Sany Heavy Industry is an innovative and nation-level key high-tech enterprise. In 2002, the Technology Center of the company was accredited by the Ministry of Science and Technology of China as national enterprise technology center. The center consists of R&D institutes of pumping machinery, road machinery, lifting machinery, excavating machinery, pile driving machinery etc. which are located in Changsha, Shanghai, Beijing, and Kunshan of China, Maharashtra State of India, Georgia State of America, Nordrhein-Westfalen of Germany and so on. R&D Institutes of Sany Beijing Heavy Machinery Company, Sany Shanghai Science and Technology, Sany Kunshan Heavy Machinery were acknowledged as provincial level enterprise technology centers. By now, Sany Heavy Industry owns two national post-doctoral research stations and various platforms for innovative researches, including Concrete Machinery Engineering Technology Research Center and Sany Heavy Industry Industrial Design Center in Hunan Province, and Crawler Construction Machinery Engineering Technology Research Center and High-performance Excavator Engineering Technology Research Center in Jiangsu Province.

Sany Heavy Industry adheres to the development philosophy of “All from Innovation”, and 5% to 7% of its sales revenue goes to research and development. The Sany Changsha headquarters and Sany industrial parks have their built-in R&D office buildings. The Testing and Examination Center of the Changsha Headquarters has so far incorporated nine laboratories dedicated respectively to such functions as construction machinery remote monitoring and fault diagnosis, hydraulic testing, electromechanical hydraulic control and simulation, diesel engine testing, boom fatigue (service life) testing for concrete pump truck, welding testing, strength (stress) testing, wear-resistant material testing, and automatic detection line for vehicle chassis. The company has been hailed “National Advanced CAD User” and established a R&D information integration system with PDM system serving as its core driving force. With help of this system, Sany can realize central management, safe R&D data sharing, and 24-hour joint research and development, thus fully promoting technologies such as 3D modeling, mechanism simulation, finite element analysis and hydraulic system simulation in product designing.

By the end of 2010, Sany Heavy Industry employed 5443 R&D engineers in various fields, making it the largest R&D team in the industry worldwide. Thirty-two of the engineers have a Doctor’s Degree and 2300 of them own a Master’s Degree. Yi Xiaogang, Sany’s spearhead of R&D, principal expert and chief engineer was honored one of the “Top 10 National Outstanding Science and Technology Workers” for 2010, and won other titles including Senior Engineer at research associates’ level, Doctoral Supervisor, Vice-chairman of Chinese Mechanical Engineering Society, Vice-chairman of China Industry-University-Research Institute Collaboration Association, Vice-chairman of Hunan Association for Science and Technology, member of Hunan Academician and Expert Consultative Committee, member of 10th CPPCC Hunan Provincial Committee, winner of National New Century Talents Award, and Expert Enjoying State Council Special Allowance.

Sany has carried out extensive technical cooperation with universities and research institutes from both home and abroad. For example, Sany has set up “Sany Research Institute in Central South University”, co-built “Sany-HUST Joint Laboratory for Advanced Manufacturing Technology” together with Huazhong University of Science and Technology, and collaborated with more than 30 universities to carry out technical researches, including Tsinghua University, Zhejiang University, Shanghai Jiaotong University, Hunan University, and Chang’an University and so on. With support from its own R&D capabilities and collaboration with universities and research institutes, Sany Heavy Industry has taken the leading place among its peers in China in terms of technological innovation. Sany has made many technical innovation achievements, including China’s first 37m truck-mounted concrete pump, world’s first fully hydraulic motor grader, the 72m truck-mounted concrete pump with the longest boom in the world, world’s first foamless asphalt-cement mortar semi-trailer, the 1000-t crawler crane – the largest tonnage in Asia, China’s largest 200t fully hydraulic crawler excavator, Asia’s first large-tonnage rotary drilling rig and so on.  In 2010 alone, Sany has applied for 704 patents, including 261 inventions. Sany was awarded “National Advanced Unit for Patents” and “National IPR Model Enterprise/Institution” successively by State Intellectual Property Office of the People’s Republic of China. In 2010, the patent of invention - “An Energy-saving Method for Concrete Pumps”, developed by Sany Heavy Industry, won the top patent award in China – National Patent Gold Award. At present, Sany Heavy Industry Co., Ltd has obtained more than 1200 authorized patents.

Sany has organized and participated in drafting and amendments of totally 54 national and industrial standards successively, and won “Award for Innovative Contribution to National Standard” twice. Sany has successively undertaken 6 projects of National 863 Program, 7 national new key product projects, 7 projects of National Torch Plan, and near 30 national research subjects including R&D projects for national key technical equipments, special projects on national enterprises’ technical center innovative capability, transformation projects of national key technological achievements and so on. Sany has won a total of 28 awards in the field of technical innovation awarded by provincial government and above, including “R&D and Application of Key Technologies for Concrete Pumps” as the Second Prize of National Technological Advancement Award in 2005 and “Sany Heavy Industry Technological Innovation Platform for Engineering Machineries” as the Second Prize of National Technological Advancement Award in 2010. The two awards are obtained for the first time in the engineering machinery industry and in Hunan Province in terms of national awards of “Enterprise Technological Innovation Projects”, and also the highest national technology innovation award obtained in China’s engineering machinery industry to date.