The construction machinery industry is an advantageous industry with core competitiveness in Hunan, ranking first in the country in terms of total assets and operating income for 14 consecutive years. As the "capital of construction machinery", Changsha has cultivated 5 "top 50 global construction machinery" enterprises, and is the first in the country and the third in the world. Nowadays, the "Hunan Army of Construction Machinery" is climbing higher and new, setting a benchmark and leading the development of the industry in terms of intelligence, greening, globalization, etc.

The list of the top 50 global construction machinery manufacturers in 2024 was recently released, and Caterpillar, the industry leader, saw its sales soar from $32 billion to $41 billion in two years. Komatsu also grew from $22.2 billion to $25.6 billion.

However, at this time, China's construction machinery enterprises are in a downward cycle, and the total output value of Changsha construction machinery cluster has plummeted from 280 billion yuan to about 200 billion yuan. Some people call the downward trend after the soaring progress the "mid-life crisis" of the industry.

Yuan Zhen, Secretary-General of Changsha Construction Machinery Industry Association: At present, it is gradually bottoming out and picking up. Innovation, innovation and innovation, and constantly bring forth the new, in order to make Hunan construction machinery in the changing market "long-lasting".

How to deal with the crisis? Changsha construction machinery cluster enterprises bent down and devoted themselves to research, in the cold winter of the industry, but they are more willing to invest in research and development, and seek breakthroughs with digitalization, intelligence and greening.

Zoomlion invested 100 billion yuan to build Zoomlion Smart Industrial City. The earth-moving machinery park, which was the first to be put into use, realized an excavator off the assembly line every 6 minutes, driving Zoomlion's earthmoving machinery revenue to reach 6.648 billion yuan in 2023, a year-on-year increase of 89%.

Yuan Ye, Assistant President of Zoomlion and General Manager of Earthmoving Machinery Company: We have a R&D center for intelligent manufacturing, combined with the entire industry and the world's leading technologies, including robotics and automation technology, to form our current production line.

One of the principles adhered to by China Railway Construction Heavy Industry Co., Ltd. is widely spread: only develop products that can fill the gap at home and abroad. In 2023, the R&D investment of China Railway Construction Heavy Industry will reach 881 million yuan, 1,006 patents will be successfully applied, and the number of invention patent applications will reach a historical peak.

Wang Yongsheng, deputy director of the Digital Twin Research Institute of China Railway Construction Heavy Industry Foundation and Frontier Technology Research and Design Institute: We hope to stuff products into computers, move workshops to computers, and build tunnels on computers to promote the high-quality development of the industry.

In the past two years, the world's best in Hunan has been emerging: the world's largest rated lifting moment of 20,000 tons of tower cranes, the world's highest wind power hoisting ZCC17000 crawler crane, the world's largest diameter shaft boring machine and other innovative products were born; More than 20 breakthroughs have been made in key core components......

He Qinghua, chief expert of Sunward: We will continue to do a good job in products, promote technological innovation, create more new technologies and new models, go to the world, and become a creator of value in the field of equipment.

From January to June this year, the province's construction machinery industry achieved revenue of 52.3 billion yuan, a year-on-year decrease of 8.7%, but a profit of 4.04 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 13.9%.

The low local matching rate is one of the biggest pain points in the development of construction machinery clusters. Learning from the pain, Hunan continues to strengthen the industrial chain and improve the local zero supporting facilities and versatility.

The number of bolts and nuts on construction machinery and equipment is several thousand, and there are five or six hundred. However, in the past, the size standards of various companies were different, this one used 3 cm, and the other used 3.1 cm. With the adoption of the Common Standard, costs are further reduced.

Yuan Zhen, Secretary-General of Changsha Construction Machinery Industry Association: We will also do some standard upgrades this year to form a systematic promotion. Let everyone build a platform for communication, and truly realize the resonance of "what I want" and "what I can provide" at the same frequency.

At present, in Changsha, Wanxin Seiko has carried out basic construction of the construction project with an annual output of 500,000 reducers; In Loudi, Sany ZTE 10 billion oil cylinder project, part of the equipment is in place for commissioning...... With the joint efforts of many parties, the local matching rate of Changsha construction machinery cluster has increased rapidly, only 16.3% in 2019, and has now exceeded 50%.

Practice your internal skills, go abroad, and confront international giants head-on. How to compete with a century-old famous enterprise like Caterpillar for customers and market?

In the conquest of Europe, Sany first set up an office, then established a branch, and finally upgraded and put into operation Sany Europe Bedburg Industrial Park; The products have also been gradually adjusted from concrete machinery to mobile port machinery, excavators, crawler cranes and pile drivers. In the first five months of this year, the No. 18 plant of Sany Group received 1,500 batches of foreign guests, an increase of 40% year-on-year.

Xiang Wenbo, Rotating Chairman of Sany Group and Chairman of Sany Heavy Industry: To allocate resources globally, for example, we allocate R&D and innovation resources, engage in industry, layout, production, R&D, manufacturing and sales, that is, the global layout of the whole value chain and support global business through the global allocation of resources.

In the first half of the year, Hunan construction machinery exports were 16.62 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 24.6%. In the first half of the year, Zoomlion listed 197 new products overseas, nearly 300 products passed international certification, and overseas revenue increased by nearly 50% year-on-year; The fifth shield machine exported to Italy by China Railway Construction Heavy Industry Co., Ltd. rolled off the production line; African customers ordered hundreds of millions of yuan of Sunward intelligent mining equipment. In the first half of the year, Xingbang Intelligence's overseas revenue increased by 61.2%.