Liu Xiaoping, founder of Qiaotian Intelligence: Adhering to long-term values in the field of segmentation

In recent years, the global robot industry has entered a stage of rapid development, and China is the world's largest robot market and fastest-growing emerging market, accounting for more than half of the global market share. Industrial robots account for over 50% of the total. According to the "China Robot Industry Development Report (2022)", the global robot market size will reach 51.3 billion US dollars by 2022, with an average annual growth rate of 14% from 2017 to 2022. Among them, the market size of industrial robots will reach 19.5 billion US dollars, service robots will reach 21.7 billion US dollars, and special robots will exceed 10 billion US dollars. It is expected that by 2024, the global robot market is expected to exceed $65 billion.

The sales volume in the Chinese market is expected to exceed 350000 units in 2023. The application field of industrial robots has covered 52 industry categories such as automobiles and electronics, and 143 industry categories. As technological innovation revolves around biomimetic structures, artificial intelligence, and human-machine collaboration, the robot industry continues to expand its applications in fields such as catering, public services, logistics and transportation, education and care, medical rehabilitation, and hazardous environments.

The robot end effector is an execution tool linked to the end of the robot. Industrial robots, service robots, and special robots all need to be equipped with end effectors. Previously, the functional components involved in industrial robot end systems were almost monopolized by foreign brands. With the maturity of domestic precision technology and the development of domestic substitution trends, the localization substitution of core components such as quick change devices and grippers in robot end application equipment has formed a trend and is rapidly occupying the high-end market. Qiaotian Intelligent is a domestic robot terminal application equipment service provider.

Qiaotian intelligent turntable pulley switching

After 7 years of technological accumulation, Qiaotian Intelligent has built its own technological "moat", breaking the monopoly of international brands in the domestic robot terminal system industry, and achieving the replacement of key functional components of domestic robot terminals with mid to high-end domestically produced ones. While contributing an important force to China's intelligent manufacturing, it also creates value for society.

Qiaotian Intelligent Product Business

In terms of products, Qiaotian Intelligent continues to expand its industrial robot peripheral equipment on existing quick change devices, industrial connectors, zero point positioning systems, and gripper product matrices. Among them, the technology of robot quick change devices has advanced to the top three positions in the industry, and the safety level of quick change devices has reached the highest PLd Cat. 3 in the industry. The products have passed T ü V certification by the most authoritative testing agency in Europe, and have applied for more than 50 patent technologies There are 2 invention patents, some of which are already at the leading level in the industry and are domestic brands that truly master the core technology of robot quick change devices.

Faced with future development trends, Liu Xiaoping, founder of Qiaotian Intelligence, stated that "the global market for robotics and its surrounding applications is in the tens or hundreds of billions, so there are still many segmented products to be developed. Qiaotian's mission is to help manufacturing customers quickly achieve flexible production in the last mile, so we will continue to expand market applications, keep up with policies, and better serve the Chinese market

Early stages of entrepreneurship: policies and industry development boost the first growth curve

The entrepreneurial process may seem simple, but it has been difficult to come by. The reason why Qiaotian has been able to maintain a high-speed development pace is, on the one hand, due to domestic policy orientation and industry development, including early intelligent manufacturing and the current 14th Five Year Plan, which have given more support and confidence to the manufacturing industry. At the same time, the outbreak of the new energy industry has further promoted the localization process of core components in segmented fields; In 2016, with the good trend of automation in China and the rise of the general industry, we officially established the brand of Qiaotian Intelligence and caught up with a wave of automation climax. The automobile industry reached its high-speed growth line in 2018, when automation in the general industry was just beginning and internal explosions were rapid. At the same time, this year we also completed a joint strategic investment between Geely Houtong and Waniu Capital.

Qiaotian Intelligence has obtained joint strategic investment from Geely Houtong and Waniu Capital

When we first started our business, we provided technical team building and high-end sales and marketing training. In 2018, we began conducting industry market popularization training, including industry iron army training, internal organizational structure adjustment and optimization. This year, we have started arranging for core management to study at China Europe International Business School. Therefore, in summary, the external policy environment and internal learning culture have contributed to Qiaotian's success to this day.

Entrepreneurship motivation: breaking the monopoly of foreign brands on core components

Liu Xiaoping, the founder of Qiaotian Intelligence, said, "I started my business in 2010. Before starting my business, I worked as a factory technician at a Japanese company and was also an industry leader. It took me three years to become the head of the technology department. Later, I took another three years to become the factory director. After three and a half years as the factory director, I came out to start my own business. The initial positioning is for industries with high added value, high threshold, difficulty, and severe foreign monopolies. So at that time, we chose the sub category of robot quick change devices because they have certain technical barriers and have long been monopolized by foreign brands. At the same time, they are also a necessary link for the manufacturing industry to upgrade and transform intelligent manufacturing or flexible production.

The field of fast swapping is not infinitely growing. The entire fast swapping industry is around 10 billion yuan, and the ones that are truly related to us (mid to high end) are only over 1 billion yuan. So we are also considering where the growth points will be in the next 2-3 years. In the 18th and 19th years, we entered the industrial connector module, which has been in high volume since then. Today, the proportion has reached about 40%. In the 20th year, we launched the zero point positioning system, which is currently a mature category for our production value. This year, we will continue to develop new product research and development plans, including air claw electric claw, electrode cap shaping machine, and injection molding machine rapid mold changing magnetic plate.

Future goal: Focus on long-term values in segmented fields

At present, our positioning is towards the end of the robot and its surrounding areas, as the Chinese market is large enough. Our expansion product is a robotic gripper. Claw hands are divided into air claws and electric claws. Air claw is already very mature in the industry, and we are currently only filling the gap. But electric claws have only just started for two years worldwide. Air claw grabbing anything not only consumes a lot of energy, but also lacks support. The reason is that it is driven by gas, which is relatively stiff, so in the future, electric drive should be the main method. It is a hand with claws, a sensor, and feedback.

Our future focus is on making electric grippers; The other part is the magnetic plates in the injection molding industry that we monopolize abroad, but do not yet exist in China. This technology is available, but currently it is in the low-end and the high-end market is monopolized by three foreign companies. The reason we came into contact with this is also because of the client's commission. So we currently have a doctoral team from Jiaotong University developing this product. Expected to go public in the second half of this year.

There are also claw hands, magnetic plates, welding pliers and electrode caps shaping machines. Claw hands and magnetic plates belong to the injection molding industry, where claw hands cover the entire 3C electronic automotive components. The welding clamp electrode cap shaping machine is related to automobiles and belongs to a large field of fast replacement. However, fast replacement is also mainly in the general and automotive industries, and the general industry is relatively broad.