Mega Manufacturing - Season 1

Lingang, China. Home to one of the largest and most modern excavator factory in the world 1000 square meters of production area, equipped with high-tech machines of the latest generation. By this means Chinas market leader Sany wants to become the number one in the world For half a billion euros, the construction machinery giant has built the mega factory. Now 1,600 specialists ensure a breathtaking output: theoretically every ten minutes a new excavator can roll off the production line In order to achieve the enormous number of strokes, the huge production halls are equipped with the latest generation of robots. They process up to 250 tons of steel every day. In some areas the robots have completely taken over the production of the excavators. In the state-of-the-art welding plant, for example, twenty-four workers were replaced by thirty-two robots. They do the work in half the time. And this is not the only advantage: they are more precise, safer and much more cost-effective in the long-run. Sanys top-seller in the mid-range class: the excavator SY215. Its price: one hundred and ten thousand euros. This makes it cheaper than any competitor model from Europe or United States. Its most spectacular feature: a blackbox that sends all of the recorded vehicle-data to the control centre in China. In real-time. The Chinese produce the twenty-three ton monster in just twenty-four working hours. The specialists have to work under extreme time pressure. This is also the case at the so-called marriage section - where the heavily swaying, twelve-tonne upper part has to be moved with millimetre precision onto the narrow slewing ring. The specialists also have only ten minutes at this station. So that Sany can deliver excavators at record speed - on the way to becoming the world market leader.