Recently, the "2015 Industrial Technology Innovation Strategic Alliance Activity Evaluation Report" was released. Among the 125 alliances participating in activity evaluation work, the New Generation Textile Equipment Industry Technology Innovation Alliance is a highly active alliance.

The Industrial Technology Innovation Strategic Alliance is a new organizational form of collaborative innovation between industry, academia, and research. It has become an important carrier for implementing the national innovation driven strategy and building China's technological innovation system. Since the pilot work of the National Industrial Technology Innovation Strategic Alliance was launched in June 2007, a total of 146 alliances have participated in the pilot work, and the New Generation Textile Equipment Industry Technology Innovation Alliance is one of them. In the alliance activity evaluation conducted by the Contact Group of the Industrial Technology Innovation Pilot Alliance of the Ministry of Science and Technology, the New Generation Textile Equipment Industry Technology Innovation Alliance has been evaluated as a high activity alliance twice in a row. The work done in the standardization of organizational activities, collaborative innovation activities, industry oriented technology radiation activities, and promotional and exchange activities is ahead of other alliances.

Since its official announcement on September 9, 2009, the New Generation Textile Equipment Industry Technology Innovation Alliance has fully utilized high-quality resources in the industry, focusing on the key issues of technological innovation in the textile machinery industry, and jointly carried out research and development of key common technologies and forward-looking technologies and equipment for the new generation textile equipment, achieving impressive results.

Li Xueqing, Deputy Secretary General of the China Textile Machinery Association, believes that the new generation textile equipment industry technology innovation alliance takes enterprises as the main body, and is based on theoretical and basic research from domestic universities, as well as research from research institutes on manufacturing, usage processes, testing, and testing. It gathers innovative resources to promote significant breakthroughs in key and common technologies of textile equipment, support and lead industrial technology innovation.

Combining Industry, Education, and Research to Build a Technological Innovation Chain

One of the main tasks of the Industrial Technology Innovation Strategic Alliance is to build a technology innovation chain around the industrial chain, and to open up the channel for transforming scientific and technological achievements into real productivity. At present, the New Generation Textile Equipment Technology Innovation Industry Alliance has joined forces with backbone enterprises, universities, research institutions, and upstream and downstream industry enterprises in the industry, with 44 members, including 34 enterprises, 5 universities, 3 research institutions, and 2 other types of units, forming three textile innovation industry chains. Member units have a representative level of industry technology, which is more conducive to improving the overall technical level of the industry and breaking through the bottleneck of industry technology development.

According to Li Xueqing, the New Generation Textile Equipment Technology Innovation Industry Alliance has mainly carried out three aspects of work. Firstly, a study was conducted on the development trend of industry technology. For example, to provide technical support for the formulation of the "Guiding Opinions on the 13th Five Year Development of the Textile Machinery Industry", and to conduct discussions on the intelligent development of textile machinery equipment. At the same time, technical exchanges and training will be carried out in areas such as improving enterprise management level, reducing production costs, and cultivating professional talents. In December 2014, the alliance organized a delegation of leaders and process technology leaders from some textile machinery enterprises to visit Germany's Siemens, Swiss Super, France's Staubert, and the University of Lautlingen in Germany. They learned and exchanged the concepts and practices of Industry 4.0, learned how to improve labor productivity, shorten the launch cycle of new products, and improve product quality and reliability, I have experienced the excellent, precise, and high-quality precision manufacturing of European countries such as Germany up close, with the aim of further strengthening the exchange and cooperation between textile machinery enterprises in the field of technological innovation and international cooperation, and accelerating the construction of enterprise technological innovation systems.

Secondly, do a good job in managing various technology projects. Accelerate and deepen the research and development of high-end textile technology equipment, strengthen the research on key common technologies in the textile machinery industry, cultivate leading products and core technologies with independent intellectual property rights, and improve the technological content of products.

Thirdly, do a good job in the infrastructure construction of the alliance, enhance the coordination of member units within the alliance, establish a mutual trust mechanism, strengthen the organic integration of industry, academia, research and application, as well as the upstream and downstream of the industrial chain, and promote the sharing of intellectual property rights and resources.

Jointly tackling key problems and leading industrial technological progress

Since its establishment, the New Generation Textile Equipment Industry Technology Innovation Alliance has organized and undertaken key projects of the National Science and Technology Support Plan for the New Generation Textile Equipment, research and development projects for carbon fiber multi-layer weaving equipment and technology, demonstration projects for the innovative application of CNC first generation mechanical products, demonstration projects for the CNC application of equipment in the textile industry (ramie, knitting, coating), and advanced printing and dyeing key technology research and equipment development projects. The implementation of these projects has broken through some key and common issues in industrial technological innovation, leading industrial technological progress, and also promoting the exchange and interaction of industry, university, and research personnel, providing talent support for sustainable industrial innovation.

Taking the carbon fiber multi-layer weaving equipment and technology research and development project as an example, the successful development of the project fills the gap in domestic carbon fiber multi-layer weaving equipment and provides a foundation for the development of new fiber material industries represented by carbon fiber.

The research and development project of carbon fiber multi-layer weaving equipment and technology mainly focuses on the key carbon fiber textile processing machinery and equipment in the manufacturing process of carbon fiber composite materials, as well as the construction of a demonstration production line for carbon fiber multi-layer weaving. According to the development requirements and overall research content of the project, the project is divided into three topics: the research and development of carbon fiber multi axial warp knitting machines and technologies, the research and development of carbon fiber multi layer angle online weaving equipment and technologies, and the research and development of carbon fiber three-dimensional tubular weaving equipment and technologies. The project is jointly undertaken by six units that combine industry, academia, and research, with a total investment of 93.83 million yuan, including a special fund for the Science and Technology Support Plan of 32.93 million yuan. From the launch of the project in 2011 to its conclusion in 2014, during the project execution period, 4 new product prototypes were developed, and a total of 4 test bases, pilot lines, and production demonstration lines were built; A total of 99 patents have been applied for, including 49 invention patents; Obtained 68 authorized patents, including 18 invention patents; Develop 3 national and industry standards, and 1 enterprise standard; Published 24 scientific and technological papers.

In terms of talent cultivation, through project research and development, a group of discipline leaders and urgently needed engineering and technical talents in the industry have been cultivated and trained, forming an innovation team capable of undertaking major national projects. During the project execution process, hundreds of engineers, senior engineers and technical personnel with professional titles above were trained, and 20 people obtained master's degrees.

In addition to these projects, the New Generation Textile Equipment Industry Technology Innovation Alliance has also conducted joint research on key common technologies in the textile machinery industry. Wire ring is one of the key equipment in ring spinning and twisting machines, which directly affects the twist, breakage, hairiness, etc. of the yarn. Usually, wire ring has serious wear and tear during use, which greatly affects the lifespan and quality of domestic equipment products. Therefore, the New Generation Textile Equipment Industry Technology Innovation Alliance has chosen the common technology of wire ring surface treatment as the entry point, and has organized 12 units in the industry, including universities, research units, and production enterprises, to jointly tackle key issues. This has solved the problems of insufficient individual research and development capabilities, limited technological breakthroughs, and repeated investment in enterprises. Solved major key technical problems in surface treatment of steel wire rings, significantly extending the service life of domestic steel wire rings.