Deng Bo: Reflections on the Development of Domestically Produced Instruments

On May 16, 2014, the Beijing Entry-Exit Inspection and Quarantine Bureau of the People's Republic of China and the Beijing Municipal Science and Technology Commission jointly held a technical service promotion meeting in Beijing for the verification and comprehensive evaluation of domestically produced testing instruments and equipment. This meeting played a positive role in promoting the rapid and healthy development and widespread use of domestically produced analytical testing instruments.

How to develop, promote, and effectively utilize domestically produced instruments is a major issue of great concern, involving a wide range of aspects that are beyond my personal scope and ability to address. Having attended this promotion meeting, I have some thoughts to share, and I would like to discuss a few specific issues.

1. Practicality First

Both instrument research and development and instrument purchase should be based on practicality. Society's demand for analytical testing instruments is diverse. Research institutions, analytical centers, laboratories, and quality inspection centers face complex and frequently changing sources of analytical samples, with high testing requirements, necessitating high-performance, multi-purpose analytical instruments. Conversely, those with relatively fixed analytical objects, performing only routine monitoring or testing, or controlling production in workshops may not necessarily need to purchase high-performance, multi-purpose analytical instruments. Some organizations, knowing that instruments costing 20,000-30,000 yuan would suffice for their actual work needs, insist on spending 100,000 yuan or even more on a multi-functional instrument. Although the instrument is used daily, only a small portion of its functions are utilized, leaving most unused—a significant waste.

The purpose of purchasing instruments is to address actual analytical and testing needs. The principle is to buy practical instruments that meet those needs with the least amount of money. Money should be spent on practicality, not on performance specifications. We don't oppose buying high-end instruments, but we advocate buying instruments based on objective needs and getting practical instruments at the lowest possible cost.

Our analytical instrument manufacturers should develop instruments based on market needs, rather than chasing after the performance specifications of foreign instruments.

Stronger domestic instrument companies, when conditions permit, can and should develop high-end analytical instruments, but not with the aim of catching up to specific performance specifications of foreign instruments. Instead, they should develop analytical instruments with their own unique characteristics. The so-called unique characteristics are, firstly, that they can address domestic market needs that imported instruments cannot meet, or that while imported instruments may meet the requirements, they are too expensive. Developing such instruments and breaking the foreign instrument monopoly is a contribution to the country. Secondly, while there is currently a considerable gap between domestic and foreign countries in the development of high-end instruments due to objective limitations, it is feasible and entirely possible to develop high-end specialized instruments by leveraging certain domestic advantages.

Smaller domestic instrument manufacturers with limited resources should prioritize developing high-quality instruments that meet the needs of the domestic market in large quantities and with broad application, rather than blindly chasing advanced specifications. The domestic market demand is vast; high, medium, and low-end instruments are all needed and have their place. There is significant room for development in the large-scale, widely applicable market for small and medium-sized instruments.

Regardless of the instrument's grade, its quality must be high. Special attention should be paid to assessing the long-term stability of the instrument and improving its software capabilities. High-quality, multi-purpose software can compensate for certain hardware deficiencies and improve instrument performance.

2. Purchasing for Practical Application

In my country's current situation, generally speaking, the technical level of grassroots analysts is not very high. It's common for them to buy instruments but not know how to use them effectively.

Users purchase instruments to solve practical problems. If they don't know how to use the instruments or use them properly, even the best instruments are useless. Furthermore, users will lose faith in the instruments they purchased and the manufacturers. To change this situation, instrument manufacturers need to change their marketing mindset and strive to sell for practical application. This means not only teaching users how to operate the instruments but also providing technical assistance to help them use the purchased instruments to solve the actual analytical problems they need to address. Currently, instrument manufacturers have all achieved the goal of teaching users how to operate the instruments, but they have failed, or have failed to adequately, provide technical assistance to users in solving the problem of "purchasing for practical application." This is crucial for promoting domestically produced analytical instruments. If this can be achieved, users will be more willing to purchase and use them. Domestic instruments solve problems effectively and are cheaper—why not?

It is recommended that instrument manufacturers of a certain scale establish application laboratories or assign personnel to develop and promote their own instruments. Manufacturers without such resources can outsource this task to other organizations.

3. Eliminating Human-Made Obstacles

There are still some misconceptions in promoting the use of domestically produced instruments, leading to artificial barriers. Many users want to buy instruments with high performance specifications, which is understandable. The problem lies in whether these high performance specifications are actually needed in practical work. If not, it's a waste of money on unnecessary specifications. "Explicit" waste—buying an instrument but not using it or operating it underpowered—is easily noticed by people and managers. However, "implicit" waste—spending money on excessively high or unnecessary performance specifications—is often overlooked by managers and may even go unnoticed. Misconceptions have led to some perplexing phenomena in the bidding process. Some users or managers, in order to purchase imported instruments, artificially create obstacles for domestically produced analytical instruments. They demand specific specifications that domestic instruments lack, even when the performance of existing domestic instruments already meets the needs of actual analytical testing. This deliberate exclusion of domestically produced analytical instruments from bidding is unfair and unjust. According to a report on Instrument Information Network (see http://www.instrument.com.cn/news/20140221/122903.shtml), a province in Northwest China purchased 11 atomic absorption spectrophotometers for a county-level agricultural inspection station. The specifications in the tender were very high, such as an automatic switching turntable with eight or more lamps. For an instrument primarily used for single-element determination, is it really necessary to simultaneously install eight hollow cathode lamps? And more than eight hollow cathode lamps, indeed! It's truly baffling! As a reader pointed out in the comments, the specifications were "completely copied from the parameters of a certain product," clearly limiting the availability of domestically produced instruments. High performance specifications come at an economic cost. Spending money on unnecessary specifications, as one reader pointed out, renders the equipment "mere decoration." The consequence is that laypeople cannot appreciate these useless specifications, while experts perceive them as a huge waste of taxpayers' money.

To avoid this situation, it is recommended that managers and bidding authorities strictly review the instrument performance specifications required in tender documents, especially for large-scale tenders, where experts should be invited to oversee the process. During the bidding process, it is crucial to avoid spending money on useless high specifications and the "hidden" waste caused by excessive specifications, and to curb the tendency to intentionally exclude domestically produced instruments.