A view of the exhibits on display at at Bauma China in Shanghai New International Expo Center.

Doosan Group Chairman Park Jeong-won gestures as he looked around Bauma China in Shanghai New International Expo Center. (Photos: Doosan Group)

Doosan Group Chairman Park Jeong-won stressed digital transformation to strengthen its presence at the Chinese market.

Chairman Park said, “Quality needs to be a fundamental base, and now there must be digital transformation to serve as a game changer in the Chinese market.”

Park called for digital innovation to serve as a game changer in China, the world’s largest construction machinery market.

Doosan has grown up with “chimney industries,” such as construction machinery and power generation plant, but the group is now gearing up for an advent of the 4th Industrial Revolution, combining the conventional manufacturing industry with ICT.

He made the remarks after looking around Bauma China, Asia’s largest construction machinery exhibition in Shanghai New International Expo Center on Nov. 29. He examined the current situation of the Chinese market and ways of ramping up its presence there. Park was accompanied by key Doosan executives, including Doosan Group CTO & Vice Chairman Lee Hyun-soon, Doosan Corp. Vice Chairman Dong Hyun-soo and Doosan Infracore President Sohn Dong-hyun.

Chairman Park himself experienced the operation of a 5G-based construction machinery remote control technology. He steered an excavator at Doosan Infracore’s plant in Incheon, some 880 km from the 5G remote-control station installed at the Doosan pavilion of the exhibition. It is the first time in the world the operation of construction machinery has been steered via remote control in reality, not on a simulator.

Doosan Infracore originally planned two rounds of a session of demonstrating the remote control between Shanghai and Incheon, but the trial operation was done all day long without interruption at the request of local dealers and spectators.

Doosan Infracore operates Doosan Connected, a telematics service controlling construction machineries remotely using ICT on the Chinese, European and North American markets.

The company has begun to upgrade construction machinery and automation technology under an investment contract with PoteNit, a self-driving system development startup.

Chairman Park urged his officials on the scene to upgrade advanced technologies and implement digital innovation tasks to explore new growth engines, saying that the conventional manufacturing business’s differentiation strategies via digital transformation has a greater effect. Chairman Park has paid keen attention to the Chinese market.

He chose China as his first overseas business trip destination after taking office, and he had since toured there more than once yearly.

Doosan Infracore sold 1,0851 excavators in China last year, a two-fold jump over the previous year. The company is on a roll so far this year as the number of excavators sold during the first nine months of the year topped the previous year’s figure. Doosan Infracore’s sales amounts in China jumped from 600 billion won in 2015 to 1.4 trillion won last year.