With the joint venture of car industry and the introduction of products, the world-famous automobile coating manufacturers (such as PPG, DuPont, BASF, Kansai, Nippon, etc.) are encouraged to invest in China. Establish a joint venture or wholly-owned automobile coating company to become the main supplier of car coatings. And with the introduction of cars, almost from which country the car products are introduced, which country's car coating system is adopted. That is to say, the market of high-grade automotive coatings is almost completely occupied by foreign brands.

State-owned paint enterprises (companies), the main suppliers of automobile coatings, exchanged the market for technology and capital. After joint venture, some of them withdrew from the automobile coatings market or even were eliminated. Some have retained their original markets, but because of inflexible mechanism, weak technical development ability, unable to keep up with pre-sales and after-sales services, heavy historical burden, and the loss of technical backbone, the market is shrinking, and now they only occupy a small share in the market of commercial vehicles (trucks and buses), agricultural vehicles and motorcycle coatings.

With the transformation of state-owned enterprises and scientific research institutions, private (including Hong Kong-funded and Taiwan-funded) automobile coating companies (factories) with flexible mechanisms have emerged, occupying a certain proportion of the automobile coating market, and some self-owned brand products have high recognition in the market. Such as Zhongshan Bridge, Weixin Paint (Shenzhen), Shanghai Jinlitai, Changzhou Fuleim and Dongguan Youli.

With the rapid development of car industry and the increase of car ownership, car repair coatings and painting have also formed an industry in China. In the early 1990s, almost all car repair coatings were imported. Today, the annual sales volume of car repair coatings is about 40,000 t, and the independent brand names have accounted for 70%. Foreign automotive repair coatings are also forced to start localization to reduce costs.

Based on the fact that automotive coatings should have high-quality coating performance and painting construction performance suitable for mass production, automotive coatings have high technical content, many varieties, large dosage and high output value, and have long been a special coating in industrial coatings, which represents the technical level of a national coating industry. In developed countries of automobile industry, automobile coatings account for 15% ~ 20% of the total coating output. For example, the total output of coatings in Japan in 2004 was 1.848 million t, of which automobile coatings accounted for 19.7% (new car coatings 15.99% and repair coatings 3.71%). In 2005, the output of automobiles in China was 5.7 million, the number of automobiles was 30 million to 32 million, and the sales volume of automobile coatings was about 240,000 t, accounting for about 6.5% of the total output of coatings.

In China, besides cathodic electrophoretic coatings, the middle coat and top coat (base coat and finish coat) are mainly organic solvent-based coatings with high VOC content. Only in the last two years, five new car body coating lines (Shanghai GM, Tianjin FAW Toyota, Wuhan Honda, Guangzhou Toyota and Honda) of the joint venture car company have been put into production and adopted water-based base paint. Powder coating is also only used for painting automobile parts.

The way of supply is from the paint production under the planned economy in the past to the chemical station, even if the way of completing the task is changed to the way of bidding, bidding and direct supply by the paint factory according to the laws of market economy, and the way of after-sales service is strengthened. In recent years, it has also developed into a system supply mode, from the settlement according to the amount of paint to the settlement according to the qualified painted finished products. Automobile painting production management is developing towards specialized subcontracting management, that is, the painting workshop production of automobile factory is jointly managed by automobile factory, paint factory, painting equipment factory or special management company. For example, joint ventures such as Kansai in Hunan, PPG in Tianjin and BASF in Shanghai have signed contracts for several coating lines (workshops) with relevant automobile factories according to the above model to manage the production of coating lines and settle accounts according to qualified coating products. This supply mode and specialized subcontracting management mode are beneficial for coating companies or suppliers to directly obtain first-hand application information feedback and improve their products. In addition, according to the settlement method of qualified painting finished products, paint manufacturers are urged to pay more attention to the targeted optimization of paint performance, painting efficiency (effective utilization rate of paint) and the first-pass rate of painting. Unlike in the past, paint manufacturers do not care about painting costs, but hope that the higher the paint consumption, the better (the thicker the paint is, the higher the repair rate is, the better).

1, unified understanding, change ideas, open the way for independent innovation.

From the articles in professional journals, I feel that the paint industry values paint and ignores painting; Repeated introduction, digestion, absorption and innovation can't keep up; The understanding of the importance and complexity of automobile coatings and painting is generalized and lacks systematic understanding. Before talking about the strategy of becoming a bigger and stronger independent brand, we need to unify the following understandings and establish new concepts.

