New wheat harvesters help summer harvest, one-touch repair request solves breakdown problems
Original title: National III new machines face their first test, one-touch summer harvest service
Zoomlion staff teach operators how to use the "one-touch repair request" at the wheat harvest site in Houwangzhuang.
On May 25, in Houwangzhuang, Tongzhaipu Town, Tanghe County, Henan Province, the wheat ears were golden and a bumper harvest was in sight. The centralized display event for full mechanization of major crops in Tanghe County was held here. New-style harvesters, plant protection drones, rotary tillers, and seeders took turns appearing on stage, adding a bright touch to this year's summer harvest.
10 new-type wheat harvesters finished harvesting 150 mu of wheat fields in 10 minutes. The grain was bagged and sent to the town grain depot, and the field was left clean. Farmers exclaimed one after another: "We no longer have to worry about straw."
The debut of National III wheat harvesters looks promising
The main model of the harvesters used at the site was the TB70 new compound wheat harvester launched by Zoomlion this year. According to staff, this model is equipped with straw-returning equipment, and wheat straw can be crushed into 5-10 cm lengths, which will not affect corn sowing and can also preserve water and fertilizer when spread on the ground; the model's added straw baler, during harvesting, causes bales 120 cm long, 45 cm wide, and 30 cm high, tied firmly with two plastic ropes, to be "spat out" from above the left track at the rear.
"It is worth mentioning that the Guwang TB70 is also a new-type harvester equipped with an engine that meets National III emission standards." Liu Hongyan, deputy general manager of Zoomlion's agricultural machinery division, said that the National III engine installed in this model adopts electronically controlled unit pump + PTO advanced microcomputer control technology, has strong torque adaptability, and reduces pollutant emissions by 40%. A 7 kg feed rate increases operating efficiency by more than 30%. The product has good overall matching, is suitable for harvesting wet wheat, and extends operating time by two hours. This year, more than 1,000 units of this model have been mass-produced, mainly put into the main wheat-producing areas of the Central Plains, **, and the Northeast market. Since the three-summer operations began, the largest number harvested by a single machine has exceeded 1,000 mu. Judging from the current performance in wheat harvest operations, performance is relatively stable, and stability under continuous operation in high-intensity working conditions will need to be verified through this year's entire wheat harvest period. However, because the overall cost of a machine equipped with a National III engine is 10,000 yuan per unit higher than one with a National II engine, it is suggested that next year's machine purchase subsidy policy should favor machines equipped with National III engines, guide the market and users, and promote the industry's development in a green and environmentally friendly direction.
The wheat harvester market situation is not optimistic
However, compared with the bustling wheat harvest, the overall wheat harvester market seems somewhat quiet. Some experts predict that this year's wheat harvester market decline may reach more than 15%.
There are multiple reasons for this situation. After 12 years of agricultural machinery purchase subsidies, the traditional wheat harvester market has a large stock, and the market has already shifted from "incremental demand" to "replacement demand." Efficient and reliable products are welcomed; the number of machine-buying groups represented by large grain growers, farm owners, and large agricultural machinery cooperatives is increasing, while the number of buying groups represented by small households is declining, affecting market sales.
The increase in overall machine purchase cost brought by the switch to National III, with an increase of about 10%, is too large an investment for users and affects the investment enthusiasm of some users; the reduction in subsidy amounts for single-machine purchases, with reduction ranges varying by region, basically remains at 10%-15%, which has also affected users' purchasing power; the decline in grain prices in 2015 led farmers to control the cost of mechanical crop harvesting, which to a certain extent will affect operators' expected operating income.
"Under such circumstances, Zoomlion's Guwang wheat machine sales have grown against the market trend, and sales are currently up 20% year on year." Liu Hongyan introduced that the Guwang TB60 and upgraded products TB70 and TC80 launched by Zoomlion this year cover 140-160 horsepower, improve product operating efficiency by more than 15%, have been welcomed by new agricultural operating entities, and have a promising market trend. Moreover, it also uses innovative means such as the "Internet + agricultural machinery intelligent service platform" to meet user needs and safeguard user income.
Online + offline summer harvest service is more considerate
In this year's summer harvest process, combining mobile internet, big data, and other information-based means, Zoomlion agricultural machinery integrated its original ERP, DMS, call center, and other information systems to develop an intelligent agricultural machinery service platform. Through innovative information-based means, it achieved a convenient, efficient, precise, and transparent new model of intelligent agricultural machinery service.
According to the introduction, Zoomlion promotes a mobile service business application that uses the "Zoomlion Agricultural Machinery Service Platform" WeChat service account as the customer entry point and the WeChat enterprise account as the internal business channel, moving operations related to service and parts business from the PC end to the mobile phone end, so that enterprise service personnel and dealer service personnel can provide accurate and timely service around customer needs anytime and anywhere.
"In order to help operators apply for service conveniently and quickly via WeChat, we are promoting a sign printed with both the enterprise service account and the machine QR code, so that operators can quickly register information by scanning the code and entering a small amount of information." Chen Jin, manager of the informatization department of Zoomlion's agricultural machinery division, said that once service support is needed later, operators only need to select "one-touch repair request," and information such as the operator's current location and equipment can be intelligently obtained and automatically transmitted to the back-end call center for work dispatch, avoiding the low communication efficiency and information distortion of repair requests made by 400 hotline, and achieving a fast, accurate, and convenient repair request process.
In addition to adopting the innovative service model of the Internet + agricultural machinery intelligent service platform, during this year's three-summer period Zoomlion dispatched professional service engineers and service personnel to provide full-process tracking service for cross-regional users according to operation timing from south to north; at all service stations in wheat-growing areas, national joint guarantee commitments were signed; continuing along the main cross-regional operation routes, it used service direct vehicles with six major functions - "remote diagnosis, information service, training consultation, parts support, repair service, and emergency harvest support" - to implement precise, efficient, and professional service directly to the fields.
Agricultural enterprise cooperation advances full mechanization
The state has made clear that by 2020, about 500 demonstration zones (counties) for basically achieving full mechanization will be built nationwide by crop and by region, with the purpose of creating models, establishing modes, and using points to drive broader areas, so as to rapidly promote full mechanization in major grain and cash crop production areas.
"Zoomlion is committed to becoming an overall solution service provider for agricultural production mechanization." Liu Hongyan said that in the field of full mechanization of major crop production such as wheat, corn, rice, and rapeseed, it has successively developed a series of agricultural machinery products covering production links such as land preparation, planting, harvesting, plant protection, drying, and straw treatment, and through product technological innovation and service model innovation, it has achieved good linkage among all links of agricultural production and is exploring an operation model suitable for full mechanization of domestic agricultural production.
At present, Zoomlion has jointly built a demonstration county for full mechanization of agricultural production with Tanghe County, Henan Province. It is expected that in 2016, Zoomlion will jointly build 7 demonstration counties for full mechanization of agricultural production in Anhui, Hunan, Henan, Jilin, Guangxi, and other places.
In the future, relying on Zoomlion's leading advantages in technology, management, products, and other aspects in the field of agricultural equipment, and combining them with the actual development needs of agricultural production in each county, it will "tailor-made" full mechanization solutions for agricultural production. This will not only help improve the overall agricultural mechanization service level of each county and provide new assistance for the development of local modern agriculture, but will also explore new development models, improve shortcomings in agricultural production links, and provide demonstration samples for full mechanization of agricultural production nationwide. (Reporter Li Chunwen/Photo)