Editor's Comment: Bauma China's emerging market focus

Now heading towards its seventh edition, the Bauma China exhibition has wasted no time establishing itself as one of the major international events for the global construction equipment industry since the inaugural event in 2002. When it was last held in 2012 the exhibition filled all of the 300,000 m² of indoor and outdoor space at the Shanghai New International Expo Centre (SNIEC) and drew in some 177,000 visitors.

That puts it in the same league, or even slightly ahead of other major shows like ConExpo-Con/Agg, which is held every three years in Las Vegas, US and Intermat in Paris, France, which is also on a three-year cycle. But it still has quite a way to go to overtake the ‘mother’ exhibition, Bauma in Germany, which filled 570,000 m² of exhibition space in 2013 and attracted 530,000 visitors.

But Bauma China has clearly arrived as THE major Asian show for the industry. Of course the bulk of the visitors are form China, but it draws in plenty of people from neighbouring (and not so neighbouring countries), and treats them to a world-class exhibition experience.

An interesting point about Bauma China, is that while the other major league exhibitions are held in developed countries, the Shanghai show is the biggest event in its kind in an emerging economy. This makes it a very different experience to the likes of Bauma, ConExpo and Intermat in terms of the visitor profile and what is being launched.

In terms of new machines, Bauma China has very little, if any, focus on the Tier 4 Final/Stage IV emission laws that are so important in Europe, Japan and North America, and which are driving equipment design for the developed world. Many emerging economies have no diesel engine regulations for the off-highway sector, and those that do tend not to go higher than the equivalent of Tier 3, because of the scarcity of high-quality, low sulphur diesel in these countries.

But that is not to say there isn’t new equipment or thoughtfully-designed machines on display at Bauma China. There is plenty to see at the show, but the innovation is in different areas to emission control.

The key for companies looking to succeed in China and other emerging markets is to make machines that are at the right technology level, while being durable and reliable. They may not have as much technology on board as the equivalent machine in Europe, Japan or the US, but the challenges of designing machines to work long hours in harsh environments without breaking down, while being simple to service and repair is massive. And to do all that at a competitive price starts to make things properly difficult.

Packing something full of technology and making it very expensive is relatively easy, but making something fit for purpose at a keen price - ‘value engineering’ - is a significant challenge

That is a different set of challenges to producing machines with low exhaust emissions, but to do it well requires innovation. So Bauma China should have some interesting machine launches and surprises on show, and without the constraints of the latest engine emissions laws, manufacturers arguably have a freer rein to show what they can do.