The grinding process plays an important role in the production of lithium cathode materials and sodium cathode materials, and has a significant impact on material properties. As a well-known supplier of sand mill in the industry, the products of Yifu Machinery are widely used in lithium batteries, lithium iron phosphate anode materials, silicon carbon anode materials, conductive agents, sodium cathode materials and other fields, and are well received by customers. In this issue, the "TalkPlus+" column invited Ms. Yang Xiaoyan, general manager of Yifu Machinery, to share the unique insights of Yifu Machinery from the perspective of the sand mill industry in view of many topics such as going to sea, personal IP, price war, and sodium electricity market.
"Go to sea" at that time, the East grind out the world
Under the trend of global energy green transformation, Europe, Southeast Asia, the Middle East and Africa and other regions have strong demand for new energy products, which contains this huge market potential. In the face of intensified competition in the domestic market and the situation of trade barriers set by European and American countries, it seems that enterprises go to sea to avoid risks and seek new growth points.
In recent years, Morocco is gradually becoming a hot land for Chinese new energy enterprises to invest abroad. In late March 2024, Morocco announced that it will establish the country's first industrial zone focused on the production of electric vehicle batteries, covering 283 hectares, which is expected to attract a total initial investment of up to $2.3 billion and create up to 4,000 jobs. In the past year, Chinese battery head companies, including Betrie, Zhongwei Shares, Huayou Cobalt, Tianci Materials, Guoxuan High-tech, Yahua Group, have announced that they will invest in Morocco to build factories.
Yang Xiaoyan also shared with us what she saw and heard during her research and study in Morocco. She said that Morocco has unique advantages in mineral resources, port advantages, coupled with the friendly relations between China and Morocco, many companies are willing to land in Morocco, in order to better enter the European and American markets.
During the investigation, Yang Xiaoyan also visited Zhongwei Shares, Huayou Cobalt industry and other leading enterprises. During the period, she learned that the Moroccan government is very supportive of Chinese enterprises, and the resources are relatively rich, and the current industrial chain is becoming more and more sound. Therefore, the overall cost performance of the investment is relatively high.
In addition, Morocco's food and beauty are also "eye-catching points". Yang Xiaoyan said that I prefer travel and food, plus there are some friends here, so there may be more and more opportunities to go to Morocco in the later period.
In addition, for the "tide of the sea" of equipment companies, Yang Xiaoyan believes that this is a direction, but also a trend. First of all, the domestic market is very "volume", the order is relatively small; Secondly, the domestic stock is also very sufficient, may consume the current production capacity, it takes a certain amount of time; In addition, the leader of Party A takes the lead in "going to sea", and the equipment enterprise as a collaborative role, "going to sea" is also an inevitable choice.
It was also learned in the interview that the layout of EIFu machinery in Morocco is also proceeding in an orderly manner. At present, Yifu machinery also has an office in Morocco, and the company is also being registered, if no accident, the end of the month will get a business license. This is also in line with the beautiful vision of Yifu Machinery "leading the industry's high-end sand grinding technology, so that Eastern grinding out the world".
Embrace traffic and empower personal IP brands
For entities, in addition to technology and product research and development, marketing and promotion are also very important. In the industry, the marketing of Yifu machinery has always been the object of affirmation.
Yang Xiaoyan said that now is an Internet traffic era, to do not exclude traffic but embrace traffic. Therefore, I and my team have also been operating personal IP accounts, publishing some of their own experiences and sharing, but also indirectly empowering their own brand.
Of course, she said that the operation of personal IP is not understood by everyone, and many friends feel that most of the time spent on this matter every day, the business operation and the time spent on customers will be greatly discounted. Yang Xiaoyan believes that as his team becomes more professional, the time spent will decrease accordingly. In addition, the videos released are also relatively close to the products of Yifu machinery, completely without breaking away from their own brand.
Many customers recognized Yang Xiaoyan because they saw the video, and the corporate brand also made more customers familiar with it, so it was easier for customers to understand the products and technology of Yifu machinery, and the voice of the brand would be more and more "loud".
Break the "roll", the strong will be strong
If you give 2024 a year to make a summary, there is a high probability that everyone will agree on one word, that is "volume". "Volume", whether it is good or bad, is still a matter of "different people have different opinions". Most recently, at the meeting of the Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee on July 30, 2024, special emphasis was placed on strengthening industry self-discipline to prevent internal and vicious competition.
For the current new energy industry volume topic, Yang Xiaoyan also gave her point of view, she believes that "volume" for this industry, or for their own enterprises is positive. Really good brands, good products will not be out of the "volume", out of the may be because there is no attention to the product itself, there is no attention to customer service and there is no attention to the corporate brand. Then in the process of this "volume", elimination is inevitable.
It is understood that especially this year, Yifu machinery pays more attention to the high-end attributes of products. Yang Xiaoyan always believes that enterprises and customers who can choose high-end products, first of all, attach great importance to the concept of good products, which is very benign. Therefore, she believes that in this aspect of the "volume", it will indirectly benefit the overall development of the company itself, and will not engage in a "price war" with some peers, but will concentrate more on doing their own products, and then find matching customers, improve the cost performance, and then help customers reduce costs and increase efficiency.
"Volume" is actually a customer selection process, the strong constant strong, for the strength of the enterprise, not afraid of "volume", but choose to face the difficulties.
Cost reduction and efficiency increase behind the "price war"
Since the beginning of this year, from the terminal car companies to the downstream battery factories, and even the entire industrial chain, are playing a "price war." With the blessing of the price war, customers in the industrial chain are pursuing cost reduction. Mr. Yang, can you share, for example, how should our equipment enterprises help industrial chain enterprises to reduce costs and increase efficiency?
