SANY is taking to the road – not just at ConExpo 2020, but also on a road near you.
With the new SANY SMG200C-8 motor grader and SSR120C-8 single drum roller, making their first appearance at the big show, SANY is making it easier and more affordable for municipalities and road construction crews to handle road maintenance and repair work. We spoke with Noah Thomas VanOosterhout, road product manager at SANY, to learn more about these new road equipment options and how they continue to deliver on SANY’s promise of More than Machines.
SSR120C-8 Single Drum Roller
SANY’s new roller is a simple yet versatile piece of machinery, ready to help handle compaction work with ease. With a streamlined and easy-to-learn design, this new machine helps make it simple for even new workers to make quick work of any road job. This is a big advantage, particularly with demand growing and more and more young workers entering the workforce.
In just the past year, road, highway and bridge contractors have experienced a surge in hiring and employment to keep up with incredible demand for road work projects. According to ForConstructionPros.com, this includes a 6.1 percent increase in the number of highway, street and bridge contractor employees in November 2019 versus November 2018, a sign of high demand for road-related work.
In turn, this means there are many new hires working to learn and gain experience on the job. One of the most common machines for new operators to learn on at a road construction site is the roller, and the SANY SSR120C-8 offers a very straightforward set of controls that makes it easy to handle.
“Rollers are probably one of the most boring pieces of equipment on a job site,” said VanOosterhout, a 17-year veteran of the equipment industry. “But they’re absolutely necessary. This particular machine is a great option for your first-time operators to use and get familiar with before graduating to more involved and complex machines and equipment.”
“Rollers are simple machines,” said VanOosterhout. “They’re essentially heavy steel and the underlying hydraulics and engine components. Our machines have it all, and still use top-shelf components like a Cummins engine or Rexroth hydraulics that our customers know and trust. Now we can offer a low-complexity roller that does everything municipalities and contractors need at a fraction of the cost of our competitors.”
SMG200C-8 Motor Grader
In addition to the new roller, SANY’s SMG200C-8 motor grader helps make road maintenance and repair work a breeze. Unlike many models on the market today, SANY’s motor grader is built with the needs of municipalities and road contractors in mind, meaning that it’s designed to handle the road upkeep and rebuilding work, representing a large portion of the grading jobs most often performed in the field.
“The market now is so complex,” said VanOosterhout. “Many [competitor machines] are more than what is needed to grade and repair roads. The SMG200C-8 is a fantastic product, and is built specifically for maintaining and repairing roads.”
He added that across the industry, the past few years have seen more and more technology added to the cab of machines. While many of these new advancements offer extra features and capabilities, they also come with a higher price tag – and complexity that’s often not needed. VanOosterhout said that he’d heard from one highway superintendent who said that a competitive equipment dealer in his area tripled the lease rate for its equipment in recent months to account for the higher cost of equipment on the market today.
The SMG200C-8 offers a full range of convenient features that make it both comfortable and easy for the operator to handle. This includes a steering wheel control for roading and joystick controls for grading, an air-conditioned cab and air ride seat with heat, all helping to keep the operator comfortable in any working conditions. Under the hood, a 253-horsepower Cummins QSL9-C250 engine drives the SMG200C-8, which also boasts an 8-speed transmission, operator controlled locking differential and electronically locking rear differential.
“Municipalities handle a lot of roads – and particularly gravel roads. But the [motor grader] market got way too complex for grading something like a gravel road,” said VanOosterhout. “There’s all sorts of guidance and products that simply aren’t needed for that kind of work that drive costs up. With SANY, you get a great option at a price that is half to two-thirds the cost of a competitor’s product.”
Machines for Today’s Needs
With both the SMG200C-8 and SSR120C-8, SANY is offering equipment that municipalities, contractors and fleet owners have been looking for – purpose-built equipment with a low learning curve. As the younger generations start joining the construction workforce, the need has grown in turn to start training these workers to operate equipment like rollers and graders. SANY has even taken that into account when designing these new machines.
“Newer operators come from a generation that grew up playing video games, and operating controllers with joysticks for fun. That makes the learning curve substantially lower for younger operators to handle these joystick grader controls versus older, lever-style controls,” said VanOosterhout.
That’s not to say the controls aren’t easy to learn for veteran operators, either – particularly when compared with some of the other machines on the market today. Today’s experienced grader operator is accustomed to older, lever-operated machinery, which also means that many are choosing to nurse older machines for longer periods of time. These operators don’t want to jump into something that “looks like the Apollo spacecraft,” said VanOosterhout. With the new lines of SANY road equipment, they don’t have to – they can find powerful and durable machines that offer simple controls and only the features they need to get the job done effectively.
More Machines – And More than Machines
With SANY’s new road equipment lines, customers have a new option to tackle their road projects. These machines offer all the operator comforts – air ride heated seats, enclosed cab with HVAC, rear view cameras and more – but without all the extraneous equipment that adds unnecessary complexity – and cost – to otherwise simple work.
Your first opportunity to see these new machines up close is coming soon at ConExpo 2020. Stop in and see SANY at Booth #F7826 during the show, coming up fast – March 10-14 in Las Vegas – or find a local dealer to get more information on availability.