Why buy domestic instruments "can not afford to hurt"

Scientific instruments are equivalent to the "hidden" military industry and are areas that countries must strive for. However, how to speed up the transformation and upgrading of scientific instruments from "Made in China" to "Created in China" still requires many breakthroughs.

In the future, China will deploy more than 1,500 PM2.5 monitoring stations. The market potential of PM2.5 monitoring equipment is huge.

What is the difference between domestic instruments and imported instruments? A person in charge of a domestic listed company that analyzes and tests instruments believes that, like the October pregnancy, "we'll just miss this ten months."

However, in the research and development, production, market circulation, and application links, innovation has always been plagued by various factors. This has led to the development of domestic scientific instruments into a situation of “deep love, responsibility, and anxiety”.

Losing money in research and development is not as good as writing a paper "High-Resolution Multi-Functional Chemical Imaging System" is a national major scientific research instrument dedicated to tens of millions of dollars. When the reporter saw it on the lab's workbench, he felt it was like a large computer case. The black box contained several sets of optical components arranged in a matrix.

“These optical devices are the core part of the imaging system. We all use imported components. In fact, we also used domestic components in the early stages of R&D. However, it is difficult to achieve the accuracy required by the instrument.” One of the core R&D personnel of the project, the Chinese Academy of Sciences Yuan Jinghe, an associate researcher at the Institute of Chemistry, told the reporter. This "chassis" is just a prototype, and the instruments they are developing will rely on them.

In recent years, chemical imaging techniques based on different principles have gradually emerged. The "High Resolution Multifunctional Chemical Imaging System" project, which is based on the integration of multiple chemical imaging systems, establishes a new type of analytical characterization system that offers the potential for breakthroughs in the development of chemical frontiers and interdisciplinary research.

This is also an integrated and innovative project. "The idea and technology are ours, and the parts are basically foreign." Yuan Jinghe said. According to Yuan Jinghe, after the successful development of the instrument, it is mainly used for scientific research units and enterprises to meet scientific research needs. In the future, its market price is expected to be between millions and ten million yuan.

"If this project is not financially supported, no one is willing to accept it." The reason why this is said is that Yuan Jinghe saw many people with instrumental R&D talents around and interested in interest, but those who really used it as research directions Very few.

The reason is very simple. The results of the paper can be published for half a year. The development of an instrument for three years may not be effective. Researchers must assess every year, no results, no one knows what you are doing. Without results, why stand in the circle?

At the same time, even if the instrument is developed, it also involves the problems of subsequent conversion and application. The energy involved and the risks that will be undertaken are far from being comparable to the outcomes of the output papers.

“In reality, those who engage in instrument research and development may not see hope and think this is a bottomless pit.” Yuan Jinghe sighed.

Inspired by the "Zhang Heng Plan" of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, Peking University launched the Instrument Innovation and Creation Program in 2009, mainly for the cultivation of instrument research and development projects. There are two ways to nurture: one is to apply for the accumulation of major national projects, and the other is for projects that are urgently needed by the market and can be quickly converted into applications.

The purpose of the plan is to promote Peking University to attack world-class universities. World-class universities will inevitably produce original scientific achievements. Without equipment R&D, the original results became the ultimate goal.

Peking University Experimental Animal Center teacher Zhang Jun (a pseudonym) was once an ordinary veterinarian. He often cooperates with scientific researchers to do experiments. According to the idea of ​​olfactory damage proposed by researchers, he developed an electroencephalograph using his spare time, and thus established an association between olfactory damage and electroencephalography. Now, this instrument has become a major product of a company.

In recent years, through the instrument innovation and creation plan, Peking University has successively won 3 major national instruments major projects of the Ministry of Science and Technology and obtained funding support of 150 million yuan. Compared with the remarkable achievements in winning major projects in the country, these projects have not performed as "eye-catching" in the application of results transformation. In the school-supported projects, there are not many companies that currently receive corporate support.

“These projects mainly play the role of seeds, that is, through the seed project to obtain more and larger national projects.” Deputy Director of the R&D and Experimental Service Base of Peking University, and Jiang Xiangfeng, General Manager of Beijing Beida Yanyuan Micro-structured Analysis and Test Center Co., Ltd. The reporter stated that if this standard is followed, then each of these projects is very successful because most of the projects have obtained further investment and all have room for further development.

“Using completely commercialized and mature instruments for scientific research, you can maximize the capabilities of the instrument and make some beautiful work, but it is very difficult to make original results,” Jiang Xiangfeng said. As Zhou Yongyi, the director of the equipment management office of Peking University, emphasized in an interview with the reporter, to be original, your tools must have unique features.

There are no shortage of teachers in the domestic universities to reform and produce experimental instruments, but they have to swing between scientific research and assessment. Many teachers are pressured by scientific research or innovation to engage in instrumentation by themselves. However, such activities originating from scientific research needs and subsequent commercial development are often not necessarily linked.

