With the sustained and rapid development of China’s bearing industry, the entire industry has developed steadily during the “13th Five-Year Plan” period. The types of bearings produced are becoming more and more diverse, and there is an increasing demand for accredited laboratories that can provide testing data. The technical scope and specialties of accreditation are becoming more and more extensive, and the speed of capacity change is also accelerating. Therefore, CNAS-accredited laboratories in China’s bearing industry will face more business volume and more complex testing/calibration tasks.

2.1 The number of accredited laboratories in the bearing industry is increasing.

According to incomplete statistics, as of December 2022, there are more than 100 accredited laboratories related to China’s bearing industry that can be found on the CNAS accreditation official website. Some of them are single-bearing enterprise laboratories, some are part of comprehensive laboratories, and some are third-party laboratories that undertake commissioned testing business [2]. Since the beginning of the “13th Five-Year Plan” period, there have been 30 bearing testing laboratories in China’s bearing industry, including 27 enterprise laboratories HSN Bearing Group (not described here due to space limitations) and three third-party laboratories. They are the testing laboratories of Hangzhou Bearing Test and Research Center Co., Ltd. (L0309), Luoyang Bearing Institute Inspection and Testing Co., Ltd. (L0995), and Shanghai Shangzhou Bearing Quality Testing Co., Ltd. (L1290). Compared with other industries, the proportion of bearing accreditation testing laboratories in the entire accredited testing laboratories is not large, even in the mechanical field, the proportion of bearing accreditation testing laboratories is relatively small. In recent years, the bearing industry has continued to develop well, and the production of bearings has become more substantial, which requires more laboratories to issue product testing reports, assist bearing enterprises in continuously improving product quality, cope with domestic and foreign trade measures, expand the market, and enhance enterprise competitiveness. This has caused many mechanical-related research institutes to expand bearing testing and calibration projects, competing for the bearing testing and calibration business in China, which inevitably leads to some disorder.

2.2 The geographical distribution of accredited laboratories in the bearing industry

In the process of allocating market resources, China’s bearing industry has formed five industrial agglomeration areas: Wafangdian (Liaoning) Bearing Industry Agglomeration Zone, Luoyang (Henan) Bearing Industry Agglomeration Zone, Suzhou-Wuxi-Changzhou (Jiangsu) Bearing Industry Agglomeration Zone, Zhejiang (Zhejiang) Bearing Industry Agglomeration Zone, and Liaocheng (Shandong) Bearing Industry Agglomeration Zone [3]. As shown in Table 1, the accredited laboratories with bearing testing capabilities are also mainly concentrated in the five industrial agglomeration areas. In addition, several accredited laboratories are distributed in Shanghai, Fujian, Hubei, Sichuan (Chongqing), and other regions, most of which are industrial heritage left over from the planned economy era. Overall, the distribution of China’s accredited laboratories for bearings is related to the industrial agglomeration, and the stronger the bearing agglomeration effect is, the more accredited laboratories with bearing capabilities the industrial agglomeration area will have. The geographical distribution of accredited laboratories is positively correlated with the degree of local industrial development and the level of trade activity. It also illustrates that accredited testing laboratories for bearings, as technical service institutions, serve bearing manufacturing enterprises and provide strong technical support for the high-quality development of bearing products.

2.3 The wide range of technical capabilities accredited by bearing testing laboratories and their professional diversity

Due to the wide variety of bearings, if classified according to the testing category, they can be divided into bearing products, bearing parts, metallic materials and products, ceramic materials and products, and mechanical parts. When further subdivided, bearing products can include rolling bearings (parameters), sliding bearings, splint bearing, joint bearings, etc. Bearing parts can be divided into bearing parts (parameters), steel balls, ceramic balls, carbon steel balls, needle rollers, rollers, bearing seats, etc. Metallic materials and products, ceramic materials and products mainly involve testing the physical and chemical properties of materials. Mechanical parts mainly include the geometric measurement of parts. If divided according to testing parameters, they can be divided into conventional size accuracy, clearance, vibration noise, cleanline ss, metallography, chemical composition, fatigue life, sealing performance, etc. Table 2 is an example of how a bearing testing laboratory’s accredited technical capabilities can be presented.

Table 2 Example of how a bearing testing laboratory’s accredited technical capabilities can be presented



2.4 The rapid changes in accredited bearing testing laboratories

The changes referred to here are from the five aspects of “personnel, equipment, materials, methods, and environment” that affect the laboratory’s technical capabilities. The rapid turnover of personnel in the bearing industry, the accelerated updating of instruments and equipment, the accelerated revision of standards, and changes in the external environment (changes in international trade patterns, government policy reforms, epidemics, etc.) have led to accelerated changes in bearing testing technology.

In today’s society, talent introduction has become a key issue faced by governments at all levels to develop the economy. Talent introduction is part of talent mobility. As a traditional labor-intensive industry, it is an indisputable fact that the bearing industry has high work intensity and low income for employees, and the migration of high-end technical talents among various enterprises is also a common phenomenon. Therefore, it is not uncommon for laboratory technical responsible persons and quality responsible persons to leave their jobs due to personnel staffing problems. Secondly, personnel changes will also be affected by the external environment. When the government promotes laboratory policy reforms or the industry is impacted by some uncontrollable factors, it will also affect the flow of personnel in enterprises.

In addition to the above two factors, with the progress of time and technology, the speed of instrument and equipment updates and iterations has accelerated. This involves accredited laboratories purchasing, accepting, calibrating, confirming capabilities, and periodic verification of instrument and equipment management. Similarly, bearing industry standards are also diverse, in addition to universal bearing standards (dimensional tolerances, vibration speeds, clearances), there are also various special bearing standards. At the same time, in addition to national standards, standards also include military standards, international standards, industry standards, local standards, and group standards. In addition to bearing industry standards, method standards may also involve standards and methods in other industries. These standards are managed by different departments and may be difficult to coordinate. The inclusion of testing methods may also result in conflicts. At the same time, with the rapid development of technology, a large number of non-standard methods will be generated in the application of bearings. The effectiveness of these non-standard testing/calibration standards and methods will directly affect the effectiveness of certification and accreditation activities.