The trajectory of China's largest crankshaft-maker

Tianrun Crankshaft Co., Ltd. is China’s largest crankshaft-manufacturer who specializes in the Tian-brand engine crankshafts. The company currently employs 2028 people (about 400 of them are technicians) and covers an area of 366,000 square meters. With total assets of 1.26 billion yuan ($181 million), Tianrun has an annual output of more than 500,000 forged-steel crankshafts and ductile iron crankshafts.

The company's leading products are the Cummins C, L series, Syster WD615 series, Shanghai Diesel D6114 series and 6135 series, 6110 series and 6108 series. All of these products have been chosen as the OEM products for the auto assembly by Chinese carmakers or their joint ventures such as Dongfeng Cummins Engine Co., Ltd., Weichai Power Co.,Ltd., FAW Jiefang Wuxi Diesel Engine Works, Deutz-FAW (Dalian) Engine Co., Ltd., Shanghai Diesel Engine Co., Ltd., Shanghai Automotive Co., Guangxi Yuchai Machinery Co., Ltd., and Nanjing Fiat Auto Co.,Ltd. Along with the China-made cars, the products of Tianrun have been sold to more than 20 countries and regions.

Sun Haitao, General Manager of Tianrun Crankshaft Co., Ltd.

Gasgoo.com: Could you tell us how your company has grown up be China’s largest maker of crankshafts? What significant phases has it undergone since its foundation?

Sun Haitao: Tianrun was founded in 1954 as an agricultural machinery company. As the then Chinese premier Zhoun Enlai instructed, farm machinery enterprises must be set up in every county and all the county-based companies of components could be united to make complete machines. That’s why our original crankshaft factory was born in our county. More than 40 years later, our state-run company set up a join venture with Merrill Lynch of the U.S. in 1996 and was named Tianrun Crankshaft Co., Ltd., an enterprise specializing in the making of crankshafts for commercial vehicles. Since then our company transformed its business targets from the single farm machinery market to the automobile OEM market.  

In 2006, when its cooperation with ThyssenKrupp AG was not approved of by the state regulators, Tianrun reviewed its strategy for future development and decided to answer the government’s call for developing own brands and invigorating the national industry. But now Tianrun has readjusted its growth strategy to make itself a global enterprise of own brands. 

Gasgoo.com: As you mentioned, Tianrun crankshaft has been focusing on the development of commercial vehicles (CV). But looking at the next five to ten years ahead, China's passenger vehicle (PV) market will probably see bigger growth. How do you balance these two businesses?

Sun Haitao: Developing crankshafts for heavy duty CVs is, and will continue to be, our priority in the short term. We do not want to move away from our position in the CV market. But after we shore up our capability in the CV sector we will turn to develop sedan crankshafts. To make it specific, we already built a 150,000 unit-a-year manufacturing base for sedan crankshafts early in 2002, and we plan to further boost this capacity in future.

Gasgoo.com: And how to boost and use your sedan crankshaft capacities in future?

Sun Haitao: We plan to boost our crankshaft capacities for sedans to at least 1 million units in the long-term future, but if all goes well, we may hit an annual sales target of 500,000 crankshafts in the next three years. Eventually we will develop evenly between the CV and PV businesses.

Gasgoo.com: As Tianrun is already the number one CV crankshaft supplier in China, but what's your position in the global markets?

Sun Haitao: We might be the fourth or fifth largest crankshaft-maker worldwide for the time being. But we aim to become the third largest to closely follow ThyssenKrupp, Bharat Forge in future.