From 'Iron Knot' to 'Thinking', the 'Scenario based' Transformation of China's Construction Machinery Industry

Release date 2025-12-28 15:38:11 Reading 14

used excavator At the automated port terminal in Shandong, unmanned intelligent loaders interact in real-time with the dispatch system to independently complete container loading and unloading tasks; In Shaanxi's smart mines, excavators use a 3D perception system to automatically identify the boundaries of the ore layer and achieve precise stripping; At the construction site of high-altitude railways, cranes can dynamically adjust operating parameters based on changes in wind speed and load

This is not a science fiction movie scene, but a real scene happening in the current Chinese construction machinery industry. With the recent release of the first batch of 15 pilot level intelligent factories, multiple construction machineryused excavator enterprises' intelligent factories are prominently listed, marking a substantial stage of transformation in the construction machinery industry. This traditional manufacturing field is undergoing a deep transformation in production methods.

In other words, industry enterprises are no longer satisfied with simply selling "steel giants" such as excavators and cranes, but are turning to providing customized and intelligent full lifecycle solutions for specific operational scenarios such as mines, ports, and farmland. The strategic transformation from "product orientation" to "scenario driven" reshapes the industry's competitive landscape and value chain.

used excavatorAs Su Zimeng, President of the China Construction Machinery Industry Association, said, a new round of technological revolution represented by artificial intelligence is rapidly approaching. The construction machinery industry has always had a tradition of closely integrating with the new technological revolution and achieving innovative development in the industry. In response to the new changes in demand in the construction machinery market and to meet the different needs of users, industry enterprises continue to fight the battle of upgrading the industrial foundation and modernizing the industrial chain. The proportion of major technological equipment and new high-end components continues to increase, and the transformation towards high-end, intelligent, and green products continues to accelerate

Source: Photo Network

Intelligent Manufacturing Navigation: From "Iron Knot" to "Thinking"

For a long time, construction machinery has been regarded as a representative of traditional manufacturing industry - heavy equipment, labor-intensive assembly, and significant cyclical fluctuations. However, with the restructuring of the global industrial chain and changes in the domestic labor structure, intelligence has become an inevitable choice for this industry.

From the list of leading intelligent factories, whether it is the globally customized agile delivery mobile crane intelligent factory of Xuzhou Heavy Machinery Co., Ltd. or the excavator shared manufacturing intelligent factory built by Zoomlion Heavy Industry Science and Technology Co., Ltd., the engineering machinery industry has been selected. They are both explorers and guides, and their commonality lies in teaching the "iron knot" of engineering machinery to think, transforming from construction tools to data collection terminals, intelligent decision-making nodes, and industrial interconnection hubs, injecting new intelligent manufacturing momentum into infrastructure construction in China and even the world.

1200 tons, 1600 tons, 1800 tons, 2000 tons, 2600 tons, 3000 tons, 4000 tons... Since 2017, XCMG has repeatedly broken the lifting records of thousand ton wheeled cranes created by itself. The project of "Mobile Crane Intelligent Factory for Global Customization and Agile Delivery" is just to solve the industry pain points such as large structure control difficulties and strong operational risks, deeply integrate 5G full connection, digital twins and industrial Internet, and reconstruct the manufacturing paradigm of "multi variety, small batch, high customization". Through modular design and cloud collaboration, customers can participate in customization online, effectively balancing personalized needs and production efficiency.

Leading level intelligent factories are not simply hardware construction, their core breakthrough lies in facing the reality of global mass customization and highly discrete industries, focusing on customer needs, and creating a new model of 'Seven Star Navigation' with industry characteristics. "Yang Dongsheng, Chairman and Party Secretary of XCMG Group and XCMG Machinery, summarized the factory in this way.

used excavatorThe so-called 'Seven Star Navigation' is based on talent, covering seven dimensions such as strategic guidance, mechanism innovation, platform construction, and ecological creation. It goes beyond the intelligent transformation of a single link and shifts towards a systematic transformation covering the entire life cycle of research and development design, production and manufacturing, and operation management, forming a replicable and promotable new form and model of intelligent manufacturing.

The selection of a leading intelligent factory is actually a comprehensive test of the overall digital capability of the enterprise, "a person who has been in the construction machinery industry for many years told a reporter from China Industry News." The engineering machinery enterprises that can be selected not only lead in the investment of automation equipment, but also reach new heights in data-driven, system integration, and mode innovation

Guoxin Securities analyst Ge Shoujing also stated that as the highest level in the gradient cultivation system of intelligent factories, the leading level intelligent factory aims to create a globally leading benchmark for intelligent manufacturing and explore new forms of manufacturing in the future.

Boundary melting: from "solo performance" to collaborative sharing

When night falls, the earth moving machinery park of Zhonglian Smart Industry City is still brightly lit. On the flexible production line, the 67th configuration of excavator is being assembled - this is a hybrid model designed specifically for extreme cold conditions in Northern Europe, with only 15 orders worldwide. In the traditional mode, such customized products are either expensive or will not be put into production at all.

In the "manufacturing universe" of shared factories, the artificial boundary between niche demands and scale efficiency is melting. The production of each device is a dynamic reorganization of manufacturing resources; The fulfillment of each order is a validation of the intelligence of the manufacturing system.

This is the intelligent factory for shared manufacturing of excavators by Zoomlion Heavy Industry Science and Technology Co., Ltd., which has achieved three global firsts: for the first time, the full process intelligent manufacturing of the six core manufacturing links of excavators has been realized; for the first time, efficient shared mixed flow production of more than 70 types of excavators has been achieved; and for the first time, cross variety collaborative sharing and linkage of excavators, cranes, pump trucks, and aerial work vehicles have been realized, forming a new paradigm of shared manufacturing of construction machinery under the "Belt and Road" initiative.

