The invention and manufacturing of the coal wining machine played a crucial role in promoting the rapid growth of the modern world coal industry. It replaced the heavy manual mining operations of miners, greatly improving mining efficiency and production. Throughout the more than 150 years of development, high cutting ability, high reliability, and high intelligence have always been the core starting points for technological innovation in coal wining machines. The production capacity of coal wining machines is closely related to their functions and intelligence, and roboticization will be an important innovation direction for future coal wining machines.

International Brand

Before the 1950s, the vast majority of global coal winning machine production enterprises were distributed in European countries and the United States, with only Japan's Komatsu in Asia, and only the Jining Machinery Manufacturing Institute (predecessor of Jixi Coal Mine Machinery Factory) established in 1933 in China. In the 1990s, due to the decline of mining output of foreign coal mines and the increase of coal mine well types, the demand for coal winning machine gradually shrank, forcing coal winning machine manufacturers to embark on the road of mergers and acquisitions. At present, the five major overseas coal winning machine brands are Caterpillar in the United States, Komatsu in Japan, Eickhoff in Germany, Sandvik in Sweden, and Famur in Poland.

For Caterpillar, in July 2011, after acquiring Bucyrus International for $8.6 billion, Caterpillar greatly increased Caterpillar's mining machinery manufacturing strength and product coverage, forming a fully workstation systematic mining equipment, thus establishing its dominant position in the global mining equipment field. At present, the CM series continuous mining machines have been formed, including models CM210, CM230, CM340, CM445, and CM845 (with anchor bolt machine).

For Komatsu, in April 2017, Komatsu Group acquired JOY for $3.7 billion and renamed it Komatsu Mining Company. Mining equipment brands such as P&H, JOY, and Mombasa are all integrated into the Komatsu series. In 1988, Komatsu acquired Dresser Company in the United States, acquiring Dresser's mining dump trucks, large loaders, bulldozer production lines, and well-known brands. In 1996, Komatsu formed a joint venture with Demark to form Demark Komatsu. In 1999, Komatsu purchased all its equity and acquired a large mining hydraulic excavator product line. In 2011, companies such as Jiamusi Mining Equipment Co., Ltd., Jixi Coal Mining Machinery Co., Ltd., Huainan Mining Equipment Co., Ltd., Wuxi ShengDa Machinery Manufacturing Co., Ltd., and Qingdao Electric Co., Ltd., which were merged and restructured by JOY, were also included in Komatsu Mining Company. As a result, Komatsu quickly became a complete manufacturer of underground and open-pit mining equipment, and three major mergers and acquisitions led to its rapid growth into a mining equipment manufacturing giant, covering all mining production equipment. In April 2017, the 14CM30 continuous mining machine was used in the 401-coal seam of the Budryk coal mine in Onontowiz, Poland, one of the world's deepest coal mines, with a maximum propulsion speed of 27 m/min. In October 2019, Komatsu Group's Chinese company manufactured EJM2 × 170 anchor digging integrated machine.

For Eickhoff, it has become the only independent growth brand without mergers and acquisitions, with a development history of over 160 years. In 1990, the first airborne computer controlled automated coal wining machine was launched. In 1992, a sensor-controlled coal wining machine was developed, pioneering the field of automated cutting. In 1994, the SL series coal wining machine was launched.

For Sandvik, in 2007, Sandvik acquired the Austrian Steel Union Tunneling Machine Division, launched the MB670 new generation anchor excavator in the same year, and launched the world's first MB380 intelligent anchor excavator in 2016. In 2019, Sandvik acquired Newtrax, a leading player in the field of underground mining automation, and combined its own OptiMine intelligent system with Newtrax technology, strengthening Sandvik's leadership position in the fields of mining automation and digitization.

For Famur, in 2002, Famur in Poland began the process of group restructuring, currently having 37 companies and 7 production factories.

Chinese Brand

Chinese coal winning machine brand enterprises mainly include middling coal Science and Engineering Group Shanghai Research Institute (affiliated to TianDi Technology Co., Ltd.), Shanghai ChuangLi Mining Equipment Co., Ltd., Xi'an Coal Mining Machinery Co., Ltd., LinZhou Heavy Machinery Group Co., Ltd., Shandong Energy Group Equipment Manufacturing (Group) Co., Ltd., Jilin Province Machinery Manufacturing Co., Ltd., and Hunan Coal Mining Machinery Co., Ltd. In 2022, China will produce 709 coal winning machines throughout the year, of which 272 will be produced by middling coal Science and Engineering Group Shanghai Research Institute, ranking first, followed by Shanghai ChuangLi Mining Equipment Co., Ltd. and Xi'an Coal Mining Machinery Co., Ltd. These three enterprises rank top three, far ahead of other coal machinery enterprises.

In 2023, the "Research and Application of Key Technologies for High Power Adaptive Coal Winning Machine Adapting to a Minimum Mining Height of 1.3m Coal Seam" project of China Coal Science and Technology Shanghai Research Institute was successfully applied in the ShiGeTai Coal Mine in Shen Dong, setting a world record for an annual production of 2.6 million tons of coal seam with a minimum mining height of 1.3m. The production capacity of this series of coal Winning machines can reach three times that of the Polish Famur Black Dragon coal Winning machine under the same working face conditions. The successful development of this project has established the world leading position of thin coal seam coal Winning machines in China.

Foreign brand enterprises have formed aircraft carriers in the mining equipment manufacturing industry, covering the complete sets of mining (drilling), mining (digging), and transportation (loading) equipment required for underground and open-pit mining, forming an innovative chain from basic materials, product design, equipment processing, equipment control, and product service. By comparison, domestic brand enterprises have not yet formed such research and development capabilities and quality assurance systems. In addition, in response to the high efficiency and efficiency production goals pursued by mining enterprises, domestic coal winning machine enterprises still have weaknesses such as low system concentration and small product coverage, and have not formed international well-known brands. The international market competitiveness still needs to be further improved.

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