Yutian, Hebei: China's printing machinery industry base

youlian

Yutian County, located in the northeast of Tangshan City, is named after the legend of "planting stones to get jade". As a traditional agricultural county, it is known as the "granary of Jidong". Speaking of Yutian's "Baojian cabbage", it is even more famous. And the local printing and packaging machinery industry, after more than 40 years of development, has also made a name for itself and made its brand famous. In 2023, the Yutian printing machine industry cluster was identified as the first batch of national-level small and medium-sized enterprise characteristic industry clusters. Let's take a look at a data first-the domestic market share reached 20%, which means that one out of every five printing machines in the country is produced in Yutian County.

Workers work on the production line at a printing and packaging machinery manufacturing company in Y ...

Workers work on the production line at a printing and packaging machinery manufacturing company in Yutian County, Hebei Province, on July 13, 2023 (drone photo).

The printing machine industry is a precision equipment manufacturing industry that produces printing machinery and equipment. China's first fully automatic flatbed die-cutting machine, China's first water-based laminating machine, China's first fully automatic high-speed paper mounting machine with a speed of over 12,000 sheets per hour... Many firsts in China's printing machinery industry were born here. Yutian County is known as the "Hometown of Printing and Packaging Machinery in China" and one of the "Six Major Industrial Bases" of printing machinery in China, with its early development, large cluster scale, complete product variety, high technological content, strong supporting capacity and long industrial chain.

Nowadays, in the Yutian printing machinery industry, almost every company has its own "unique skills". Tangshan Yutian County Shengtian Printing and Packaging Machinery Co., Ltd. is a company specializing in the production of paper mounting machines, laminating machines and die-cutting machines. In the production workshop, the company's general manager Ye Liming took out his mobile phone and clicked on the "remote operation and maintenance platform" independently developed by the company. On this platform, the operation status of the company's sold equipment is clear at a glance. "We monitor the operation status of the equipment we sell in a timely manner. After discovering problems, we can conduct remote diagnosis, determine the specific problems, and then guide users to effectively solve the problems." Ye Liming introduced.

Workers at a printing and packaging machinery manufacturing company in Yutian County are debugging t ...

Workers at a printing and packaging machinery manufacturing company in Yutian County are debugging their products.

Relying on this technology, the unit price of the printing machines produced by the company was nearly 200,000 yuan higher than similar products. When talking about future development, the company's general manager Ye Liming has a clear idea. "We must apply new technologies to our R&D and production, build digital factories, and take the path of digitalization and intelligence." In the past few years, with the large-scale expansion of the printing machine industry, the negative effects of homogeneity and disordered competition brought about by the industrial cluster have caused the prices of many printing machines to fall to the bottom, which once put the development of Yutian printing machines, a proud industry, into trouble, and the transformation of enterprises is imminent.

How to transform, Guan Zhaohui, general manager of Yutian County Juxing Printing and Packaging Machinery Manufacturing Co., Ltd., gave the answer-continuously develop new products and strive to lead the market! In 2012, the company developed and produced the industry's first intelligent high-speed paper mounting machine with a paper mounting speed exceeding 12,000 sheets per hour. At present, this series of products has been upgraded to the third generation, with a paper mounting speed of 16,000 sheets per hour, fast speed, good precision, and higher intelligence level.

"The third-generation intelligent high-speed paper mounting machine is our current main product. Take the lamination roller as an example. It is made of special materials, does not stick to paper, and does not stick to any liquid. Some problems that occur during the paper mounting process can be effectively avoided." said Guan Zhaohui, general manager of the company. Thanks to the continuous technological innovation, the company has been expanding the domestic market while gradually opening up the international market.

After more than 40 years of development, the printing machine industry in Yutian County has gradually achieved a gorgeous transformation from a small enterprise to an intelligent, high-end and special enterprise. At present, there are 226 printing machine small and medium-sized enterprises in Yutian County, with nearly 10,000 employees. The leading products include 18 series and more than 120 varieties, with an annual output of 7,100 units (sets).

The products are sold all over the country and exported to more than 50 countries and regions including Russia, the United States, the United Kingdom, Australia, and Japan, with an output value of 15.169 billion yuan in 2023. As one of the first national-level small and medium-sized enterprise characteristic industrial clusters, the Yutian Printing Machine Industry Cluster has made a name for itself and gradually become the "vanguard" of the county-level characteristic industrial clusters in the province.