Lee Yoon-Young
President & CEO ILJIN Diamond Co., Ltd.
Industrial tools using diamonds were first introduced in the Korean market about thirty years ago. In the beginning, diamond tools were primarily used in industries dealing with stone materials. Today, however, they are focusing more on industrial tools than construction tools. The production trend of the Korean diamond tool market differs slightly from that of advanced countries, with 70% related to tools for stone material processing in the constructional field, and the other 30% related to tools for precision processing in secondary industries, such as machinery, electronics, electrics, aviation, semiconductors, etc. Interestingly, there are two leading Korean companies (Ehwa and Shinhan) which have a global production ranking of fifth and seventh, respectively. Korean diamond tools are known to have World-class product certification, keeping the surplus in trade balance.
Moreover, industrial diamond tools take up 5% of Korea's tool market. Many Korean companies are advancing into China by constructing local factories. However, during the past two years, the growth rate of diamond tool market has been lower than 3% due to the decline in demand and excessive price competition caused by oversupply. In such a situation, the export of industrial diamond tools has been diversified to increase the exporting portion of diamond wheels rather than saws.
From the aspect of developing domestic technology, the most important technology of diamond tools is sintering technology between diamonds and binders and tool design. Especially, the core technology is that diamond grit is to be contacted to the work piece with minimum load, exposing in proper hours. Currently, this technology is under development by focusing on the cutting ability, dressing interval and laser welding. Also, as demand for PCD/PCBN is on the rise due to the use of aluminum/aluminum alloys in the aerospace industry and hardened steel in the shipbuilding industry, a great deal of effort is being put into developing PCD/PCBN tools.
With merits such as high-performance, environmentally-friendliness, and low energy consumption, the diamond tool industry is an essential manufacturing technology to improve the industrial structure of Korea. It is an important parts and materials industry which contributes substantially to supplanting imports, boosting exports, and securing independent technologies as well as competitive manpower. However, the Korean diamond tool industry is starting to show its technological limits after growing for more than thirty years. To overcome this challenge, the Korean industry must escape from the old concepts and develop an innovative technology, creating a new'blue ocean'.