The company’s facilities in Brazil, Germany, India, and the USA have been built for use as manufacturing sites and are expected to increasingly come online with market changes.
"Sany’s strategy aims to develop a manufacturing footprint in the local regions where we do business. The company has achieved this in India and Brazil," says Greg Trainer, vice president of Sany America’s crawler crane division.
In China, the Sany brand enjoys wide recognition and the company’s Hong Kong IPO proposal states an intention to increase sales and revenue from overseas business units.
According to a report based on 2010 sales volumes, China Construction Machinery Business Online listed Sany as China’s largest crawler crane manufacturer, largest rotary drilling rig manufacturer, largest domestic manufacturer of hydraulic excavators, and largest concrete machinery manufacturer.
Yengst Associates also published a report ranking the world’s top 10 construction machinery manufacturers by 2010 sales revenues. Sany ranked highest among Chinese firms, placing sixth behind crane manufacturers Liebherr and Hitachi. Crane builders Zoomlion and Terex placed ninth and tenth.
Bold moves
Created in 2007 as Sany’s first base in a mature market, Sany America originally only provided direct sales, parts and service for the company’s China-built cranes. With manufacturing already established in India, the strong US market offered Sany an opportunity to expand its international footprint.
"At the time in 2006 to 2007, if you built a crane in your garage you could sell it. In other words, anybody who had product could sell product," says Kyle Nape, Sany America’s vice president, global sales and marketing.
With the financial crisis curtailing revenues a year later, Sany America held back on marketing existing products and restructured around a new concept that would propel the company into new markets. Sany America’s chance came at ConExpo in 2011, with the launch of its global crawler and rough terrain lines, Sany’s first cranes specifically targeting high-end markets. Further investment in Sany America and its North American clients came later that year, when the company moved to a newly-built 400,000 sq ft facility in Peachtree City, Georgia.
The American headquarters houses several different business units, including crawler and rough terrain cranes, concrete pump trucks, excavators, bulldozers, mining machinery and wind turbines.
In addition to managing international sales of the global crane line, Sany America also offers R&D, service, support and English-language technical manuals.
Over the past five years, Sany America has experienced phenomenal activity, Nape explains: "In a severe global crisis we have built a $60m facility, hired over 150 people, and developed ten global products. That’s only on the cranes side, so this is a huge commitment to a mature market."
Experience is the best teacher
R&D for Sany’s new line of global rough terrain and crawler cranes presently takes place in Shanghai and Ningxiang, where Sany’s China-based engineers collaborate with those on loan from overseas business units.
This alliance is set to deepen as Sany has announced plans to build a $25m R&D facility and hire 300 engineers at Sany America’s headquarters. Company executives released the decision last year as Georgia Governor Nathan Deal visited Sany’s corporate offices in Changsha, China.
Additionally, Sany has constructed a facility in Germany to develop all terrain cranes and concrete pump trucks. Having recently purchased pump truck manufacturer Putzmeister, Sany’s new German factory will take the ideas through to fruition.
One reason for Sany’s heavy investment in research is its leaders’ ambitious pace of product development. "They want to bring products to market very quickly," says Trainer. "They don’t want to go through a design cycle and make a mistake.
"The R&D centre here in Peachtree City will focus mostly on systems research. For example, hydraulic engineers will improve technology used across several different product lines," he added.
Like other heavy equipment manufacturers, Sany also sees the value in developing proprietary components to increase reliability and serviceability.
"Sany’s philosophy is that we should build as much of our technology in-house as possible," Trainer explains. "If we have a choice, we’ll go inside versus outside, and if we’re outside today because we don’t have a technology internally, we’ll build it."
As such, the new global cranes are not suped-up versions of Sany’s emerging market crawler cranes, but rather completely different machines.
"A tremendous amount of resources has been invested in developing the global crane line, and these are clean sheet designs from the ground up," says Trainer. In order to continue and accelerate this trend, Sany plans on using its new facilities to attract senior experts, and company leadership is further investing in skilled engineers with international backgrounds. The building of the two international R&D facilities will see more Chinese engineers coming to the US and Germany for research and hands-on training.