Specifically, in the shared manufacturing mode, the three common manufacturing centers of the excavator factory, namely the medium thick plate steel cutting center, high-used excavatorstrength steel cutting center, and stamping center, not only provide services for their own production, but also collaborate and share with the nearby crane factory, pumping factory, and high-speed machinery factory that are uniformly planned and constructed.

The application rate of artificial intelligence technology in this area exceeds 80%, with an average of one excavator being taken offline every 6 minutes. The three core indicators of production cycle, replacement time, and manufacturing cycle are all the shortest in the global construction machinery field, "said Zeng Guang, General Manager of Zhongke Yungu at Zoomlion.

In addition, the shared manufacturing intelligent factory has also achieved heavy-duty automated three-dimensional logistics that replaces storage with transportation throughout the entire process, building a "basic artery". Through an air ground integrated heavy-duty pulsating logistics conveying system, all structural components can be cached and transported; Based on self-developed AI demand forecasting and delivery model, materials can be automatically delivered to workstations with 100% accuracy, reducing inventory of structural components by 70% and solving the core difficulty of precise logistics distribution of different materials in shared mixed production.

If traditional manufacturing solves the problem of large-scale production, then shared manufacturing solves the contradiction between personalized and fluctuating demand and scale efficiency. Of course, shared manufacturing is not limited to within factories, but also extends to the upstream and downstream of the industrial chain. It is understood that suppliers can deeply collaborate with host factories through digital systems and quality management platforms, achieving information transparency and controllable processes, and comprehensively improving the response speed and quality management capabilities of supply chain enterprises. They are no longer traditional suppliers, but collaborative partners in manufacturing capabilities.

Scene Breaking: From "Selling Equipment" to "Building Ecology"

At the 2025 Integration of Informatization and Digital Transformation Conference held on December 8th, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology officially released the "Reference Guidelines for Scenario based and Graph based Promotion of Digital Transformation in Key Industries (2025 Edition)" (hereinafter referred to as the "Guidelines"). As one of the 14 key industries, the construction machinery industry has been included in the "Guidelines". Its digital transformation scenario map starts from four key links, including product research and development design, component manufacturing, final assembly integration, sales and service, and 46 typical scenarios. It horizontally displays the level of digital collaboration in key links of the industry chain, and vertically reflects the degree of digital integration of "research production service management supply" business within each link. At the same time, it conducts a combined analysis of the digital status, needs, and pain points of multiple scenarios.

The "Guidelines" point out that promoting the digital transformation of the construction machinery industry through the "one map and four lists" can help relevant enterprises clarify their transformation priorities, find the right transformation path, reduce transformation investment, and gradually achieve digital, networked, and intelligent transformation.

The key to the implementation of intelligence lies in solving scenario based requirements. For enterprises in the construction machinery industry, scenario based transformation is not only focused on the production and manufacturing end, but also reflected in the field of operational applications, shifting from "the weight of steel" to "the ability to solve complex engineering problems". To this end, many enterprises have established pre research and development service units consisting of "technical experts+product managers+service teams" for core operational areas such as infrastructure, mining, ports, agriculture and forestry, and municipal services, in order to cope with complex and ever-changing construction scenarios.

used excavatorAt this year's China (Beijing) International Construction Machinery Exhibition, Guangxi Liugong Machinery Co., Ltd. presented a large-scale smart mining solution. The plan focuses on large-scale, electrification, and intelligence, and is composed of core component solutions, complete system solutions, comprehensive energy solutions, and complete intelligent solutions. Unmanned excavators operate accurately according to instructions, unmanned mining trucks automatically plan routes based on intelligent scheduling systems, unmanned leveling machines level and unmanned road rollers compact in one go, and a series of construction machinery achieve unmanned grouping operation.

used excavatorNot only that, the traditional business model of "one hit buying and selling" for construction machinery enterprises is giving way to flexible methods such as "equipment leasing+operation services" and "charging based on workload". From selling equipment to operating scenarios, a sustainable and win-win ecosystem is being built.

In recent years, the structure of the construction machinery industry has been continuously optimized, and large, medium, small, and micro enterprises have strengthened cooperation for mutual benefit and win-win results. Foreign capital, private enterprises, and state-owned enterprises have learned from each other and developed together. The development advantages of industrial clusters have continued to play a role, and the collaborative ability of industrial clusters has significantly increased. Su Zimeng emphasized that industry enterprises should capture new application scenarios, continue to promote "machine for human", and find new market growth points; To optimize the service model and combine it with the needs of construction scenarios, we need to provide personalized one-stop services including design, manufacturing, and service; To innovate service concepts and provide complete solutions based on changes in demand and construction task requirements.

It can be foreseen that the competitive focus of the construction machinery industry has shifted from traditional "horsepower" and "tonnage" to intelligent perception, collaborative control, and decision optimization capabilities centered on data. Faced with the extremely high requirements of highly customized R&D cycles, cost control, and supply chain flexibility, how to extract common requirements in different scenarios and promote standardization of key modules may become a key issue for the industry to reduce costs and increase efficiency.used excavator used excavator used excavator

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From 'Iron Knot' to 'Thinking', the 'Scenario based' Transformation of China's Construction Machinery Industry

High quality and low price

We guarantee the quality of each machine and promise to offer you the most favorable price.

From 'Iron Knot' to 'Thinking', the 'Scenario based' Transformation of China's Construction Machinery Industry

We guarantee the quality of each machine and promise
to offer you the most favorable price.