The annual output of 300,000 complete cranes and 1.7 million parts (sets) covers 17 series and more than 200 varieties of gantry cranes, with a domestic market share of more than 70%... The reporter recently interviewed in Changyuan, Henan, the "Hometown of Cranes in China" and learned that through continuous promotion of science and technology In a virtuous cycle of technological innovation and industrial upgrading, the local crane industry has bucked the trend and "grew" in recent years. From January to April this year, it achieved above-scale sales revenue of 8.88 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 6.2%; it completed tax revenue of 570 million yuan, accounting for 18.4% of Changyuan's total tax revenue, and is steadily moving towards high-quality development.
"Three steps" to get out of small cities and big industries
"This is a ship handling crane that we exported to Malaysia. Its lifting capacity reaches 350 tons, and it has several key technologies of straight travel and diagonal travel and in-situ steering. It is currently the largest tonnage export product in the industry." said Jin Qinghao, chairman of Nukelen (Xinxiang) Crane Co., Ltd.
Changyuan, a small town in Xinxiang, northern Henan Province, was once a Yellow River beach area that was so poor that "they couldn't afford to wear cotton trousers in winter and drink in spring." Today, from the labor-intensive and low-tech industry of "building an industry with one hammer" to the combination of labor-intensive and high-tech, from facing the domestic market to exporting to countries along the "Belt and Road", the lifting industry is booming and has become a pillar industry.
Lu Yansheng, director of Changyuan City Science and Technology and Industrial Information Bureau, said that the development of Changyuan's lifting industry has generally gone through three stages.
——Starting stage: The late 1970s to the early 1990s was the initial stage of Changyuan's lifting industry. Aili Town and Weizhuang Street, located in the deep beach area of the Yellow River, were the birthplaces of Changyuan's lifting industry. The production method at this stage is mainly based on family workshop production, with low investment and small scale. The main products are hand chain hoists and crane accessories. There are more than 300 production units in the county.
——Development stage: In the 1990s, in order to adapt to the development of market economy, Changyuan people started joint-stock enterprises. Ten farmers including Cai Jingxin of Xiaoxinzhuang Village, Nili Town, took the lead in jointly planning to build a lifting equipment factory. The county party committee and government attached great importance to this and established the development idea of "individual start-up, shareholding promotion, community development, and large-scale operation", and workshop-style production gradually developed into large-scale production. Through attracting investment through multiple channels and introducing projects from various aspects, key enterprises such as Xinxiang Mining Crane Factory, Henan Yuzhong Hoisting Equipment Factory, and Henan Weihua Crane Co., Ltd. have been established successively. There are 31 enterprises in the county that have obtained national production licenses and installation licenses. Their main products extend to electric hoists and complete cranes, etc.Lay the foundation for the formation of clusters.
——Transformation stage: Since the 21st century, in order to further develop the private economy, the county party committee and the county government have actively guided enterprises to carry out comprehensive restructuring and establish limited companies or group companies, laying a solid foundation for the establishment of a modern enterprise system. Since then, many large-scale lifting companies have begun to transform and upgrade their products into intelligent, high-end, and green products. They have continued to absorb funds from all parties, recruit talents, and introduce advanced production equipment, technology, and management experience to form a stable national crane production base and crane accessories market.
Today, Changyuan City is known as the "Hometown of Cranes in China", with 114 crane manufacturing enterprises above designated size and 1,042 supporting manufacturing enterprises, including 2 of the top three domestic enterprises, 1 enterprise with an annual output value of more than 10 billion yuan, 1 enterprise with an annual output value of more than 5 billion yuan, and 27 enterprises with an annual output value of more than 100 million yuan.
"Run the market" to seize opportunities and promote development
Industry insiders interviewed said that Changyuan does not have the advantages to develop hoisting machinery in terms of natural resource conditions or urban industry promotion, but it has given birth to a nationally famous hoisting machinery industry. The reason is mainly due to the indomitable fighting spirit of Changyuan people and the marketing experience accumulated from long-term market entry.
Han Xianbao, the founder of the Weihua brand, started a rice-popcorn dough business with profit calculated by points after graduating from junior high school in 1973. Later, he made a living by selling nails and corner materials. By chance, he discovered that repairing jacks and electric hoists was more profitable than selling scrap iron and screws. He decided to repair jacks and electric hoists, and then started repairing small cranes. After going out to work hard to accumulate funds and acquire technology, he founded Weihua Crane Factory in 1988 and registered Weihua Group in 2004.
At present, Weihua Group has developed into a leading enterprise in the national lifting machinery industry, and has won more than 500 honors such as "National Manufacturing Single Champion Demonstration Enterprise", "China Machinery Industry Top 100", "National Technology Innovation Demonstration Enterprise", "Henan Province Governor Quality Award", etc. Its products serve China's nuclear power, Thousands of large enterprises such as China Coal, China Shenhua, and PetroChina, as well as key national projects such as the West-East Gas Transmission, Beijing Olympic Stadium Construction, South-to-North Water Diversion, and Hangzhou Bay Cross-Sea Bridge, have helped the Shenzhou series spacecraft, Long March series rockets, and Tiangong series detectors successfully fly into space, and have been exported to more than 130 countries and regions. In 2022, Weihua Group's sales revenue will reach 18.5 billion yuan, and its tax payment will exceed 500 million yuan, ranking first among Changyuan comprehensive tax-paying enterprises.