Kyle Nape explains the company’s rationale. "The chairman of Sany said ‘Let’s build a couple of R&D centres where we’ll be able to attract people by inviting them to join us in places like Atlanta rather than relocating overseas.’ "
Better cranes
Sany’s global cranes are identifiable by model numbers beginning with the number eight, traditionally representing prosperity and good fortune in Chinese culture. These machines feature lighter materials than domestic versions and comply with international transportation standards.
"The United States being a mature market, we’re developing the cranes with engineers that have been in this market for a long time," says Nape. "We are focusing on a lighter crane that is easier and more cost effective to transport."
Within the SCC8000 series of global crawlers are the SCC8100 (110USt), the SCC8200 (220USt), and the SCC8300 (330USt). The SRC800 series of global rough terrain cranes holds the SRC840 (40USt), SRC865 (65USt), and the SRC865XL (65USt), which boasts a longer, five-section boom.
One year after launching its global line, Sany America has received orders from customers as far away as Africa and the Middle East, and four more product launches are scheduled for June.
The new offerings will include the SCC8150t (165USt), the SCC8500 (550USt) and the SCC8200RA (660USt), which features a ringer attachment. Additionally, Sany will release its largest rough terrain yet, the SRC880 (80USt).
Like Sany’s domestic cranes, these are also manufactured in China. However, machines intended for overseas markets use international components from well-known manufacturers.
"Instead of designing the product with licensee products in China, we develop our own technology and purchase widely-available international components, such as Cummins engines and Rexroth hydraulic pumps. This gives us a lot of flexibility as we look at manufacturing on a global market," says Nape.
While Sany makes very high capacity cranes (up to 3,600t) for its emerging markets, the SCC8500 is its first higher capacity crawler with high-end features, making it a key stepping stone in the evolution of Sany’s global line.
Nape says that beyond its high capacity, innovative engineering differentiates the SCC8500. "This is basically a crane designed for wind work, but with tremendous benefits for contractors," he says.
Despite four product launches going to market by June, Sany’s pace of development is not slowing down. Plans to extend the global crawler and rough terrain ranges even further are already underway at Sany America.
"Very few manufacturers have the resources to launch ten global products in a 24-month period. Usually, that’s a solid ten-year plan," Nape says.
Crane service in your state
While Sany sells directly to customers in China and other regions, the company recognises the importance of establishing dealers to meet expectations in mature markets.
Sany America led the way for this development last year by creating a US distributor network timed with its global product launches.
"By 2010, we had decided to move away from direct selling and toward a distribution model," Nape says. "ConExpo in March of 2011 was our debut where we said, ‘We’re going to get distributors, here’s what our product looks like, let’s do business.’"
Swiftly appointing eight distributors since then, Sany America has followed through.
"We’ve grown our service team, and our parts and field support. Now our focus is growing our distributors so that they’ll be able to service the product. The service techs that we have are all senior and know how a distributorship model is meant to work," says Nape. As an example, executives at oilfield services provider and Sany client 5J Trucking in Texas benefit from having distributor Four
Seasons Equipment in their home state. The business specialises in oil and gas rig relocation, and a fleet of Sany SCC8100’s lift the rigs, places them on trucks and offloads them. "It’s very rough work in the desert where they’re drilling for oil. They really use the cranes to an extreme, and I can tell you they’ve been very satisfied with the product. Having an excellent dealer like Four Seasons Equipment has been an integral part of our success," Nape says.
In addition to building its dealer network, Sany America is bringing a new Customer Care Centre online at its headquarters in the next six months, and the company is growing its inventory of spare parts.
"Since we’ve been in this facility, our parts availability has increased by about 60%, and that number is growing. By the middle of this year, that number will grow by another 60%," Nape added.
A major production
Although still unused for crane assembly, Sany America’s huge 37,000m2 (400,000sq ft) facility in Peachtree City, Georgia is reminiscent of Sany’s presence in China.
