"Last year, the sales volume of Sany excavator reached a record high." Xiang Wenbo, President of Sany Heavy Industry, said that Sany could become the champion of global excavator, especially achieve high growth in 2020, mainly because China is the only major economy in the world to achieve positive economic growth in 2020. At present, 80% of the market of Sany excavator is in China.
According to the data of off highway research, a global research organization, Sany Heavy Industry sold 98705 excavators in 2020, accounting for 15% of the global excavator market and ranking first in global sales.
Not only does Sany Heavy Industry rise rapidly, but in the past 20 years, major domestic brands such as XCMG, Liugong and Lingong have set off a tide of domestic goods in the excavator market. The data show that by the end of 2020, the share of domestic brands in China's excavator market has exceeded 70%. However, 20 years ago, in 2000, the sales volume of local brands was only 502, accounting for 5% of the total market. In economically developed and highly competitive areas such as Guangdong, the sales of domestic excavators are almost zero.
Foreign brands account for 95% and domestic brands account for more than 70%
In the 1960s, China began to independently develop excavators, starting almost at the same time as Japan. However, until 2000, foreign brands such as Caterpillar in the United States and Hitachi and Komatsu in Japan occupied more than 90% of China's excavator market for a long time.
Wang Guang, marketing director of Hunan Zhongwang, recalled that if anyone bought a domestic machine at that time, he would be regarded as ignorant and often difficult to receive work.
In 2003, Sany Heavy Industry decided to enter the excavator industry. Liang Wengen, chairman of Sany Heavy Industry, believes that excavators are the Pearl on the crown of the construction machinery industry. Without excavators, it can not be said that they are a real construction machinery enterprise.
However, excavators are difficult to do. At the beginning, Sany Heavy Industry made more than a dozen test machines in the form of assembly, none of which was successful. Dai Qinghua, its first general manager, said that the average trouble free working time of this batch of testing machines is only more than 8 hours, that is, the new machines will break down if they work less than 8 hours before leaving the factory.
"When it was just established, everything was immature, no one had no equipment, no tools, and everything was missing," Dai Qinghua recalled.
In 2004, the excavator project almost exhausted the cash of Sany Heavy Industry, and there was almost no benefit in the following years. There was also a voice about "dismounting the excavator project with serious losses" within Sany Heavy Industry.
From a national point of view, domestic excavators can only be regarded as just starting. One detail is that Cao Donghui, who returned from Japan to join Sany Heavy Industry in 2009, found that there was no durability test site for an excavator all over the country.
However, Sany Heavy Industry, which insisted on doing so, finally realized the profit and loss balance of the excavator project in 2007. In 2011, the domestic market share of Sany Heavy Industry excavator reached 12.3%, surpassing all foreign brands and becoming the first in the industry. Since then, Sany Heavy Industry has always maintained the first position in China and its market share has been rising.
After occupying the domestic market, domestic excavators have accelerated to go to sea and enter the international market in recent years. In April 2021, China exported 5472 excavators, with a year-on-year increase of 166.3%.
Yu Hongfu, director of Sany Heavy Industry and chairman of Sany Heavy machinery, revealed that this year, Sany excavator sales will still achieve good growth, and the overseas market will grow at a high speed. The goal of Sany is to create another Sany overseas during the 14th Five Year Plan period, so that the overseas sales scale can reach 10 billion US dollars.
An excavator goes offline in 5 minutes, and there is no remote control thousands of miles away
In Shanghai Lingang New Area and Sany Heavy Industry excavator production base in Kunshan, Jiangsu Province, people can find the reason why its excavator has become the first in the industry.
"Our dream is to be the best excavator in the world," Yu Hongfu said. To achieve this goal, we rely on the manufacturing foundation laid by Sany Heavy Industry over the years.
As early as 2008, when Sany Heavy Industry built the excavator production line, it began to use welding robots on a large scale, which quadrupled the service life of the excavator and reduced the after-sales problems by about 3 / 4. The efficiency of a welding robot is equivalent to four or five welders, and it is more stable, which greatly improves the efficiency and product quality of the whole production system.
Tu Xiaodan, manufacturing director of Sany Heavy Machinery medium excavation company, told China Economic Weekly that from a steel plate to an excavator offline, Shanghai Lingang New Area can take up to 5 minutes to realize automatic production.
"Every part and every equipment is connected digitally. After this connection, we know the welding current of each weldment, who screwed each bolt and how much torque we screwed, and the torque of each screw is standardized, which ensures the product quality," Tu Xiaodan said.
Today, from small excavators to large excavators, Sany Heavy Industry's products have fully caught up with and even led foreign brands in some technical indicators. The new challenge is the super large excavator. In this field, the current king is still a foreign brand.
Yu Hongfu said, "we must be able to do what others can do, and we have to do better than them in many aspects."
In terms of 5g application and unmanned, Sany Heavy Industry excavator is ahead.
In 2019, the world's first 5g remote-controlled excavator jointly built by Sany Heavy Industry and Huawei officially appeared. Through the mobile 5g network, the staff and test drive audience launched an excavator in a mine thousands of miles away, which is the first case of 5g application in the global construction machinery industry.
However, Xiang Wenbo frankly said that it may be more difficult to realize the unmanned construction machinery compared with the unmanned automobile, because the operation scene of the construction machinery is very simple, but the driving is very complex, which is much more complex than driving the automobile. It is very difficult to turn the skill of the operator to operate completely by feeling into the intelligence of the machine. In this regard, Sany Heavy Industry Association insists on doing it by itself.
