Top Excavator Manufacturer is shifting business strategy, and attachment Players focused on continuous mergers and reorganizations
Excavator manufacturers are making business adjustments:
- Closing of attachment manufacturing plants: Caterpillar plans to close its workforce at Wamego in mid 2025, which employs 300 staff and manufactures work tools and attachments, such as loader buckets, dozer blades, as well as shears, rippers, and breakers. 90% of the products are sold in the North American market.
- Investment in core engine business: Caterpillar announced plans to invest $90 million to produce the all new CAT C130 engine at a factory in Texas in May 2024. The engine enhances the efficiency of demanding off-highway tasks, including material handling, construction, mining, and aircraft ground support.
Attachment manufacturers are undergoing continuous mergers and reorganizations, becoming more centralized, with the emergence of large attachment companies:
- Germany’s Kinshofer GmbH and the Netherlands’ Eurosteel BV have signed a merger agreement. Kinshofer has acquired a majority stake in Eurosteel. Kinshofer has over 50 years of history in the production of attachments for cranes, excavators, and loaders; Eurosteel, established in 1985, focuses on the development and marketing of quick-change systems and attachments for excavators and wheel loaders. The merger of the two companies not only complete Kinshofer’s product line, adding quick couplers and buckets, but also expands its sales channels in Europe. In the future, the research and development teams of both companies will collaborate to develop more innovative products.
- In December 2023, Sandvik acquired Stanley Infrastructure. Sandvik is a Swedish mining equipment manufacturer and also produces engineering machinery attachments. Stanley Infrastructure is a globally renowned manufacturer of excavator attachments and handheld hydraulic tools. In 2021, Sandvik also acquired DandA Heavy Industries, a South Korean hydraulic breaker manufacturer.
