LiuGong Celebrates its 100,000th Wheel Loader sale in Beijing
Officals gather for the celebration
Although LiuGong has been going for 48 years, with wheel loaders starting in 1966 production was relatively static for many years at around 2500 to 3000 units a year until 2000.
Since then though, it has stepped up production considerably, to nearly 18,000 units in 2005, to cater for booming Chinese construction projects and for export markets, LiuGong is the wheel loader market leader in that country and second in the world and by 2010 it expects to have made and sold its second lot of 200,000 wheel loaders.
LiuGong Machinery Australia’s Pty Ltd’s managing director Denis Robson, has marketed LiuGong equipment here since 2004. In Beijing it was evident that he has established a close relationship with the people at the LiuGong factory at Liuzhou in the south west of the country, about 250km from the Vietnamese border. Not only has Robson marketed more than a few dozen LiuGong machines, he has also fed back to the factory, refinements that buyers here would like incorporated.
That has been invaluable, said company vice chairman and president Zeng Guang’an, when I met him at Conexpo. Speaking excellent English he said that by incorporating Robson’s feedback, the company was now in a position to soon enter the sophisticated North American and European markets.
In a presentation to dealers last year, he said LiuGong aimed to create value through cooperation. “The partnerships we treasure are open, sincere, proactive, trusting, supportive, mutually-beneficial and progressive,” he said.
Admittedly LiuGong has marketed its machines in Vietnam, Singapore, Pakistan, Kazakhstan, Iran, the UAE, Italy and Africa as well and has feedback from those countries too. But Robson’s feedback, the result of 30 years in the industry, has been exemplary, Zeng said.
While the company expects to grow from export revenues of $54m in 2005 to $270m in 2010, in the same period, it expects domestic sales to grow to be worth $2.8bn.
Now, because of the LiuGong machines’ prices, reliability and most importantly – Robson estimates a loader or excavator built to order in Liuzhou can be in a buyer’s hands here in four weeks – he expects to import about 100 machines complete with tires in the next year, about half of which have been pre sold.
He says the state-owned LiuGong factory, sources vital componentry from overseas, to enhance perceptions of buyers who might not regard Chinese brand components with the respect they may deserve.
So LiuGong makes a range of wheel loaders ranging from 160 to 231kW and they have Cummins engines, ZF axles and transmissions, Kawasaki hydraulics, German Grammar seats and standard and optional German Centralized lubricating systems.
With about 4.5 million students graduating every year form Chinese universities, a skills shortage is not something to unduly worry LiuGong planners. I was told that about 10% of those graduates are engineers which gives a company like LiuGong nearly 500,000 potential engineers to choose from.
So the company can hand pick the top grade engineers, to maintain
it’s more than 3000 employee work force, and its reputation
for quality and fuss free volume production.
Source:The Earthmover & Civil Contactor