Under the existing system, "drumstick instruments" are not treated as the main business of scientific research, and those who use it as the industry cannot be made mainstream. In the final analysis, this is a question of "the baton."

Losses in the application of "unbearable" risk In May of this year, at a domestic testing equipment and equipment promotion held in Beijing, Gao Jinghai, deputy director of the Department of Science and Technology of the General Administration of Quality Supervision, Inspection and Quarantine, lamented that the quality inspection system was relatively high-end laboratories. Take a look, more than 90% of inspection and testing equipment are imported from abroad. This situation may exist in other areas such as health care and environmental protection.

"China's food and drug safety problems can be solved with 60% of domestic testing equipment." At this meeting, Professor Jiang Shiqiang of the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences pointed out in an interview with reporters that the actual situation is The market share of domestic instruments is still relatively low.

With respect to domestic instruments, the main problem encountered by users is that their comprehensive performance indicators are generally weaker than imported instruments, and their reliability is poor.

Zhou Jianfeng, president of Ulink Testing Services (Group) Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as “Unilever”) participated in the evaluation of some instrument projects. He found that these instruments use a single index to compare with foreign products, but ignore the overall indicators and system performance. For the instrument user, the customer's desired instrument is to have overall indicators rather than individual indicators.

As an influential third-party testing agency and a major user of scientific instruments in China, Unilink has its own set of unique standards.

“First look at whether the instrument's comprehensive performance indicators meet our requirements, such as the instrument's testability, repeatability, short-term stability, long-term stability, linearity, etc. followed by well-known brands. The third is the price.” Zhou Jianfeng on the reporter Say.

In ULink, the large-scale equipment with a price of more than 100,000 yuan is basically imported equipment; among the medium and low-end equipment with a price below 100,000 yuan, imports and domestic equipment make up half of the equipment; low-end equipment with 2 to 50,000 yuan is made in China. Mostly. In terms of total assets, large instruments account for the majority; in terms of quantity, there are many small and medium-sized instruments.

Due to the loss of domestically-made equipment, Unilink is no longer inclined to take risks in providing services to customers, especially some well-known brand customers, and generally uses international mainstream equipment.

For many users, similar examples are numerous. Another important reason for this choice is that from the perspective of one-time investment, domestically-made equipment may dominate, but in terms of long-term use costs, foreign instruments are relatively mature, reliable, and attention to detail, making them more likely to be businesses and users. Bring maximum benefit.

“Buying domestic instruments is basically a waste of money and time.” Yuan Jinghe emphasized, “This is not a simple concept issue, but researchers are afraid to waste their money and time.”

"You (domestic instruments) are cheaper. I don't have the time and energy to evaluate you." The problems he reflected were directly related to the fact that there has been a mismatch between instrument development and application for a long time.

Losses in the production of poor time, even worse attitude "domestic scientific instruments independent innovation is difficult, fundamentally, or the results of the entire basic industry and basic research can not keep up." Wei Fusheng, academician of the Chinese Academy of Engineering in an interview with reporters stressed.

In his view, China's scientific research institutions and enterprises have been working hard, from imitation and integration to independent innovation, which has enabled the localization rate of low-end instruments to reach a certain level. During the “Twelfth Five-Year Plan” period, the state’s funds for major scientific instrument and equipment development projects will be about 5 billion yuan, and the funds for mobilizing enterprises and the society will exceed 10 billion yuan. "Now we have the financial and technical strength to do it well."

For Liu Zhaogui, chairman of Jiangsu Tianrui Instrument Co., Ltd. (hereinafter abbreviated as “Tianrui”), decades of experience in instrument development made him feel confident about domestic instrument innovation.

Tianrui is the only listed company in the domestic analytical instrument industry. In the research and development of a mass spectrometer, R&D personnel had excitedly told Liu Zhaogui that our instrument was six times worse than foreign products in key indicators. Liu Zhaogui was very excited at the time, but after verifying it, he found that the R&D personnel was wrong. It is not a difference of 6 times but 6 orders of magnitude.

This gap in reality has left them depressed and confused for a long time. However, after groping experiments repeatedly and making changes to some of the details, it took only one year or more for them to significantly increase key technical indicators, and the gap with foreign products was significantly reduced.

What is worse than our foreign products? "Actually, it was the month of pregnancy. We just had to wait for 10 months. They have already been born. We are gestating, but we must also be born." Liu Zhaogui said in an interview with the reporter.

Tianrui was initially questioned by various parties in its development. This has become a brand name for domestic manufacturers. However, in just five years, Skyray built almost all the equipment in the industry. In 2012, the company had two GC-MS sales to the United States and one to Japan, achieving a breakthrough for domestic instrument manufacturers.

“The domestically produced high-end equipment is even more acceptable to Americans,” Liu Zhaogui emphasized. “This tells the outside world that we can create high-end instruments with good performance.”

