Sany heavy industry: from 'small town factory' to 'world pump king'

In changsha, hunan province, the lights are still on at night in the large factories of sany heavy industry. On the big screen of the enterprise control center, the 'excavator index', the starting and operating data of sany machinery equipment across the country, keeps beating.

In the first three quarters of this year, sany achieved revenue of 41.08 billion yuan, up 45.9% year-on-year, and net profit of 4.88 billion yuan, up 170.9% year-on-year. The 'excavator index', a barometer of China's economy, is also growing at a high level. These data chart the development path of sany from 'small town factory' to 'pump king of the world'.

Industry serves the country, stepping times step point

What is the most unique spirit of sany heavy industry temperament? Its President xiang wenbo replied: 'industry to serve the country feelings.'

Back to 1986. Lianyuan, a count-level city more than 100 kilometers away from changsha, liang wengen, tang xiuguo, yuan jinhua, MAO zhongwu four young people, embracing the dream of starting a business, gave up the state-owned enterprise 'iron rice bowl', with 60,000 yuan collected from relatives and friends, established a welding material factory in daotong village, maotang town.

Old employees recall that liang wengen told them at the beginning of his career that he wanted to be an experimental field for the reform of Chinese enterprises and go out of China and into the world. At the time, many people thought it was impossible.

Opportunities are given to people with dreams. A few years later, lianyuan welding factory output value breakthrough 100 million yuan mark, become the largest private enterprises in the area, and in 1989 formally named 'sany', meaning is 'to create first-class enterprises, bring up first-class talents, make first-class contributions'.

In the early 1990s, sany felt the 'spring river warmth' of the reform and opening up and put forward the strategy of 'double progress' : entering the central city and entering the big industry. In 1994, sany heavy industry settled in changsha and began to develop and manufacture engineering machinery and equipment.

Xiang wenbo believes that sany succeeded because it caught up with China's three major dividends: the demographic dividend -- the labor cost advantage of manufacturing; Market dividends -- huge demand for urbanization and infrastructure construction; Policy dividend - the reform and opening policy has created living space for private enterprises.

With the rapid growth of China's economy, sany has developed from a small local factory into a world top ten leading enterprise of construction machinery. It only took 13 years for it to develop the concrete pump truck and become the world's largest concrete machinery manufacturer, known as 'world pump king'. It only took six years for sany excavator to overtake international giants such as caterpillar and komatsu from its domestic market share of 0.5%.

Dare to be the first, adhere to independent innovation

A 37-meter concrete pump truck with a mottled body is on display in the exhibition hall outside sany's intelligent manufacturing workshop 'no. 18 workshop'. Produced in 1998, it is the first long boom pump truck with independent intellectual property rights in China.

Before this, 90% of the long boom pump truck on the market is 'foreign brand', key parts are 'jammed'. For example, the manufacturing technology of 'heart' collecting valve set of towing pump has been mastered by foreign enterprises and has set up the technical threshold. The high strength steel needed for the pump boom can only be imported from a European company.

'Core technology, key components are not available.' Yi xiaogang, head of technological innovation at sany heavy industry, said that 31 has been sticking to the road of independent innovation since the very beginning, taking technological innovation as the core competitiveness of enterprises.

In order to break through the bottleneck of high strength steel, sany research and development team made painstaking efforts to solve the problem, from the formulation of steel to processing technology, after two years of tens of thousands of groups of tests, finally succeeded. Today, sanyi zhongyuan new materials produces specially treated steel substrates with a strength of up to 1,800 mpa, reducing costs by 60 percent compared with imports.

During the visit to sany, the reporter felt the strong culture of innovation. Chen tianming, director of the fire equipment research institute of sany heavy industry, introduced that three people never say two words: 'the industry is like this, so also want to do so'; 'It hasn't been done abroad, so it can't be done.' Often said two sentences are: 'learn, but not imitate'; 'Forgive mistakes, but don't repeat them.'

At present, sany has more than 2,000 r&d personnel, with r&d investment accounting for about 5% of sales revenue. By June this year, a total of 12,070 patents had been applied and 8,751 authorized, ranking first in the industry.

With continuous innovation, sany heavy industry has produced the world's longest steel jib 86-meter pump truck, 'the first excavation in China' 200-ton hydraulic excavator, 'the world's first crane' 3,600-ton crawler crane, and Asia's first 1000-ton all-floor crane...

Realize 'fission' and contribute to world-class brands

Sany heavy industry also encountered trough, bottleneck, facing the challenge of transformation and upgrading. They continue to 'break boundaries' and eventually achieve 'fission'.

This year, sany heavy card was born, all online sales, do not need agents. In march, the first batch of 500 sany heavy trucks sold out in 53 seconds; In June, the second batch of 500 units sold out in 46 seconds, setting a record for heavy truck industry Internet sales.

Reporters know that today, 31 from senior executives to ordinary employees, are eager to learn the Internet, big data, artificial intelligence and other new knowledge.

'Internet strategy' was established as the number one strategy in the trinity, and the idea of 'all digital businesses, all businesses digital' was deeply rooted in the hearts of the people. The industrial Internet platform incubated by sany heavy industry connects 450,000 devices, including 300,000 construction machinery and equipment, serving more than 60 segments. Big data on the platform enables intelligent design, manufacturing, sales and service of products.

While breaking the business boundary, sany is constantly breaking the market boundary, transforming from 'single domestic market' to 'internationalization'. In 2012, sany heavy industry acquired putzmeister of Germany, an old global giant of concrete machinery known as 'elephant', which became a landmark event of Chinese enterprises' internationalization.

Currently, sany has 5 overseas r&d and manufacturing bases and 180 overseas agents, covering more than 150 countries and regions. In 2017, sany achieved international sales revenue of 11.6 billion yuan, accounting for about 30% of the company's revenue.

Xiang wenbo said that the future trinity should 'dance with the world'. Their vision is for 50 per cent of their revenues to come from overseas and to contribute a world-class brand to China.