"Mold is a basic process equipment for industrial production" has obtained formula. In products of electronics, automobiles, televisions, electrical appliances, instruments, instruments, home appliances and communications, 60% and 80% of parts are formed by molding. High precision, complexity, consistency, high productivity and low energy consumption of parts produced by mold are unmatched by other processing methods, and are also "benefit amplifier". Value of final product produced by mold is often several times and hundreds of times value of mold itself. Specifically, taking popularization of mold integrated manufacturing units and technologies as an example, in recent years, in addition to automatic feeding, stamping, lamination metering, thickness grouping, core assembly and product output, hinge assembly connection, etc., there are also process combinations of complex motion structure, in-mold heating, forging, local heat (tissue) control, in-mold welding, tapping, local injection, in-mold cutting, and in-mold testing. For another example, production of mold cavities in 3D printing applications is a new trend in the development of cavity molds. Metal additive-subtractive combination manufacturing technology is an important direction in the field of 3D printing today. Through 3D layer-by-layer additive forming, combined with high-speed milling of layer thickness profile and material finishing, high-precision manufacturing of complex metal parts is realized. Currently, top three applications are industrial machinery, aerospace and automotive, accounting for 20.0%, 16.6% and 13.8% of market respectively. 

China's mold industry developed late, modern mold industry did not start until end of 1970s, but after years of efforts, China's mold manufacturing industry has established their mold technology research and development organization, mold production and supply system by introducing a combination of design, manufacturing technologies and independent innovations in developed countries and developed countries, mold industry scale and technology level has made great progress.
In 2011-2017, sales revenue of China's mold industry continued to grow. As of 2017, China's mold industry sales revenue reached 266.342 billion yuan, an increase of 2.31%. It is estimated that sales revenue of China's mold industry will reach 275.3 billion yuan in 2018.

 

Since 2012, number of Chinese mold related patent applications has steadily increased. In 2017, number of patent applications reached 22,872, the first time more than 20,000, a record high. In 2018, number of patent applications decreased, but still exceeded 17,000, reaching 17,146.

 

From perspective of patent applicants, among top ten patent applicants, Hon Hai Precision has two companies in top two, with 347 and 337 patent applications respectively, accounting for less than 0.7%; Anhui Jianghuai Automobile Group Co., Ltd. applied for 309, ranking third.

 

In addition, Chinese mold companies have also begun to go abroad, and scale of mold exports has fluctuated. In 2011, China's mold industry exports totaled US$3.05 billion, up 36.87% year-on-year, the highest growth rate in recent years. Since then, company's total export volume has resumed growth until 2017, reaching US$5.49 billion, a year-on-year growth rate of 14.61%.

 

In recent years, along with prosperity of China's automobile industry, demand for auto molds market has been rapidly released and scale has continued to grow. According to statistics, demand for new auto molds in China has increased from 221 tons in 2011 to 348 tons in 2017, and market size has increased from 60.5 billion yuan in 2012 to 88.8 billion yuan in 2017. It is estimated that scale of China's auto molds market will exceed 90 billion yuan in 2018.

 

As an important basic equipment for information industry, IT molds have developed rapidly and have become an indispensable tool for mass production and new product development. According to driving effect of mold industry 1:100, sales revenue of China's IT molds in 2017 was about 142 billion yuan. It is estimated that sales revenue of China's IT molds will reach 155 billion yuan in 2018.

 

OA equipment mold market closely follows development of OA equipment market. OA equipment is generally composed of plastic parts, hardware and chips. Plastic products mainly include appearance parts and structural parts. Molding method is generally injection molding using a plastic injection mold. As of 2017, market size of OA equipment mold is about 3.6 billion yuan, and it is expected to reach 4 billion yuan in 2018.

 

Medical device molds are used in almost all medical device parts, ranging from hyperbaric oxygen chambers to hearing aids and cardiac pacemakers. Moreover, medical device molds occupy an important position in medical device industry due to precise requirements for production of medical device parts. According to driving effect of mold industry 1:100, market size of medical device molds in 2017 was about 2.384 billion yuan. It is estimated that size of China's medical device molds market will reach 2.5 billion yuan in 2018.

 

With continuous learning in recent years, China's mold industry has developed rapidly, and a number of companies specializing in high precision mold manufacturing have been developed. They realized that accuracy of dimensions is the most important factor in manufacture of high-precision, high-quality, high-tech products. To do high precision mold, there are two important factors, such as equipment and talent, but China still has a certain distance from foreign countries in the most sophisticated fields. After all, for China, manufacturing is a manifestation of a country's overall national strength. Therefore, state has given a high degree of attention and will surely achieve its transcendence in the near future.

Automation and intelligence are guarantees for improving efficiency. With popularization of various automation equipments (mainly robots) for mold production and improvement of intelligence of internal standard parts (mainly hot runners), efficiency of mold production getting higher and higher, and it will move toward a higher and better realm. Future development should be that there are only a few people in a factory, and the rest are all machines and computers. There are only three types of people in the future: managers, technicians and robots.

With technological innovation, many of original impossibilities have become possible, and many of original complicated and tortuous ways have become very simple. These are new opportunities and challenges for mold industry. Specifically, they are opportunities and challenges for mold designers. Whether you can master new mold design and manufacturing technology is lifeblood of a mold company. Mastering high-tech of mold requires a deep design and manufacturing heritage. These high-tech also become resources of company to fight for brand and strive for chips of better customers. Current war is a war of technology without smoke, and competitive prices are not as good as competitive technologies. As long as technology is innovative and mold is new, even if price is higher, there will be a large number of customers, which is the power of brand. Molds are always an industry that wins with technology and quality.

Convergence means that product development and mold are highly integrated. This trend is also inevitable. This change is a change that can affect manufacturing model more than assembly line replace all-round mold master. Simply, mold designers and product development are combined into a new position, a new position that can be responsible for a whole series of work from appearance to organization, to mold, to mold processing, mold production, and product assembly, which become absolute core of manufacturing.