Domestic instruments have poor reliability and stability, and in many cases they are blamed for lack of innovation. According to Liu Zhaogui, this is actually an issue of attitude. "R&D is about innovation, and it doesn't require innovation in terms of reliability and quality assurance. It's implementation. It can be done as long as it is executed carefully."

Domestic equipment is worse than foreign ones, and many people think that it is caused by insufficient machining accuracy. However, in Tian Rui’s view, these are the problems that can be solved by analyzing the reasons.

"Foreseeable that China's scientific instruments in the future will not be worse than foreign ones. The result must be this way," Liu Zhaogui said.

Loss of marketing promotion in marketing According to relevant person in charge of the Beijing Municipal Science and Technology Commission, the capital science and technology conditional platform that took 4 years to build has gathered 562 key laboratories and engineering centers above provincial and ministerial levels. In 2012, R&D income reached 2.2 billion yuan. . The above-mentioned key laboratories and engineering centers have produced many test instruments, equipment, and detection methods that support scientific research during the long-term commitment of national and local science and technology projects. However, these results still have a certain distance from market demand.

“The market cultivation of domestic scientific instruments, such as demonstration and promotion, needs to be strengthened.” The responsible person emphasized that in the inspection and quarantine industry, due to lack of communication and cooperation, the market’s wanted manufacturers cannot produce, and the company’s products also lack effective technical verification and Comprehensive evaluation method, it is difficult to obtain user's approval. The industry criticized it.

In May of this year, the Beijing Entry-Exit Inspection and Quarantine Bureau jointly established a comprehensive verification and evaluation platform with a number of authoritative testing agencies to establish an integrated operation mode of equipment selection, verification, development, improvement, and evaluation.

Yang Jinliang, an inspector of the Beijing Entry-Exit Inspection and Quarantine Bureau, told the reporter that the platform mainly provides verification for domestic large-scale scientific instruments. That is, the company's products are submitted to the quarantine inspection department and used in parallel with foreign products to be verified and evaluated.

"Building this kind of supply and demand platform is undoubtedly a win-win result." Yang Jinliang said.

To further strengthen the monitoring of air pollution, in the future, China will deploy more than 1,500 PM2.5 monitoring stations and build the world's largest PM2.5 monitoring network. PM2.5 monitoring equipment has a huge market potential, but it was once seized by foreign companies.

"China's imported PM2.5 monitoring equipment has saved an American 'unknown' instrument manufacturer." An environmental health expert once said to reporters.

Zhang Fengying, an engineer at the Environmental Assessment Center of the China National Environmental Monitoring Center, told the reporter that the environmental monitoring terminal is currently carrying out metrological tests on related instruments and equipment, including many domestic products, but the test results have not yet come out.

According to the news from the Environmental Monitoring Station, as of the end of July, 10 kinds of PM2.5 automatic monitoring systems have completed most of the testing work and are expected to be introduced to the market after the test is completed early next year. At that time, the monopoly of foreign detection technologies will be broken.

Although the market continues to issue calls, it is still difficult for domestic equipment manufacturers to get rid of the embarrassment brought by product gaps and brand awareness gaps.

In an industry exhibition, Dong Dan, Marketing Director of Beijing East-West Analytical Instrument Co., Ltd., complained to the reporter that the user's judgment on the stability of domestically-made instruments was still in the past, and it was difficult to change. As long as funds are in place, most users tend to purchase foreign products.

"In the past few years, there were still seven or eight million government procurement orders, which are almost gone. They all make scattered small orders." Dong Dan said that it is difficult for their products to enter a good laboratory because of scientific research institutions' instruments and equipment. The requirements are relatively high; at the same time, it is also difficult to enter major applications in quality inspection and other industries. These units allocate more funds and generally do not purchase their products.

“Some indicators of domestic instruments have reached the level of foreign instruments. We hope that the government can give domestic instruments more platforms and more support.” Dong Dan said.

An agent of Haier Medical Scientific Research Equipment Co., Ltd. in Beijing told reporters that the low-temperature refrigerator products produced by Haier have already been applied in some domestic units and institutions. Although there is a large market space, further expansion is still full of resistance.

"Domestic equipment is not just a cost-effective problem, it's after-sales service is relatively guaranteed." The agent stressed that "If something goes wrong, we can immediately send a spare in the past. And foreign brand repair after sales is too much trouble and service The price is high."

“China's analytical instrument industry is mixed, and the overall quality system is imperfect. This status will inevitably cause damage to the image and brand of the entire industry.” Liu Zhaogui believes that doubts from the market also require companies to resolve through the market.

Liu Zhaogui participated in a bidding competition for atmospheric heavy metal detection equipment this year and found that users are more concerned about whether or not the instrument indicators can be met. If the indicator is enough, it is OK. “It is no longer required that non-foreign instruments are not used.”

"This year has begun to quietly change, as long as there are domestic instruments to participate, everyone is willing to choose domestic instruments. To tell the truth, the spring of China's analytical instruments will come." Liu Zhaogui said.