Approaches To Technological Innovation Capability Evaluation On China's Iron And Steel Industry And Their Applications

Steel and Iron industry is one of the most important foundational industries of the national economy,representing a country's level of industrial technology and innovation ability.China is a big country in terms of steel production and consumption,where steel products basically meet the domestic needs.But since 2008,with the proliferation and spread of the international financial crisis,China's steel and iron industry was badly hit and its stable development confronted with unknown challenge.It should be noticed that the steel industry is bound to take adjustments,after a long-term expansion.The core technical innovation of the independent intellectual property rights is the correct choice to crack the problem of this industry.The reality requires us to identify the direction of innovation,and establishes reasonable industrial technology innovation strategy.Taking patents as the entry point for innovation strategy research is feasible and has practical significance.Therefore,this dissertation selected patent analysis as a tool,through which we can investigate the stage of development for the industrial technology,discover the national technology development stage,explore the technology trends and key points,and figure out the iron and steel industry innovation strategy finally.The main content and innovative points of the dissertation includes:Firstly,this paper develops the research on patent maps of china's steel and iron industry.We create patent maps and patent management plans according to patent information.Analysis shows that all areas of the steel industry maintain a rapid growth,but the provincial development is very uneven.Beijing and Jiangsu have geographical advantages.Technology intrusion from foreign enterprises is serious,especially from those companies originated from the developed countries like United States,Japan and Germany.In all sub-field of metal material,“metal” shows the highest technical level being intruded.It reveals that whether the foreign invasion degree is deepest,the domestic technology growth rate is relatively slow and involves more technical branch.Secondly,model is established to forecast the technology trend of China's steel industry,and a trend prediction is launched.Employing the technology life cycle theory,this dissertation forecasts the technology development trend for the industry based on patent analysis method.We find that the steel and iron industry related technology is in its early growth stage while technology and patent growth is rapid.It is expected to enter the mature stage around 2022.Thirdly,we set up an evaluation system of innovation capability based on analysis of patent bibliometrics.This system is composed of 14 indexes from the aspects of innovation direction,innovation efficiency,and innovation quality.And then we apply the evaluation system on some representative enterprises in domestic steel industry.The results reveal that domestic applicant's patent number grows very fast while the property of original innovation is relatively in short.The aftereffect is insufficient and the IPC distribution is repeated.We also find that the direction of innovation is a single process and the cooperation intensity is deficient.Fourth,the patent layout research of the key field of iron and steel industry in China is carried out.We select the “strip” as an example to investigate its patent layout,to analyse its domestic and international advantages.The research finds: the Chinese enterprises should avoid improving “strip uniformity” and “strip surface finish” because the two subfields are of absolute advantage of foreign companies.We suggest that the local companies continue to maintain the advantage of the existing advantageous fields like the special steel,the cost-saving and stainless steel.Meanwhile,the industry should try to make breakthroughs in some aspects such as the areas of energy conservation and loss-reducing.Production methods and innovation for equipment improvement should be strengthened through technical means.Finally,based on the above analysis,we put forward the technology innovation strategy for the steel and iron industry in China as “Catching up strategy mainly,supplemented by leading strategy”.We suggest: first,the technological achievements transformation platform should be established and the development of industry alliance should be promoted from government point of view.Second,we propose a unified plant to help advance the key technologies and common technology from the national level,and strengthen the intellectual property system matching policy and building up an industry-friendly environment.Third,the enterprises should focus on business training,explore new ideas and establish a scientific decision-making system to guard against mistakes in technological innovation and transformation.