As chief engineer of Robotics Department at EFORT Intelligent Equipment in Wuhu City of Anhui Province, Xiao Yongqiang left Beijing in 2013 to develop his career in the city and has focused on the research and development of industrial robots since then. Xiao has witnessed the development concept shift of enterprises in the Yangtze River Delta from making separate efforts to pursuing coordinated growth.
Most core components for domestic robots, such as controller and reducer, rely on imports from other countries. Xiao and his colleagues are committed to breaking this bottleneck so as to achieve self-reliance in developing industrial robots that use domestic counterparts.
As Xiao’s team is concentrating on the development of domestic components in Wuxi, some 300 kilometers away in Suzhou, Leader Harmonious Drive is trying to expand the market for its original reducers. The two companies have agreed to join forces to promote domestic products instead of continuing to rely on imports. After going through trial and error, the partnership has helped reduce EFORT’s manufacturing cost by nearly 20 percent. Meanwhile, the Suzhou-based company has also rapidly increased its domestic market share.
EFORT is a member of the robotics industry alliance under the G60 science and technology innovation corridor. The alliance consists of all types of enterprises and investment in a vibrant industrial robot ecosystem, such as manufacturing and integration. It promotes coordination of upstream and downstream companies in the industry chain, facilitates collaboration to tackle technical problems, and supports the R&D and technology transfer to speed up self-reliance in high-end and intelligent equipment manufacturing.
Xiao said, with the further progress of Yangtze River Delta integration, the company has essentially entered into a collaborative development pattern through partnership with diverse suppliers across the whole industry chain. "More than half of the company's core components come from the Yangtze River Delta. The localization rate has reached more than 80 percent, and is expected to reach more than 90 percent in the next two years."
EFORT robotic products and solutions are exported to many countries and regions in Europe, Asia, Africa and Oceania. Xiao said he is now totally in love with the Yangtze River Delta, a region full of innovation and vitality.
In June this year, Shanghai, Jiangsu, Zhejiang and Anhui signed an agreement to jointly establish the Yangtze River Delta National Technology Innovation Center. Liu Qing, president of Jiangsu Industrial Technology Research Institute, said that it’s necessary to make good use of this cross-regional platform, promote greater development synergy, and build efficient smooth connection among all stakeholders in the process.
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