In November, Tutt Bryant Equipment took a delegation of customers to visit the Sany factories in China. Pete Lawgall, BDM Cranes Northern Region and Phil Chadwick, BDM Cranes Southern Region, hosted the tour.
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Both had invited customers who either own Sany cranes, are about to take delivery of one or who are exploring Sany as an option.
Phil Chadwick hadn’t been to China for some time when he set out to host the tour.
“Today, I’d say 50 per cent of the cars are electric, the sky is blue, and the sun is out. And Sany is leading the charge with the electrification of product. Sany is manufacturing electric construction equipment and electric trucks; you name it and it is going electric. The transformation in 11 years is unbelievable,” he said.
Nowhere was this clearer than in the implementation of automation and robotic technology throughout the factories the group visited – both in the work done and in the factory itself.
“Sany builds the same factory over and over and they call them ‘Lighthouse Factories’ because they feature a lot of glass,” Phil said.
“They are absolutely enormous facilities with 80 per cent of the welds completed by robots. The steel is picked, placed and cut by robots, and then transported on automated trolleys to the next station.
“It’s picked up by another robot, and welded by another, or dual robots if they need to do welding at the same time to prevent distortion. The quality of the welding is unbelievable,” he said.
“In the middle of the ‘Lighthouse Factory’, there is a large strip of grass, and it is uplifting to see a bit of nature in amongst all the mechanical automation and robots. It wasn’t just one factory, we must have seen four or five factories that were clones of each other,” he added.
“They were working on a 135t capacity electric all terrain whilst we were there. The 40t capacity SCC400TB-EV all electric has been bought by Tutt Bryant Heavy Lift and Shift and they have three coming for the rental fleet and another three units for sales stock.
The customers who joined the trip were “blown away” with the efficiency on display, Phil added.
“Everyone is getting quoted on various cranes, and I sold one whilst we were over there. Empire Cranes had already bought a second 60t rough terrain for a project they recently won. All the customers are very comfortable with the product and more and more people will see that in the next few years,” Phil said.
Pete Lawgall said the group comprised a good mix of customers, including Tier Ones and Tier Two crane companies and civil construction companies.
Image: Tutt Bryant
“There were Sany owners as well as customers considering purchasing Sany for the first time. Their feedback was very positive, many were shocked to see the size of the manufacturing operations and a couple said they found the visit awe inspiring,”he said.
“To experience what Sany calls the ‘Lighthouse Factories’ is next level… Some small components are still hand-welded, understandably, but customers were impressed with the quality of everything they saw. A significant customer was examining Sany’s approach to EN 13,000 compliance – which is important if they are to consider purchasing Sany product.
“Customers took pictures of the steel quality which is stamped to confirm the grade of the steel. This is the level the customers went to. It ticked all of the boxes as far as the manufacturing process, the quality of the steel, the quality of the welding and the final checks that were involved, including NDT testing on welds,” he said.
Customers were able to view all aspects of Sany’s manufacturing capabilities.
“We walked through the boom manufacturing section – which takes the booms right through to the test bed. The lengths that Sany goes to test the quality of the product is second to none. We saw some fully dressed cranes being load tested on the test bed. We are talking full boom, full luffing fly, it was all very impressive.
“The ingenuity of Sany was there for all to see. The size of the cranes Sany is producing can only be dreamed of in Australia. We saw 2,400t capacity all-terrains, a 2,200t crawler fully dressed on the test bed. We saw the whole gamut from Sany,” said Pete.
“One thing that impressed everyone was the access to the engineering teams that actually designed the cranes we were looking at. We had access to the people that created these cranes. They were very open, and the dialogue was excellent. It was a very impressive trip.”
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Pete goes on to emphasise the quality which features throughout Sany products, how price competitive the product is and how quickly product can be manufactured and shipped to Australia.
“In terms of quality, we have been demonstrating to the market that Sany product is equal to other crane manufacturers. They feature the same componentry as European and Japanese brands, including motors, transmissions, hydraulic systems and axles.. Sany is not a cheap crane, rather it is good quality crane which is less expensive. You are looking at anywhere between two-thirds and three-quarters of the price of other brands.
“In today’s highly competitive environment, delivery times can be even more important than price. Depending on the capacity of the crane, we can have product delivered from the factory into Australia within three months. For larger capacity cranes we at looking at five to six months for delivery. That’s a lot better than 18 to 24 months and more,” he said.
Pete had been presenting Sany product to one of the Tier One crane companies since Tutt Bryant Equipment was appointed the National Distributor, three years ago. He had not been successful.
“We had a couple of guys from the company on this trip and on the strength of what they saw and experienced, they were that impressed they are taking the entire crane team on a visit to the factories early in the new year. It will be interesting to see how the conversations develop during and after the visit,” said Pete.