The direction of transformation of the sheet metal industry

2025-08-15

As the global economy continues to develop, society's demand for a wide range of products is becoming increasingly personalized. To further enhance their competitiveness, many prominent companies in their respective industries tend to focus on their core businesses, such as brand management, product design and marketing network development, while outsourcing non-core operations to specialized manufacturers or service providers. By establishing stable supply chain relationships with these specialized manufacturers or service providers, they achieve positive synergies.

In this process, professional manufacturers gradually developed into manufacturing service companies by providing products and services to customers in many different industries. Numerous manufacturing service outsourcing companies, including many Fortune 500 companies, were born.

Precision metal structural parts are an indispensable and important part of many outsourced products. They not only have non-functional effects (such as the external structure of the product) but also have functional effects (such as structural accuracy affects product accuracy and efficiency).

The precision requirements of products have led to further refinement of service outsourcing companies. Professional precision manufacturing companies have incomparable technical and cost advantages in the field of professional manufacturing. Manufacturing service outsourcing companies including Foxconn and Flextronics also need to rely on this industry to provide manufacturing products and technical support to improve their overall competitiveness, thus further subdividing the international manufacturing outsourcing services to form my country's precision metal manufacturing service industry.

Among them, Precision Sheet Metal manufacturing is a relatively large part of the industry that provides services to customers and is one of the main businesses of the precision metal manufacturing industry.

Precision sheet metal manufacturing uses CNC technology and sheet metal technology. Through multiple cold working processes (including shearing, punching, folding, welding, riveting, assembly, forming, etc.), metal sheets (usually less than 6 mm) are processed to form shapes and sizes that meet customer precision and functional requirements.

Compared with traditional sheet metal business, precision sheet metal manufacturing has the following characteristics:

1. Downstream industries have high requirements for product precision

Downstream industries of precision sheet metal manufacturing, such as communications, aerospace, solar power generation, and semiconductors, are all high-tech industries with very stringent requirements on product precision.

For example, the signal transmission and reception functions of a communication base station antenna are constrained by the precision of the base station antenna's sheet metal components. The focusing effect and photoelectric conversion efficiency of a concentrated solar power generation system also have strict requirements on the precision of the sheet metal components. For example, when the corresponding power generation wattage of a single solar panel reaches 300 watts, the thickness error of the solar sheet metal back surface must be within 0.5%, and it must be strong enough to withstand a high-voltage test of 4,000 volts without deformation.

In addition, the downstream industry's high requirements for the precision of precision sheet metal products are also reflected in the non-functional characteristics of the products, such as color, smoothness of lines and other appearance quality characteristics.

2. The production process requires high-precision equipment and molds

The production equipment required for precision manufacturing primarily includes flexible manufacturing equipment, CNC punching machines, CNC bending machines, friction welding machines, assembly robots, welding robots, and other high-end equipment with a high degree of automation and refinement. The automated control systems of these high-end equipment effectively guarantee the precision of sheet metal products. For example, a CNC punching machine can maintain a forming tolerance of within plus or minus 1.5 mm for a 1.1 m x 1.4 m sheet metal. Another key factor in ensuring product precision is mold accuracy, which is typically within a fineness of 0.01 mm.

3. The production process is characterized by precise processing

Precision sheet metal equipment such as laser cutting machines and CNC bending machines are widely used in precision sheet metal manufacturing, which has brought about innovative changes in sheet metal processing methods.

Traditional sheet metal processing involves first laying out the blank to approximate the unfolded dimensions, reserving allowance for subsequent machining before bending, then refining the dimensions, and finally machining holes and slots. This process is inefficient, wastes material, and is difficult to guarantee quality.

The precision sheet metal manufacturing process is characterized by precise unfolding, which begins with forming. This process has the advantages of high efficiency, good processing quality, and simplified process routes, but it requires high precision in the sheet metal unfolding drawing. The shape, holes, and slots must be completely cut out before bending.

4. Have high quality requirements for the production environment

Higher production environment quality requirements are an important factor in ensuring the reliability and stability of precision sheet metal manufacturing products.

Since the equipment used in precision sheet metal manufacturing is all high-end equipment, there are certain requirements for the ambient temperature. Too high or too low temperature will affect the working accuracy of the equipment, thereby indirectly affecting the accuracy level of the product.

In addition, in order to ensure the stable operation of the final products (communication base stations, power generation systems, etc.), downstream communication equipment manufacturers, solar power equipment manufacturers, etc. have high requirements for the carbon emission level of the upstream companies' manufacturing environment, the dust content in the air, and the insulation level of the equipment surface.