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History of Komatsu Equipment

Komatsu equipment are said to be the most trusted and reliable equipment and perhaps this is why after Caterpillar, they are the second largest producer of construction equipment in the world. The company makes more than 70% of its income by selling equipments pertaining to mining and construction. The equipment they sell comprises of hydraulic excavators, bulldozers, motor graders, dump trucks etc. Thus, Komatsu are into almost all heavy equipments. However, they have not limited themselves to manufacturing construction equipments. They also have their hands in producing electronic items like silicon wafers and polycrystalline silicon. They seem to earn around 7% of their revenue by producing these electronic items. Thus Komatsu are multi producers and have their hands on ample of stuffs which prove them as market leaders as far as construction and mining equipments are concerned.

Komatsu came into existence in the year 1921, when the ironworks parted their ways from the mining company and thus formed a new company. The founder of Komatsu was Tashiro Shiraishi who was an engineer by profession and also became the first president of the company until 1925. During his tenure, the company became a major producer of pumps and equipment tools. As a matter of fact, Tashiro Shiraishi gave the company the much needed momentum and drove it to a stable position form where it accelerated and became a mighty business house.

The saga of its growth can be easily analyzed by the number of workers that kept on increasing on a constant basis. The number of employees had risen dramatically from 121 in 1921 to 742 in 1929 which is a big achievement in itself. It particularly depicts the fact that employees working in the company were happy and the work culture that the company formed only helped its employees to grow.

In 1960, Komatsu equipments were in huge demand especially during the Vietnam War and it expanded like a jet. During the end of the decade, it introduced a new radio-controlled bulldozer which was termed to be a major achievement. At that time, they had Caterpillar as their major competitor and they chalked out many plan to surpass them. They keenly started monitoring the performance of Caterpillar and laid their strategies with the view to outshine them in the near future. Their way of strategizing the work and setting up priorities helped them a long way in achieving their goals and becoming a successful company within a short span. They expanded their operations very aggressively and within 20 years they grew from a local producer to a giant exporter and a strong competitor.

It was only in the year 1970 that the company started its first direct investment in USA. Soon after that, operations in other foreign lands began and in the year 1975, it started manufacturing bulldozers in Brazil making it the first production of construction equipment outside its homeland. Since then, there has been no looking back for Komatsu and slowly it expanded its operations in many other foreign countries. Komatsu has no longer been a domestic name. It has now been transformed and has become a symbol of quality, reliability and efficiency.

The history of Caterpillar equipment

We have often come across many construction sites where we get to see huge machines digging up the surface of the earth and throwing off the mud at a place from where it can be collected and dumped at the dump-yard. The machines are of great help to construction workers as they can get the work done in few days which could have otherwise taken months to complete. It also makes sense to think what made the person who gave birth to the idea to build such big machines that brought revolution in the construction industry.

We would be specifically discussing the inception of caterpillar equipments and how it managed to become a brand in such a short time. If we dig deep into history, we’ll find that Caterpillar was formed way back than its inception in the year 1925. The story goes like this. Benjamin Holt, who was the owner of a company that manufactured steam tractors wanted to improve the mobility and grip of the tractors his company produced. He therefore, swapped the wheels with wooden tracks that were fastened with chains. While he was trying his invention out in the field, one of the bystanders looking at his innovation could not resist himself from saying that the machine crawled like a caterpillar. Hearing this, Holt thought that he has now got a name for his invention and this is how the name caterpillar came into existence. In the year 1986, caterpillar changed the name of the company “Caterpillar Tractor Company” to “Caterpillar Inc”.

Caterpillar machines played a pivotal role in the area of construction and building roads. Their journey, since the inception, is filled with achievements that motivated them to produce technologically savvy equipments. They expanded and sold their products both domestically as well as internationally. They sold around 93 Caterpillar equipments to the Indian government to help them build better roads. In the same fashion, their machines also helped Venezuela to construct a 10.5 mile superhighway through the Andes Mountain. This made life simpler for transporters who had to use the longer way to transport their goods on a daily basis. One of the biggest contributions of these machines was during the 1956 Olympics held at Melbourne. These machines were of huge help as they played a significant role towards the completion of the event sites. The contribution of Cat machines has been phenomenal and it continues to serve the world community with its high-tech know-how and state of the art designs.

Beside the contribution of Caterpillar to the world community, how it grew as a company over the years and its achievements over the last few decades is worth mentioning. Mentor, an Ohio based company was acquired by CAT during its effort to increase its forklift line. There are also few international acquisitions under its belt. They managed to acquire Perkins Limited which was a UK company that produced small diesel engines. They also took over a German company that produced gas and diesel power-driven engines.

CAT is undoubtedly the market leader which has been possible with their consistent endeavor to bring something new to the world and keeping into consideration the benefits of the common man.