Autonomous control is a secret weapon, and electrification is the greatest opportunity
The self-control of core parts is an invisible secret weapon of Sany Heavy Industry excavator.
How many excavators can be produced in the Chinese market before 2011 depends on how many cylinders were invested in the Chinese market by the two major oil cylinder factories in Japan and South Korea at that time.
Sany Heavy Industry doesn't want to rely on others for core parts, so a large number of self-developed main core parts.
Xiang Wenbo introduced that at present, the group has successfully developed and fully applied core parts such as special chassis, engine, controller, oil cylinder, pump valve motor, reducer and slewing ring, completely bid farewell to the dilemma of "neck sticking" and realize "independent control" of the whole industrial chain.
In addition to self research, Sany Heavy Industry has also worked with many domestic suppliers to develop core parts. Among them, nearly 20 years of cooperation with Hengli hydraulic (601100. SH) can be called a good story in the industry.
In 2004, Hengli hydraulic embarked on the road of independent research and development of excavator hydraulic cylinder, and initially stumbled.
Wang Liping, chairman of Hengli hydraulic, recalled that at that time, he took a small bench and waited at the gate of each factory to look for product trial opportunities. "Only Sany Heavy Industry boldly tried Hengli's hydraulic cylinder."
After the first batch of hydraulic cylinders were used in the new 20 ton excavator of Sany Heavy Industry, there were many problems and they had to return to the factory. The R & D personnel of Sany also returned to the factory with the products.
Dai Qinghua, then head of Sany Heavy Industry excavator project, recalled that at that time, there were more than 100 people in the whole excavator project team. Although the manpower was tight, he still transferred the most elite strength to study and analyze, find problems, improve quality and remanufacture with Hengli employees.
In 2011, the sales volume of Sany Heavy Industry excavator became the first in the domestic industry. In the same year, Hengli hydraulic was listed and became the only listed company in China to produce excavator high-pressure cylinders on a large scale.
In 2019, Sany Heavy Industry purchased nearly 400 million yuan of Hengli hydraulic cylinder, and other hydraulic parts were also purchased with a large amount of money.
In the field of core parts, Xiang Wenbo believes that the energy system determines the industrial structure. In the past, the system based on fuel engine will be transformed into electric drive in the future. It happens that China has been in the forefront of electrification in the world, which is the biggest opportunity for Sany.
At the end of 2020, Sany Heavy Industry launched the world's first "mass production" pure electric excavator in Kunshan Park, Jiangsu Province.
Wang Donglin, deputy director of Sany Heavy electromechanical gasification Research Institute, said that compared with the fuel model, the output efficiency of pure motor can reach more than 95%, more than double that of traditional fuel engine, which is less than 40%.
The excavator index is in a boom
On May 30, Yu Hongfu told China Economic Weekly that at present, both the operating rate and working hours of excavators show that the excavator index is in the boom period.
In 2014, a leader came to inspect and asked to report the operation data of the equipment regularly. Inspired by this, Xiang Wenbo thought, "at that time, the Baltic dry bulk index predicted the economy through shipping. We thought that construction machinery could also reflect the state's investment in infrastructure." therefore, Xiang Wenbo proposed the "excavator index."
In 2015, Sany Heavy Industry launched the "excavator index" for the first time, which can intuitively see the commencement of various equipment and reflect the local infrastructure construction. Later, it became one of the basis for government departments to formulate macro policies and was called "China's economic barometer".
Yu Hongfu said that this is only one aspect of the excavator index. For Sany Heavy Industry, what is more important is its value to the enterprise itself.
The original source of excavator index is to control sales collection. Excavator sales are generally paid in installments. In order to ensure the smooth recovery of vehicle funds, Sany Heavy Industry has assembled a small sensor on each excavator. Through the sensor, the enterprise can fully grasp the operating conditions and paths of the equipment, so as to judge whether the owner maliciously owes money and whether to "lock the machine".
Therefore, based on the data transmission system, Sany Heavy Industry has built a big data platform, linking about 670000 devices, and now the amount of data every day has reached 200 million.
Tu Xiaodan said that through the big data platform, every action of the excavator, every drop of oil burned and every bucket of soil dug can be seen, and the operation habits of each manipulator can also be recorded, which can help customers manage equipment and reduce fuel consumption by about 8%, which greatly improves the efficiency of excavators with large fuel consumption.
On May 31, Sany Heavy Industry released a new large excavator. Cao Donghui, deputy chief engineer of Sany Heavy Machinery and President of large excavation Research Institute, introduced that "how many buckets are there in each bucket and how many buckets are dug in a day". The product will automatically collect various operation data to identify users' habits and common working conditions, and then enter the optimal fuel consumption area through algorithm intelligent correction of main pump displacement, "just like driving an automatic car".
Liang Wengen attaches great importance to digital transformation. He once said that the group's digitization will either "capsize" or "turn over". In June 2019, Sany Heavy Industry invested nearly 10 billion yuan and started the construction of more than 20 "lighthouse factories" and other intelligent units to promote the deep integration of Internet, big data, artificial intelligence and manufacturing.
"When people think Sany is a software company, we succeed in the transformation." Xiang Wenbo said that as a traditional manufacturing enterprise, Sany Heavy Industry is accelerating the digital transformation, with 30000 engineers and 3000 industrial workers, and achieving sales of 300 billion yuan, which is Sany's goal in the next five years.
