The overall development level of China’s stamping die industry remains relatively low, with a notable gap compared with overseas peers. The development of stamping dies for automotive body panels, especially passenger car body panel dies, lags behind. Most body panel dies for joint-venture vehicle brands still rely on imports. Overseas die makers basically monopolize the production of complex-to-form panels such as side frames and fenders. The domestic industry is mostly positioned in the low-end market, and only a handful of enterprises own independent product development capabilities. The underdeveloped automotive body panel stamping die industry has become a major bottleneck restricting the vigorous development of China’s automotive sector.

In recent years, major domestic backbone enterprises in the automotive stamping die industry such as Tianqi Stamping Die, FAW Stamping Die, Dongfeng (Second Automobile Works) Stamping Die, and Foton Stamping Die have been breaking through technical bottlenecks via technology introduction and technical renovation. For instance, Foton Stamping Die has introduced internationally advanced CNC machining equipment, state-of-the-art manufacturing technologies and software for stamping dies, actively implemented integrated CAD/CAE/CAM/CAPP/PDM technology, and adopted advanced project management methods. It has carried out project cooperation with world-leading overseas stamping die enterprises including Ogihara of Japan and SMC of South Korea, and established a relatively complete development system for body panel stamping dies.

Nevertheless, most stamping die enterprises still lack such capabilities and can only manufacture stamping dies with low technical content. They are currently in the transition phase from 2D CAD to 3D CAD. The rationality of stamping die structures mainly depends on designers’ experience; standardization levels are low, and enterprises have insufficient experience in developing body panel stamping dies.

Since numerical simulation technology demands solid professional knowledge and rich design experience from engineers, it has not yet been widely adopted within China’s stamping die industry. Even when numerical simulation is applied to guide body panel development, it is merely used as an auxiliary tool to optimize process schemes. Insufficient experience in numerical simulation makes it hard to fully guarantee the accuracy of analysis results, and the technology lacks comprehensive and standardized application.

A large part of the forming quality of body panels relies on stamping die tryout and commissioning, which makes it difficult to control the development cycle of stamping dies.