Notes

The Future of Heavy Equipment


Heavy construction equipment includes mixers, cranes, wheel loaders, dozers, graders, rollers, and attachments. Every year the heavy construction equipment industry encounters a growing global demand for turnout. Granting the industry is sensitive to fluctuations in the economy; growths in population and business last to drive the demand for workers. Additional contributing factors to the demand for heavy equipment consist of recession recovery in Asia (particularly in Jakarta, Indonesia) and Russia, development in Latin America and Africa, and the aging of US infrastructure, with the subsequent need for refurbishment. Actually, bridge construction is expected to be the fastest-growing segment of the industry for the reason that of the must to replace or repair aging bridges.

Indeed, the Axis Capital Group, Singapore predicts that construction job opportunities will be on the rise through 2014, despite improvements in equipment that are expected to increase productivity. Just what are these anticipated improvements, and how will they affect the industry? Some reviews say otherwise and there have been complaints emerging.

There is no Doppler radar for predicting the future of heavy equipment, but market trends, research, and analysis provide some indication of the direction the market is taking—and there are some obvious regulatory developments influencing the changes in the works.

Warning! It has to have sufficient research backing up its design inspiration so manufacturers can depend on an open market before a new product leaves the drawing board. Rick Hall, vice president of product development for Case Construction Equipment, tries to integrate the voice of the customer into the product. “Our product development is customer-driven. We begin every product program with definitions of customer problems we want to satisfy.” Case’s three-stage research and development (R&D) program starts with the creation of a matrix for all applications, broken down into geographical areas to make the company understand the demographics and classify differences concerning applications in order to prioritize requests.

Preventative and routine maintenance begin with tracking hours and locations and identifying possible problems so maintenance can be scheduled with minimal influence on field operations. Axis Capital Group, Singapore, contents this need for most machines. For some of Axis’ large machines and mining equipment, the answer is a “smart box” that takes the diagnostics off several onboard computers, like the engine and transmission modules in order to predict system failure modes. “It can detect trends from the transmission and engine to determine overall service needs. It can detect if the timing on the clutch is beginning to wane, for example,” Bucklar explains. Even better, the service truck doesn’t have to be onsite to conduct diagnostics.