After almost 20 hours of traveling and the airline losing our luggage, Martin Muller the Cosira Group workshop manager and I arrived in Changsha, China. We quickly discovered that in this small city of 5 million people, everything was fast paced.
Once the weekend was over and we had clean clothes to wear, the Zoomlion crawler crane division welcomed all the trainees with an opening ceremony and the day to day plan of what was going to be covered on the QUY series, and when we would be at the factory. The Zoomlion training classes for Rexroth hydraulics, the Cummins engine, the PTC computer system, and the hours spent on the electrics were very informative. This was mainly due to the organization of the Zoomlion training department as well as interactive software that was easily understood by all. Upon arriving at the Zoomlion crawler crane factory, I was personally amazed at the size of the Zoomlion Industrial Park which did not only consist of the crawler division. We were again welcomed by the Zoomlion technology department who walked Martin and I through the assembly line. The facilities that Zoomlion Company have are state of the art. This included plasma cutting machines, line boring and high tensile steel argon welding. This is only the start of it all as Zoomlion Company as a whole seems to be improving on a daily basis. Martin and I had the opportunity to spend some time operating the smallest of the QUY series, on which we did our practical part of the training. The QUY 50 and 70 crawlers are very versatile and are well balanced cranes all round. Although ANE Equipment have not brought any of these small crawlers into South Africa, Zoomlion informed Martin and I that they have been selling a large amount of these cranes to other parts of the word. Even though these crawlers are very small, I do think South African companies will find use for them in the near future.
In conclusion I’d like to say that the Chinese are very friendly and hospitable people, and they have a keen interest in the rest of the world. I was fortunate enough for ANE Equipment to afford me the opportunity to see Changsha China and Zoomlion first hand, and the entire experience was wonderful.
