Reliability tops agenda for manufacturers

New guideline to enhance homemade product quality in key industrial sectors

China aims to greatly improve the reliability of 10 types of core industrial products to reach advanced global levels by 2030, according to the latest guideline released by the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology and four other ministries.

Reliability is the ability of a product to complete certain functions under specified conditions and over certain periods. It is considered a core indicator reflecting the relative quality of a product.

Industry experts said that such efforts will boost the quality of key industrial sectors like machinery, electronics and automobiles, and strengthen the competitiveness of made-in-China products on the global stage.

The fresh guideline proposed that by 2025, the country should build at least three research and development service platforms related to a common set of reliability technologies, cultivate over 100 demonstrative models of reliability improvement, and promote more than 1,000 enterprises to boost reliability.

"The guideline will greatly promote the reliability of the country's manufacturing industry to a higher level, and strengthen the competitiveness of the manufacturing sector globally," said an unnamed MIIT official in an explanatory note.

"Supportive policies will be given to the research and development of reliability technologies, and the deduction of R&D expenses during the process," the official added.

Notably, the guideline specified key industries including machinery, electronics and automobiles, especially for autonomous driving systems like high-precision cameras, lidars, sensors as well as electric vehicle components.

Li Jian, a researcher at the School of Mechanical Engineering of Beijing Institute of Technology, said that the new guideline will further promote the development of electric vehicles and related sectors.

"Specifically, it will drive breakthroughs and reliability improvements for power batteries, especially for their health monitoring, early malfunction alerts, and performance in low-temperature conditions. The above improvements are critical to the country's EV promotion in the coming years," Li said.

Data from the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers showed that China sold 26.86 million vehicles last year with 6.89 million units being EVs.

The guideline is also in line with the goals proposed at the 20th National Congress of the Communist Party of China, which focused on developing the real economy and promoting new industrialization, including building China into a bigger economy with quality product manufacturing.

"It should be noted that the quality of some Chinese products still lags behind those in some leading nations, especially those advanced industrial components and technologies," said Zhang Junwei, a macroeconomic researcher at the Development Research Center of the State Council, the nation's Cabinet.