Cui Peijun, chairman of Henan Mining Crane Co., Ltd., was originally a salesman who worked in farming during the busy farming period and sold glasses during the slack period. In 1979, 14-year-old Cui Peijun started out with a borrowed 35 yuan and a glasses case on his back.Running around, gradually realizing the initial accumulation of capital. With the deepening of reform and opening up, Cui Peijun saw the broad development prospects and business opportunities of the lifting industry with his keen business vision. He decisively put down his glasses case and spent all his savings to start a sales business of cranes and accessories in Changge, Xuchang. In the process of promoting cranes, he learned the structural principles, accessories performance, maintenance and other related knowledge of various cranes, laying the foundation for setting up a crane factory in the future.
In April 2002, Henan Mining Crane Co., Ltd., founded by Cui Peijun with an investment of 25 million yuan, broke ground and was officially put into production in November of that year. In 2019, the company complied with the requirements of transformation and upgrading and implemented the Hekuang Intelligent Manufacturing Industrial Park project with a total investment of 2.6 billion yuan. It has been basically completed and all 7 production workshops have been put into operation. One of the standardized workshops of approximately 160,000 square meters is the largest single intelligent production workshop in the Asian crane industry.
This is true for large complete machine manufacturing companies, and even more so for small and medium-sized parts companies. Xinxiang Yuxing Crane Factory is a small and medium-sized parts factory with total assets of 5 million yuan. The manager Xue Fangtian is a well-known skilled craftsman. Subsequently, Xinxiang Yuxing Crane Factory was invested and established, specializing in the production of high-quality lifting machinery spare parts.
"Go to the market first, then build a factory." It is this team of farmer entrepreneurs who use the initial capital accumulated in the circulation field to start a business and then accumulate larger capital in the production field. With their entrepreneurial spirit of hard work, perseverance, and daring to be the first in the world, they have promoted the development of Changyuan's private economy.
"Strong innovation" stands tall and looks for the future
Not long ago, under the guidance of the China Heavy Machinery Industry Association, Weihua Group combined the professional opinions of enterprises, research institutes, and industry technical experts, and after multiple rounds of meetings and continuous discussions, it finally officially released the standards for "New Chinese-style General-purpose Bridge Crane" and "New Chinese-style General-purpose Gantry Crane" and implemented them immediately.
According to reports, compared with traditional crane standards, the new Chinese crane standards released this time have two major characteristics: innovation and internationality. The new Chinese crane standard stipulates that the crane must adopt new process standards. Compared with traditional cranes, the height of the whole machine is reduced by 10%-20%, the dead weight is reduced by 15%-30%, and the wheel pressure is reduced by 15%-30%. The performance indicators are higher than or on par with international standards, which greatly improves the competitiveness of Chinese lifting products in the international market.
"Under the current economic situation, companies in the lifting machinery industry must adhere to stability as the foundation and do a good job in innovation coordination, production coordination, and market coordination, in order to better promote enterprises to achieve sustained and high-quality development." Wang Jisheng, vice chairman and secretary-general of the China Heavy Machinery Industry Association, believes that XinzhongThe type crane is not only a new standard, but also a manifestation of national self-confidence, technological self-confidence, and brand self-confidence.
"Since the beginning of this year, the sales volume of Weihua's new Chinese-style cranes has accounted for more than 40% of the total sales volume. At the same time, export orders have increased by 163% compared with the same period last year, and large orders worth tens of millions of dollars have been signed successively for the Senegal steel project and the Pakistan steel project. The current production schedule has reached October." said Han Hong'an, chairman of Weihua Group.
Through a variety of intelligent hardware with independent intellectual property rights, combined with 5G, AI and other technologies, the crane is equipped with the "most powerful brain" to realize functions such as status monitoring, fault warning, and data analysis of the lifting equipment; with the help of "digital twin technology", through virtual simulation and digital mapping, the actual state of the crane is reproduced. Quickly discover, analyze and repair problems encountered during crane operation, help users and operation and maintenance personnel better understand the problems and processes, and find the best solutions... Seizing the opportunity of the integrated development of digitalization, networking, and intelligence, the Changyuan crane industry uses informatization and intelligence as levers to continue to cultivate new momentum for the development of the private economy.
Zhang Weixin, a member of the National Intelligent Manufacturing Expert Committee and former deputy secretary-general of the China Heavy Machinery Industry Association, said that with the continuous deepening of the Internet concept, users' demand for personalized customized services and high-end equipment manufacturing has increased, putting forward new and higher requirements for the industry. At present, the crane manufacturing industry has high digital indicators in R&D, manufacturing, marketing and other aspects, but the indicators of integrated, interconnected and intelligent collaboration are low, and there is still a lot of room for improvement in high-quality development. Enterprises that have the conditions and foundation must accelerate transformation in terms of equipment replacement, production line replacement, machine replacement, etc., and move towards building digital workshops and intelligent factories.
