FSC: Foundries May Be Forced to Shut down, Stop Production, Merge, Restructure or Change Product Lines in the Following Two Years

April 18, 2024  Shanghai, China

Recently, the 31^st Global Foundry Sourcing Conference was successfully held in Shanghai. Organized by the Foundry-Suppliers.Com (FSC) and Suppliers China Co., Ltd. (SC), the event attracted a number of buyers including the Hyster-Yale Group, Paccar, Siemens, Emerson Fluid, Emerson Marine System, Thyssenkrupp Dynamic, Haldex Vehicle, Bonfiglioli, Armstrong, Maschinenfabrik LASKA, Modine Thermal, MHI Turbo, HITACHI, SULZER, NOVEASTERN, Pohu Drive, Gudel, ALLFI Group, LMW, IDEX, EQI, and FallTech. Among them, Australian Multotec, Hasse Automation, Casappa Hydraulic, Borunte Robot, and Promote introduced their global procurement strategies, development and support of suppliers in China, requirements on suppliers, and supply chain management during the conference. 

31^st Global Foundry Sourcing Conference 2024 in Shanghai

31^st Global Foundry Sourcing Conference 2024 in Shanghai

31^st Global Foundry Sourcing Conference 2024 in Shanghai

Casting products purchased by the participating buyers mainly involve the fields of pump valves, mining machinery, engineering machinery, ships, machine tools, agricultural machinery, automobiles, energy and electricity, power transmission, rail transit, food machinery, papermaking machinery, and general machinery. The machining processes required include sand casting, precision casting, die-casting, lost foam casting, forging, welding, etc. and most buyers are looking for rough or precision machined parts and components; from the materials of the castings needed: demand on products of ferrous metals such as cast iron and cast steel account for over 70% the procurement demand, while that on non-ferrous metals such as aluminum alloy are developing rapidly, accounting for nearly 30%. Buyers' requirements on suppliers are also higher. In addition to traditional requirements for casting R&D and quality control capabilities, they also have new expectations for heat treatment, surface treatment, qualification certification, etc. In this event, there are several procurement projects with higher requirements. 

Logos of part of the participating purchasers in the 31^st FSC

Procurement presentation by Australian Multotec

Procurement presentation by Hasse Automation

Scene of the 31^st Global Foundry Sourcing Conference 2024

Procurement presentation by Borunte Robot

In his opening speech, General Manager Wang Longhe from the Foundry-Suppliers.Com said, “This year, the number of new orders is obviously less than the same period of previous years. The inquiry is far from expected in this conventional peak inquiry season. The overall demand of transnational buyers is low, the number of new projects reduces greatly compared with the same period of previous years, and the buyers are reluctant to develop new suppliers. Except for those who have production bases in China, buyers from the North America are reducing their exploration of suppliers for new products in China and transferring to countries and regions with lower costs. We also noticed that the volume of inquiries from emerging markets such as Russia is increasing, and a large number of European SMEs have not yet successfully source castings in China. These markets will have great potential in the future. 

Opportunities coexist with challenges, and difficulties with hopes. FSC will continue to introduce Chinese casting enterprises to the world, enhance our position in the global supply chain while accelerating the digital work, improving the service ability, overall facilitating the development and transformation of the casting industry, and contributing to the development of the foundry industry!

Suppliers China Co., Ltd.