Yang Xiaoyan quoted a point of view of Zeng Zong in the Ningde era, "not price, than value." As an equipment company, she very much agreed with the total point of view, Yifu machinery itself is also more than the value of the price.
In terms of value, Yifu machinery will provide customers with more services, such as starting from the front end of the docking, it will give customers in the service of running, in the process of running, Yifu machinery will work with customers to jointly develop products, until the high-quality delivery of a series of services.
According to the interview, the vertical sand mill of Yifu machinery can better reflect its value in terms of cost reduction and efficiency. This equipment can save the coarse grinding process, so that the process is more concise, the purchase cost will be reduced. In addition, the single machine of Yifu machinery has no screen, so it is more concise, and the operation and maintenance cost is lower, the cost of use is lower, and it is more consistent with the current cost reduction and efficiency demand market.
In addition, Yang Xiaoyan said that Yifu machinery has been particularly like to listen to the voice of users, such as a few years ago, the user feedback of the entire installed power is very high, then they must consider the problem of energy consumption, so Yifu machinery in the energy saving this piece of energy-saving sand mill, leading the entire industry about 3-4 years; For example, now this wave of customers have feedback on the need to reduce costs and increase efficiency, and then launched the vertical sand mill, the size of the customer grinding this piece is narrower, the product quality is higher and better, the process is simplified, then its cost reduction and efficiency this piece is more advantageous.
In terms of products, Yang Xiaoyan also "revealed the plot" of a blockbuster product - the introduction of AI intelligence 1500L vertical and horizontal sand mill.
It is reported that this product is actually a large-scale upgrade of a model of 1000L vertical and 1000L horizontal. In recent years, equipment has been pursuing large-scale, intelligent and energy-saving. Among them, the Angle of energy saving has begun to do three years ago, and large-scale is also the point that the entire market has been pursuing, because the larger the equipment model, the more concise the process, the footprint, energy consumption, purchase costs and use costs will be lower.
In terms of large-scale equipment, there is still a lot of difficulty, and it is not simply to enlarge the equipment. 1500L vertical and horizontal sand mill is the practice of Yifu machinery large-scale, two models, but also two products.
Intelligent AI is now a direction pursued by all walks of life, and it is also a trend in the future. It is worth mentioning that Yifu machinery has introduced intelligent AI into the single machine and the production line, while the equipment is more intelligent and intelligent, it saves the training of customers' personnel and the number of personnel, and helps customers achieve cost reduction and efficiency.
Secondly, if intelligent AI can be used in the production line, it can monitor the entire use process of the customer, including the working condition, the after-sales service of the equipment, the early warning of maintenance and other aspects, so it will make the entire production line more intelligent.
Yifu machinery has never stopped on the way to innovation, Yang Xiaoyan believes that to lead, this is not a slogan, but the need to invest time, cost, manpower and material resources, seriously to do some good products to the industry, to deserve the title of leading.
Multi-point development, industrial chain coordination layout
In order to meet the market and business development, Yifu Machinery is also seeking to expand a new production base. Yifu Machinery in Dongguan has a 13,000 square meters of self-built factory, previously because the site is too small to meet the delivery demand, so in 2022, Yifu machinery built a production base in Hubei, about 40,000 square meters.
According to Yang Xiaoyan revealed that the production base has been put into use and delivery from 2022, the new base of Yifu machinery is currently under construction has 104 acres, including research and development buildings, office buildings, dormitory buildings and four large workshops, the current progress is already started infrastructure, is expected to be put into use at the end of this year.
In addition to the production base, the service points of Yifu machinery have been laid out at home and abroad. We have offices in Southwest China and Suzhou. In Ningbo, Changsha also have the corresponding agents; Internationally, there are agents in Japan and South Korea, offices and subsidiaries in Morocco, and offices in Indonesia. In the later stage, Yifu Machinery will also continue to develop some other service points. Yang Xiaoyan said that the layout of course still depends on the direction of the industry, because Yifu machinery as a collaborative role, to see where the real industry goes, such as where Party A goes, Yifu machinery will serve where.
Accumulate, seek sodium electricity "growth pole"
Sodium electricity market has always been a very concerned area of Yifu machinery. Yang Xiaoyan revealed that in the sodium electricity industry, Yifu machinery has reached cooperation with a number of leading enterprises, including Jia Sodium.
For sodium electricity, Yifu machinery has been more optimistic. She said that because sodium electricity has its unique resource advantages and cost advantages. And the ultimate destination of sodium electricity, she believes that in fact, it still depends on some teachers and professors in the industry, including the promotion of sodium electricity by the entire industry.
Yifu Machinery has accumulated a lot of engineering experience in the field of lithium electricity, especially lithium iron phosphate cathode materials, and these experiences are also of great help in the field of sodium electricity, especially in the grinding process of polyanionic materials.
Yifu machinery mainly focuses on the feeding system and grinding system, the engineering class of sodium electricity and lithium electricity things are actually similar, mainly the characteristics of the material, sodium electricity will be ground finer, which is precisely the more matching Yifu machinery product positioning, because Yifu machinery main high-end, but also do fineness related, the more high-end products are to grind the finer. Therefore, Yang Xiaoyan believes that the products of Yifu machinery are fully consistent with the requirements of sodium electricity.
In addition, the development and research and development of Yifu machinery continue to be done, including sodium electricity customers, solid state customers and high-end material customers, are talking about some strategic meeting points, such as jointly developing a new product to match the development of customer enterprises or the development of the industry.
