" for Zhou Yan to make lithium battery whole line equipment, because there was not enough order support for making single machine. After 2011, specialization made the equipment more refined and specialized, and the manufacturers of professional coating, professional winding and professional oven began to stand out. With the deepening and accumulation of process, more and more matching processes in the equipment are changing, and the boundary of special technology is becoming more and more blurred.

In the process of industry development, what impressed Zhou Yan most was the rise of micro gravure diaphragm coating industry. In the lithium battery industry, a new process has been developed from scratch, and then to today's industry scale with an annual output value of nearly 10 billion, Zhou Yan has witnessed the innovation of lithium battery production process, has the ability to accept new things and technologies in the lithium battery industry, and also feels the advantage and voice of standing at the forefront of the industry.

"No doubt I'm lucky. Countless predecessors came to mind. They helped, supported and encouraged me, and countless brothers fought side by side." speaking of the people who had the greatest influence on him, Zhou Yan remembered clearly.

Zhou Yan clearly remembered that Wang Xianbin, the first leader of BYD, taught him how to pay more attention to people in management. Zhou Yaohua taught him how to do the project. Wan Qiuyang taught him how to establish a learning organization. Liu Siyuan showed him the perseverance to complete the project.

After going to Jiatuo intelligence, Zhou Yan and Shi Wei learned the process of non-standard equipment standardization, and learned the management concept of inaction and tough and pragmatic business philosophy with Qi Xiaodong.

The affirmation of customers and industry leaders also gave Zhou Yan great confidence and motivation. In the process of promoting the wide film coating machine, Zhou Yan met Gu Chuanming of Cangzhou pearl. At the dinner table, Gu Chuanming asked him if he had ever made a 1.2-meter-wide coating equipment. "I timidly said 'no'. President Gu asked me if I had the confidence to do it well. I said, 'I can do it well!'

Zhou Yan recalled. At the first meeting, Gu Chuanming ordered a lithium coating machine from Zhou. The required width is not available in the whole industry. The final product came out, and the final production speed of the coater was 30% higher than the design speed. Gu Chuanming was "not disappointed".

"Dr. Zhang Xiaofei also gave me encouragement and support again and again." at the senior engineer forum, Zhou Yan grew up from green to green. Having worked for more than ten years, he is also impressed by his peers who have developed equipment together: Zhang Wutang, Jiao Junfeng, Jiang Deshun and Li Keqiang, as well as his partners who have eaten instant noodles together in overseas projects, Matsushita's Changwei Xiaoze, Yishi's Liu Boyan, Tesla's Sunbo, Volkswagen's Bastian, BPE's Han Yu and Geng Jin

Those who do not seek the overall situation are not enough to seek a domain; He who does not seek eternity is not enough to seek a moment. Zhou Yan's idea is that the past research and development and layout are the basis for today's survival. Today's strategic layout will be confirmed in the future of the rapid development of the industry.

"The transfer coater, which accounted for almost all of our sales before 2010, has basically no sales today, because the efficiency of the extrusion coater has been improved by 50 times. Diaphragm coating has grown from scratch, and now there are hundreds of sales every year. The price of the coater has decreased by half compared with the original. Fortunately, when the pole coater has no performance, our diaphragm coating has grown." Zhou Yan said that innovation is the basis of enterprise development. When the low-speed machine entered the trough, they first developed the high-speed machine. When the products began to be homogeneous, their nearby services responded quickly and made differentiation.

"Equipment amortization accounts for less than 5% of the total product cost, ranking fourth after amortization of materials, energy consumption and labor. The change of production mode brought by this will be the basis for the survival of battery enterprises." Zhou Yan believes that equipment should be differentiated and equipment factories should focus on their own direction.

For the next ten years, Zhou Yan said that the existing production model could not meet hundreds of times of industrial expansion in terms of energy and manpower. In terms of software definition and manufacturing, the existing personnel experience will be accumulated in the software, and the experience advantage of installation and debugging personnel in traditional enterprises will no longer exist.

Zhou Yan's expectation is that GWH era will be replaced by TWH era, inter industry cooperation will replace vicious competition, and win-win among customers will replace zero sum game. Under the new production mode and social financing system, production capacity and capital will not be obstacles for advantageous enterprises. You must become a champion in the subdivided field and kill the winner.