2. On the combination of coating and painting, we should take the road of coating and painting integration.

The coating technology has been neglected for a long time in the domestic coating industry, and there is no coating application (coating) laboratory in the coating research institute and coating factory. Under the planned economy, painting is considered to be a user's business, and sales and after-sales service personnel also lack painting professional knowledge. Since the market economy, although after-sales service has been strengthened, it is still a weak link compared with joint ventures. An old expert who has been engaged in the development and research of automotive coatings for more than 40 years said with deep understanding: "In recent years, the country has been opened wide and more exposed to coatings and painting in developed countries, and I deeply feel that there are still serious deficiencies in the combination of coatings and painting. The construction performance of our coatings is worse than that of developed countries. Paint workers should know more about painting, improve the painting process of paint and improve the construction performance of paint. "

Paint is the finished product of paint company, but it is not the end product. Automobile paint is the raw material of automobile factory, and it becomes the end product only when it is coated on the automobile. High-quality and qualified coatings often fail to get satisfactory and qualified coating due to improper construction. In recent years, the systematic supply mode, professional management mode and settlement mode according to qualified coating products have integrated coatings and painting, and the products of coating companies are no longer coatings, but coating films.

Scientific and technical personnel (units) engaged in paint research and development should not only be proficient in paint manufacturing technology, but also be familiar with painting technology. From the design of coating formula, we should consider the needs of users (technical requirements of coating, coating conditions and cost performance, etc.). Through the test, we can recommend coating technology, guide users to use coatings well, achieve pre-sales service (advanced development) and after-sales service, master the first-hand information of coating site, continuously improve the performance of coatings, and take the market as the guide, integrate the scientific and technological progress achievements of similar products at home and abroad, and continuously introduce upgraded products.

Fortunately, among the key technical development projects of the coatings industry in the "Eleventh Five-Year Plan", six projects all involve the development and research of coating technology. This laid a good foundation for establishing the concept of "coating and painting integration".

3. Correcting the relationship between introduction and independent innovation.

In the past 20 years, China's automobile industry and automobile coating industry have set off a new climax of import cooperation. Imported projects abound, joint-venture automobile companies and wholly-owned joint-venture paint companies blossom everywhere, and world-renowned automobile companies and automobile paint companies have entered the China market. In the period of lack of capital and technology, the strategy of exchanging market for technology and capital is correct and conforms to the general idea of reform and opening up. Under the background of economic globalization and regional integration, it is difficult to separate the national from the world. However, always relying on introduction, not innovating or not having its own brand is to be controlled and bullied; How to realize independent innovation on the basis of introduction, digestion and absorption, and make the imported technology become the booster of independent innovation has become a common topic in the coating industry. The household appliance industry has strengthened itself on the basis of introducing, digesting and absorbing technology. It not only has its own brand, but also occupies the domestic market. The development experience of going abroad is worth learning from all industries.

China's automobile industry has also embarked on the road of introduction, absorption and re-innovation. For example, Tianjin faw xiali, a 20-year-old state-owned enterprise, has been carrying a heavy historical burden. After the localization of Xiali was completed in the 1990s, it began independent research and development on this basis, and has been the dominant player in the economy car market for many years. The healthy and rapid development of enterprises is the result of adhering to independent innovation, overcoming core technical difficulties, forming independent system research and development capabilities, and taking the market as the guide, continuously introducing upgraded products.

The idea of independent innovation of Dongfeng Motor is to look at the inside and outside of the group, at home and abroad, find all available resources, absorb and integrate all advanced technological achievements for our use, and on this basis, carry out integrated innovation, absorption, digestion, re-innovation and original innovation.

Make the joint venture company play an important role in the new round of independent innovation.

Some domestic automobile companies spend money to design and develop cars with independent intellectual property rights together with well-known foreign design companies. There are different views on this mode of cooperation, which is called "property right without knowledge" and cannot really represent the R&D ability of enterprises.

The situation of China's automobile coatings enterprises (especially state-owned enterprises) is very similar to that of Tianjin faw xiali, and they should also take the road of introduction, digestion, absorption and re-innovation. Form an independent system research and development capability, and take the market as the guide to continuously introduce upgraded products. On the basis of independent innovation, I take the imported technology as a booster, the products, technology and management mode of the joint venture as the goal of catching up, and collect all advanced technological achievements for our use.