“Advancements in CNC programming have significantly improved productivity and made the creation of complex geometries easy. These changes in CNC technology profoundly impacted the way that cutting tools were manufactured and how tool and cutter grinding was performed.”

One market sector in which this trend is particularly clear is that of cemented carbide inserts. Here, Chinese producers are catching up particularly quickly with their foreign competitors. According to official statistics, the export value of cemented carbide inserts has increased by 74 percent and the export volume by 50 percent in the three years already mentioned. "The core competitiveness of Chinese carbide inserts in the world market has improved rapidly," writes the industry newspaper.

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They do so with great aspirations. One example is OKE. From 2017 to 2022, the company has already more than tripled the share of its turnover generated by exports (from around 26 million yuan to 107 million yuan, or about 13.5 million euros). That was about ten per cent of the total turnover. However, sales in Europe in particular were now growing rapidly and this year foreign markets were the focus of OKE's business strategy, it said.

“Advanced endmills are the best example. Over the past few years, there has been an arms race in the cutting tool industry, with toolmakers offering things like variable pitch geometry and variable helix geometry. These advances would have been close to impossible without modern grinding equipment.”

The company offers a wide range of tools such as the NX face-finishing milling cutter, high-feed cutting in hardened steels with XFeed-H and the AX high-performance milling cutters, amongst others.

* Henrik Bork is Managing Director at Asia Waypoint, a Beijing-based consulting agency specialising in China. "China Market Insider" is a joint project of the Vogel Communications Group, Würzburg, and Jigong Vogel Media Advertising in Beijing.

“With their advanced programming techniques, CNC tool and cutter grinders revolutionised cutting tool manufacturing. The ability to control multiple axes and programme complex grinding paths permitted tool designers to create cutting tool geometries that have challenged milling and turning machine tool builders to keep up.”

But domestic manufacturers are catching up fast, the paper adds, and the price pressure from high electricity prices for European competitors, as well as the weakening of the labour market there as a result of the Corona measures, are now a historic opportunity for China to turn the tables, the report says. What supports this optimistic analysis is the fact that the spread between import and export prices for cutting tools in China is gradually narrowing.

This year, according to various media reports, the largest cutting tool manufacturers in China are preparing for an export offensive. China Tungsten, OKE, Huarui Precision and other leading Chinese producers have set their sights on increasing their exports abroad this year.

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The average price for the imported product was around 3.8 euros per piece. In the same period, production and sales of domestic coated blades (“CNC cutting tool inserts”) in China increased from 250 million to almost 600 million units. The price per unit averaged 89 cents. The “teeth of the industry” have made enormous progress in terms of domestic substitution, writes the Chinese industrial newspaper Zhongguo Gongye Bao proudly.

The Swiss family company produces cutting tools for metal cutting processes throughout the global market. Founded in 1934, the company currently employs more than 500 people and is one of the leading manufacturers in this industry.

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“All the international manufacturers that we now represent are the leaders in their particular aspect of the market. They also cooperate and work with each other in advancing the technology for their particular product. This is why we are proud to be associated with Fraisa SA and market their products in South Africa.”

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“Advancements in CNC machines and programming have altered the way that manufacturers make and use cutting tools. Engineers and toolmakers are focused on chip formation theory, and grinding machine dynamics are no longer the limiting factor in cutting tool design. The next wave of advances likely will involve cutting tool materials and the abrasive tools used to manufacture them. We can still look forward to many exciting developments in all aspects of machining and metal removal. We want to be at the forefront of these advancements and this is why we have set up partnerships with the leading Japanese and European manufacturers.”

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The unit price for coated industrial blades has fallen slightly from 2019 to 2022, from around 467 euros to around 456 euros. This represents a decrease of 2.4 percent. Over the same period, however, the unit price of coated industrial blades exported by China grew from around 139 euros to around 164 euros, an increase of 18 percent. In other words, Chinese manufacturers of industrial cutting tools are slowly but surely working their way up the global pecking order. The IPOs of many large companies enable large investments in research & development and the acquisition of state-of-the-art equipment.

While European companies struggle with rising electricity costs and other problems, in China one large company after another goes public and is able to improve its product quality and production capacity. It is almost a surprise that, according to the latest statistics, China's imports of cutting tools are still larger than its exports - at least in terms of value. After all, the upper end of the Chinese market is still dominated by Japanese, German and Swedish manufacturers, in that order, followed by manufacturers in Israel, the USA, South Korea, India and Thailand.

“Automation and productivity have always been the most significant attributes of CNC equipment, and they were the primary selling points in the early days. It was multi-axis interpolation, or the ability to drive a cutting tool through curves and angles, that became the foundation of the next series of technological advances.”

Fraisa SA is a family-owned business that offers its customers a complete range of endmills, drills and taps. The toolmaker provides a full customer service offering with logistics, specials, regrinding and recycling of tools. With its headquarters in Bellach, Switzerland, Fraisa has a strong position in Europe and entered the US and Chinese markets in the last 10 years.

But the trend of what is lauded in China's state media as the patriotically correct "domestic substitution" of foreign goods with domestic ones is progressing. According to recent data from the China Machine Tool Industry Association, imports of coated blades have remained roughly the same year on year from 2019 to 2022. It has always been around 800 tonnes or 100 million pieces with a total value of around 380 million euros.

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Only the fact that high-quality goods are still predominantly produced in other countries has so far kept the statistics from reversing the usual ratios. “At present, most industrial cutting tools manufactured in China are still products in the lower price segment or everyday products,” writes the industry newspaper.

“Hi-Tech Machine Tools represents Mazak CNC equipment, Albrecht precision chucks, hyperMILL software, Blaser Swisslube cutting and grinding fluids and 5th Axis workholding fixtures.”

Fraisa Holding AG is the parent company of the operating Fraisa companies in Switzerland and abroad. Besides Switzerland the company has production sites in Germany, France, Italy, Hungary, the US and China.

Industrial cutting tools are the next field in which China wants to overtake foreign manufacturers - and it could soon succeed. An overview of the current situation.

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“However, like your CNC equipment and the many other products and systems involved in shaping or forming a piece of metal, in tooling you also get the cheap and nasty or you pay a little extra and you get quality. We have carefully planned the transition from just being a company that just sells the quality Mazak CNC machine tool brand to one where we can offer the complementing products that make you stand out in your machining operations.”

“We are proud to announce that we have been appointed as agents to represent this high-end manufacturer of quality tooling. Tools and cutters are a significant aspect in the machining world. They say that a cutting tool only makes up about three to four per cent of the overall cost of a component but without them very little would be manufactured efficiently and accurately. Often you will see a CNC machine standing idle because procurement has not stocked up on tooling and cutters or the wrong one has been ordered,” said Peter Killian, MD of Hi-Tech Machine Tools.

Fraisa SA, a cutting tool manufacturer specialising in milling tools, drills, taps and indexable inserts has appointed Hi-Tech Machine Tools to market the company’s products in South Africa.