The tool company must not only pay attention to the brand but also pay attention to its own powerful

“From the exhibition point of view, the machine tool industry is still in good shape, but the situation of the tool industry is not optimistic.” “Even if it is not like the winter-like cold, it is not an exaggeration to say that it is difficult to advance in adversity.”

The above statement is written by Jiang Wende, the managing director of Seco Tools (Shanghai) Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as Seco), said that the sales of several high-end tool brand enterprises in the first quarter all fell by 20% year-on-year, while Teguci and Zhuzi etc. Low-end brand sales are better than others.

Intensive efforts to promote new initiatives In November last year, Sandvik acquired the remaining 40% stake in Seco. This means that Seco has become a wholly owned subsidiary of Sandvik.

The newly appointed Sandvik Chief Executive Officer and Chief Executive Officer said that the acquisition is a normal step, with clear industry justification, in line with the company's strategy to continue to strengthen its leadership in the global cutting tool market. Seco Tools has a strong brand and is a good complement to the company's offering of products and services to customers.

Sandvik stated that it will retain the brand and organization of Seco Tools and its management team will continue to stay. Seco's product line will remain independent and managed in the same way as Sandvik Coromant, Walter and other brands.

Therefore, Jiang Wende said several major high-end brands may include Coromant and Walter. Having said this, one of the bigger doubts is that after Sandvik acquired Shanko, it had three brands of Coromant, Walter and Seco in its tooling field, and these three brands were positioned as high-end markets. Will not cause some "unrest"? Despite this problem, the reporter has already felt that the other party will not give an answer, but when Jiang Wende replied that there will be arrangements in the headquarters at that time, the heart is still a little disappointed.

Then, will the decline in the tool market continue? In March, company sales were much better than in January. "I hope we can bite in March and April and warm up after May."

However, in the subsequent meeting, he hoped to be poured cold water.

Participants indicated that the declining growth rate in the industrial sector is the background, and the current market situation in the machinery industry such as automobiles, ships, and construction machinery is not optimistic. Although new investment is continuing, the total production volume is insufficient and the tool industry is a consumer industry. The product is bound to be affected.

“As an industrial consumer goods tool, when the total production is insufficient, the user will first consider the compression of inventory and costs.”

How to reduce costs? The most straightforward approach is to seek alternative, more cost-effective products. This can also be a good explanation for why high-end brand tool speeds will be higher than the low-end tool brands.

“The life cycle of cutting tool products is longer than that of electronic products, but there are thousands of new varieties introduced by general tool companies every year to ease the pressure of price cuts on old products.” Jiang Wende said that he knew 40% to 50% of several companies. Sales are from sales of new products.

Of course, the tool companies are pushing the new products so vigorously that they have their own considerations. That is, they hope that they can turn new products into advantageous products as soon as possible and benefit from them.

Refinement solutions There are so many new products available each year. How to push new products is a question that is placed before the tool makers.

In addition to regular recommendations, they must convince the user why they want to replace the original model, but also clearly explain what benefits can be brought to the user.

It seems that some methods can be found from opening Seco's page.

Nowadays, well-known tool manufacturing companies have provided solutions for users as a continuous work, and there is a tendency to subdivide and precisely specialize this business.

For example, in Seco, the solution for providing users is divided into two categories: industry solutions and business solutions. The former includes aerospace, energy, automotive, oil and gas, and medical sectors. The latter is divided into four major blocks: increasing production efficiency, reducing costs, limiting resources, and improving the supply chain.

In addition to these, Seco also proposed a tool management engineering business.

Tool management is a conceptual reference to "tool general contracting". It is to outsource the tools of a certain factory to the overall management of a company to meet a variety of tooling needs. The comprehensive provision includes tool procurement, inventory management, and repair. Grinding, cleaning, adjustment, distribution and other complete sets of services.

"Because the cost of cutting tools accounts for only about 3%, but the production will affect the production efficiency of 20% to 30%. Therefore, the concept of cost reduction requires the use of efficient tools, appropriate increase in tool costs, and enhanced tool management. It is very important to improve the competitiveness of production companies," said Jiang Wende.

The core of tool management is to reduce the initial investment through tool outsourcing; reduce inventory capital; reduce management costs, so that enterprises will focus on their own core competitiveness. As tool suppliers in Europe and the United States are relatively mature and all parties operate in a more standardized manner, tool management is gradually gaining recognition from users.

In China, this road seems to be a bit slow.

As the current domestic tool market is still dominated by imported tools, especially in terms of tool supply, information transmission, production cycle, customs clearance, and transportation will all set obstacles for tool management. Users will worry about the resulting suspension of production. In addition, users are also worried about relying too heavily on a supplier, and it will be difficult to replace another new tool management supplier in the next round of selection.

Shanghai General Motors Corporation is the first company in China to adopt a specialized, socialized and advanced tool management model. Its tool management company is Austrian TCM company. TCM CEO has stated that TCM's offering at Shanghai GM is one of the highest levels of tool management – ​​Level 5 service.

However, with the rapid development of China's manufacturing industry, tool suppliers are paying increasing attention to the Chinese market and tool management is showing its potential. Tool makers, including larger companies such as Sandvik Coromant, Kenner, and Iscar, have stated that they can provide tool management.

The partner of Seco Tool Management selected Shanghai Ingrid Tool Management Engineering Co., Ltd. The company is a foreign-invested joint-stock joint-venture company and is mainly engaged in machining tool management engineering, tool management software development and sales, machine tool distribution and turnkey project contracting, tool sales, technical services, etc., dedicated to automotive, aerospace , machine tools and other industries.