Reducers are the core components of industrial robots, and their value accounts for more than 30% of the total cost of the robot. Therefore, the demand for reducers is directly affected by the boom in the industrial robot industry.
Benefiting from the recovery of the industrial robot industry, NBZD Intelligent Transmission Technology Group, a company with advantages in reducers and gear motors, has also ushered in a new round of growth in its performance. In the first half of 2020, the company achieved total operating income of 630 million yuan, a year-on-year increase of 8.83%.
NBZD is a high-tech enterprise engaged in the research and development, production, sales and service of key components in the field of mechanical transmission and control applications.
Starting from the geared motor business, NBZD has successively introduced new products such as miniature brushless DC gear motors, precision planetary reducers, roller motors, RV reducers, etc., which are widely used in industrial robots, smart logistics, new energy, and working machines. As well as special machinery and equipment for food, packaging, textiles, electronics, and medical treatment.
The reducer is a transmission component composed of multiple gears. As long as the gear meshing can change the motor speed, torque and carrying capacity, so as to achieve precise control.
The reducer can be divided into general transmission reducer and precision reducer. In comparison, the general transmission reducer has low control accuracy and only meets the basic power transmission requirements of mechanical equipment. Due to the advantages of small return clearance, high accuracy, and long service life, precision reducers have made their applications more reliable and stable, and have become the main applications in high-end fields such as industrial robots and CNC machine tools.
The precision reducers used by industrial robots are mainly RV reducers and harmonic gear reducers. According to GGII data, in the industrial robot market, RV and harmonics account for approximately 65% and 35% respectively.
The industry believes that RV reducers have advantages over harmonic reducers, and there is a trend of gradually replacing harmonic reducers in advanced robot transmissions.
However, the current reducer market is basically monopolized by two Japanese companies, Nabtesco and Hamonaco. Among them, Nabtesco's advantage is concentrated in the field of RV reducers. In 2018, Nabtesco's global market share in the field of precision reducers reached 60%. Especially in the field of RV reducers, the market share is as high as 90%. At present, most robot manufacturers in the world, including KUKA of Germany, ABB of Switzerland, FANUC of Japan, and Yaskawa of Japan, all of the "big four players" purchase RV reducers from Nabtesco.
NBZD successfully developed the RV reducer in 2015, and supplied it in small batches for smart logistics and industrial joint robots.
In 2018, the company began to sign the purchase and sale contract of RV reducer products with Borunte Robot Technology, supplying the latter with no less than 30,000 RV reducers. Currently, NBZD's RV reducer has been used by more than 50 customers. For example, there are forklift companies such as Nuoli Co., Ltd., Anhui Heli, Hangcha Group, HIT Robot Group, Guangzhou CNC Equipment Co., Ltd., Topstar, Bronte and other manipulators and robot manufacturers, Shenyang Machine Tool, Dalian Machine Tool Group Co., Ltd., etc. Machine tool companies, photovoltaic assembly line companies such as Yingkou Jinchen Machinery Co., Ltd., agricultural machinery companies such as Japan's Kubota Company, Maersk Group, Cixing Co., Ltd., etc.
By comparison, it is found that China's research on RV reducers started late, and most of them are still mainly concentrated in universities and research institutes. Only some domestic reducers are used in the field of industrial robots in small batches, and the others are mainly supplied by foreign companies. According to statistics, the current localization rate of RV reducers does not exceed 5%.
Therefore, as the core factor restricting the breakthrough of domestic robots, RV reducer, NBZD fully demonstrates its technical strength and has a typical import substitution effect. RV reducer is the blue ocean for the company's performance growth, and it has a broad prospect under the trend of domestic substitution.