With the continuous acceleration of the process of global economic integration, the construction of industrial chain is becoming an important aspect of enterprises to grasp the future competitive advantage. A few days ago, an unexpected news produced a large shock wave in the industry: Japan’s Mitsubishi Heavy Industry machine tools were forced to sell.

According to the Japanese news agency Nikkei, electric motor manufacturer Nidec will recently acquire Mitsubishi Heavy Industries machine tool business, Nidec will have the assets and development rights of Mitsubishi Heavy Industries machine tools for about 30 billion yen (about 1.8 billion yuan). The acquisition will enable Nidec to take over the development of automotive gears and become a complete traction solution provider for electric vehicles.

DS200LDCCH1ALA Nidec buys machine tools from Mitsubishi Heavy Industries

Due to the previous MRJ large aircraft plan into bankruptcy, the famous Japanese company Mitsubishi Heavy Industries was forced to take strategic measures to sell its machine tool industry. In the view of outside experts, this company has a large number of advanced technologies in the design and production of machine tools such as automotive gear cutting, and its long-term accumulated experience is also unique. Unlike the United States, which often blocks the export of high-end technology because of security concerns, Japan has fewer such concerns and prefers to sell some technology to other countries.

Mitsubishi Heavy Industries Machine Tool Factory (Kurito City, Shiga Prefecture, Japan)

DS200LDCCH1ALA

Whether a country’s modern industry is developed depends to a large extent on the development strength of the machine tool industry. As an old capitalist country, Japan has a long history of machine tool production and manufacturing, which was involved in the field as early as 1889. Up to now, Japan and Germany together monopolize the world’s high-end machine tool market and occupy a large share, which has more than 10 well-known machine tool companies such as Yamazaki Mazak, Okuma and Mitsubishi Heavy Industries. As one of the world’s three major gear machine tools, the strength of Mitsubishi Heavy Industry machine tools can be comparable to Switzerland’s Leshauer and the United States Gleason machine tools, the overall strength is very strong.

Judging from the Mitsubishi Heavy Industry machine tool transaction process, Nidec was able to complete the acquisition, largely thanks to the company’s deep grasp of the market development needs of the reverse integration supply chain. On this basis, the enterprise can further expand the scope of business, in the future competition in an invincible position. In this regard, some analysis pointed out that our country’s enterprises should also learn from the experience, as soon as possible to catch up with the world development trend, after all, access to technology is the key to win the initiative.

DS200LDCCH1ALA Nidec has previously announced plans to become the world’s leading manufacturer of electric vehicle motors. To this end, Nidec has made special investments to expand production and purchase the necessary assets. Nidec plans to invest about $10 billion by 2025.

Mitsubishi Heavy manufactures the industrial equipment used to make automotive gears, not the gears themselves. Mitsubishi Heavy Industries has a 60 per cent share of the Japanese market for such equipment. The acquisition will provide Nidec with experience not only in gear and gear manufacturing, but also in the production of basic industrial equipment for this market.

According to sources, Nidec has now secured orders. By 2025, Nidec will produce 2.5 million electric vehicle motors.