Sean Mangieri, marketing communications coordinator for Sany America says: "It’s mind boggling to see the level of production in one of those facilities. The volume and speed are like something you would read about in a novel. Production moves like a clock, and you can look up and see on large monitors what stage it’s at."
In Peachtree City, Sany’s 15m (50ft) ceiling dwarfs most US facilities and can accommodate a level of production on par with some German, Indian and Brazilian counterparts.
Fitted with an entire wall of glass, Sany America’s facility is divided into 31,500m2 (340,000sq ft) of factory area and 5,570m2 (60,000sq ft) of office space. It will accommodate final assembly of rough terrains and crawlers as demand grows, and should the need arise, the site can expand to 1 million sq ft of manufacturing area.
"I think this is a traditional size for India and is more typical for Germany and Brazil, but from Sany’s perspective, our facility is miniature," says Nape. "The concrete pump factory we just built in China is 1 million sq ft under one roof, so in China, a facility the size of ours is considered ‘cute’," he added.
While it is currently difficult for Sany America to reach an economy of scale by producing entire cranes in the US, the facility is ready to accommodate changing market conditions. "Long-term plans are to do some high level crawler and rough terrain assembly here, but that will be farther down the line," says Nape. "If the market is running in China, then we’re going to need to bring more facilities online here."
Since opening the facility in August, the production area has thus far been equipped for assembling concrete pump trucks and just produced its first excavator, a model SY215 with a capacity of 21.5t.
Once demand can be assessed, Sany America plans to use experienced welders to assemble crane booms on a jig assembly line. Cummins engines and other locally produced products will also be installed at the location.
Covering a 15,000m2 (~161,000sq ft) planned gross floor area in Sao Paulo, Sany’s South American truck crane and excavator manufacturing facility is expected to commence operations in 2012.
Sany’s facility in Germany, at over 12,000m2 (~129,000sq ft), may begin producing cranes, truck-mounted concrete pumps, and hydraulic excavators this year as well.
Sany’s largest crane-producing facility, with over 158,000m2 (~1,700,000sq ft) of floor space, is Huzhou Industrial Park, in Zhejiang Province. A newly built facility, it will be used to manufacture crawler cranes.
In Changsha Industrial Park in Hunan Province, one finds Sany’s largest facility overall. With nearly 300,000m2 (~3,200,000sq ft) of floor space, the site manufactures concrete machinery and road machinery.
The winds of change
Currently, a change in customer preferences is suggesting that demand for Sany’s global cranes could eventually overtake demand for domestic market machines.
"We’re even finding some of the customers in the Chinese market are seeing the value in a global crane and how it can impact transportation rates," says Trainer.
Additionally, while rough terrains are traditionally marketed in the US, Sany’s global line has sparked interest in China.
"Since Sany began manufacturing rough terrain cranes, a small but healthy niche market has developed for them in China, and some of the Chinese manufacturers have even started developing their own rough terrain lines," says Trainer.
Texas tandem
For the past two months, four Sany cranes have been used for gas pipeline construction in Texas. At two locations, one near Hallettsville and another near Cotulla, Sany America has fielded four machines in the Eagle Ford Shale.
Construction firm Willbros rented three 110USt SCC8100’s and one 65USt extra long-boomed SRC865XL from Four Seasons Equipment, Sany’s dealer in Houston.
Wilbros’ engineers are building fingers for slug catchers along the pipeline, a job that requires assembling 42-inch, schedule 888 pipe to capture condensed gas as it moves down the pipeline.
"Because the pipe is so long, we are doing mostly tandem lifts, and these cranes have tremendous advantages over other pieces of equipment that we could be using," says John Rester, superintendent on the White Kitchen lateral pipeline near Cotulla. "If you compare running these machines with other alternatives, such as large excavators, the gains in efficiency and the cost savings are quite large."
Wilbros’ massive tubing weighs an impressive 400lbs/ft, and comes in 40ft sections. Once six or more sections are joined together, the weight totals 100,000 to 120,000lbs, and the completed slug catcher holds roughly 500,000 US gallons of fuel.
