In addition to improving and increasing its manufacturing efforts over the years, Caterpillar history is highlighted by a process of growth through a series of acquisitions. In CAT made a foray into the world of industrial gas turbines by acquiring the solar and turbomach divisions of International Harvester Company. Significant international acquisitions include Perkins Limited, a United Kingdom manufacturer of small diesel engines in , and MWM Holding GmbH, a German producer of gas and diesel powered generator sets in Today, Caterpillar continues as the leading manufacturer of heavy industrial equipment in the world.
Always seeking ways to increase its footprint and provide even more services to its customer base, the company has also entered into new arenas, such as the sale of financial products and insurance. Cleveland Brothers is looking forward to continuing its strong and enduring partnership with a worldwide leader well into the future, as well as delivering a wide range of quality CAT machines and equipment to our customers for years to come.
Browse By Manufacturer A. Ditch Witch charles Machine Works. Komatsu Komatsu Ltd. Lee-boy Lexion Combine. Complete repair and rebuild services for all types and brands of crushers, screens and feeders.
From hydraulic and drive systems to wear parts, we have the capability to serve you. Our parts program is streamlined to get the parts you need to you as quickly as possible. You may have figured that most of CAT's revenue is generated from producing and selling large industrial work vehicles and machinery, but we have found additional and perhaps surprising ways that the company makes money. Although Caterpillar is known as a leading manufacturer of large-scale machinery, the company also has a hand in producing durable smartphone development and has released a number of smartphones for the industrial market.
Caterpillar released the Cat S60 phone in February , which allows users to detect heat patterns using a unique thermal imaging feature. Similar to Caterpillar's other smartphone models, the Cat S60 was known for its rugged durability. Advertised as "water-resistant," the Cat S60 could operate in underwater depths of up to 16 feet for approximately one hour. This phone has now been replaced by the S61 which also offers air quality monitoring.
While Caterpillar generates the majority of its revenue from machinery sales, the company also makes money from its trademark and licensing agreements.
Caterpillar machines are easily recognizable from the company's branded yellow, but that shade of yellow has not been with the company from day one. Caterpillar's machine color originated in after years of gray machinery design.
Additionally, the licensing of its branded products and apparel are also key revenue drivers for the business. The company's products are sold in retail stores worldwide and in the company was ranked 28 out of by License Global for its global licensor status. Caterpillar's machinery is sold through a broad network of dealers, and its roots run deep. Many Caterpillar dealers have been working with the company since While Caterpillar services a global network, the company's business operations have been located in Illinois since its founding in and even before, when Holt produced the first Caterpillar tractor.
While most of Caterpillar's machines are manufactured in the Midwest, some of the company's other leading manufacturing plants are located in Russia, China, and Brazil. Caterpillar moved its headquarters closer to Chicago to Deerfield, Illinois, just a few miles north of the city. Caterpillar generates a significant amount of revenue through subsidiary businesses. In February , the federal government conducted an ongoing investigation of Caterpillar's subsidiaries to ensure that it was appropriately using and disseminating funds within its U.
As of January , no criminal charges had been filed against the company or any of its employees. Caterpillar produces large-scale industrial machinery for a wide range of industries including energy, transportation, and construction. Leading machinery manufactured by the firm includes tractors, on-highway trucks, off-highway trucks, pavers, loaders, combines, bulldozers, shovels, and excavators. The company also specializes in energy drilling and commodity mining machines.
While Caterpillar generates most of its revenue from selling newly-manufactured machinery to businesses, the firm also rents and sells used machinery. Rental machinery is convenient for construction projects that don't require long-term assets. Companies can also significantly reduce costs by buying used machinery. Used machinery is insured by Caterpillar, and companies can customize their used machinery purchases. CAT Phones. License Global. Yancey Brothers. Accessed May 14, To further accommodate the postwar need for construction and road-building equipment, Caterpillar opened up subsidiaries in Brazil in , Australia in , and Scotland in In the s the continuing boom in the construction of highways, dams, and mines kept sales increasing rapidly.
By employment at Caterpillar was twice that of ten years prior. Caterpillar increased its exports, gaining a rival in the heavy construction industry, Komatsu Ltd.
In Cat suffered the first of many labor conflicts with the United Auto Workers UAW , when 12, workers in Peoria walked off their jobs in a wage dispute. An agreement was reached after only eight days, but this strike was the beginning of a series of increasingly bitter and complex battles between labor and management. Recognizing that industry abroad sometimes operates by rules different from those of the United States, Caterpillar in formed a joint venture in Japan with Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, Ltd.
The venture, initially named Caterpillar Mitsubishi Ltd. It was renamed Shin Caterpillar Mitsubishi Ltd. After the three-year contract extension signed in was terminated, another strike began in Peoria.
Announced as settled as early as February , the strike was off and on until late October. The year brought another confrontation with the UAW, this time in the form of a two-month walkout in Decatur.
The lawsuit that Cat filed against the union, claiming an illegal strike, was settled out of court, in exchange for an agreement that stipulated that the union would settle all conflicts not relating to contract specifications before going out on strike.
During this year Caterpillar of Canada Ltd. In March the U. Justice Department moved to block a proposed merger between Cat and Chicago Pneumatic Tool Company, and the merger did not take place. In the same year, Caterpillar was the first company located outside of a major city to enlist in a government-sponsored program to hire and train people considered to be unemployable.
This program was directed to persons who had been out of work for extended periods. The hirees would work half of the day at entry-level positions and spend the other half of the day learning job skills for better-paying jobs.
A contract with Ford in to supply small V-8 truck engines convinced Cat that manufacturing smaller diesels could make money, and the firm spent millions of dollars redesigning and retooling existing plants to build the new engines. Profits earned from an increase in state construction programs helped pay the cost of these investments. By Cat had announced plans to build a ,square-foot plant in Belgium and a 1.
Sales to the Soviet Union increased during this year. In Caterpillar embarked on another dramatic expansion program, announcing plans to build a ,square-foot addition to its Aurora, Illinois, plant, a 1. In Caterpillar allocated more funds than ever before for expansion and product development.
The company expanded its foreign market at this time by selling pipe-laying equipment to China, cashing in on the thaw in relations between China and the United States.
By the Cat expansion program was paying off. The product line had expanded to the point where Cat offered more heavy-duty agricultural, construction, and material-hauling machines than any other company.
In plans were revealed to build more new plants in York, Pennsylvania; Lafayette, Indiana; and Pontiac, Illinois. The longest UAW strike against Caterpillar to that date occurred in More than 23, workers in Illinois walked out of six of the company's major manufacturing plants.
More than 3, workers were laid off because of the parts shortages that resulted from the strike. After almost three months of negotiations, a new three-year contract was forged, which offered better wages and a profit-sharing concession. Three years previously Goodyear had begun selling a radial earthmoving tire that infringed on Caterpillar's beadless-tire technology.
The beadless tire lacked the beads, or edges, that attach the tire to wheel rims, and was more durable and economical than previous designs. In the out-of-court settlement Goodyear agreed to pay Caterpillar an amount mutually agreed upon, and become a licensee of Cat, paying the firm royalties for the use of beadless technology in the further manufacture of the tire.
The recession of hit Caterpillar especially hard. Caterpillar laid off almost 12, employees at this time, and closed its plant in Mentor, Ohio. Trying to cut overhead, Cat proposed pay freezes and a cut in benefits, prompting a seven-month UAW strike, the firm's longest strike yet. Caterpillar began by announcing the first annual loss in earnings in half a century. Cat started laying off workers, and closed a plant in Newcastle-on-Tyne, England.
Yet after the new contract was signed with the UAW, Caterpillar acquired a new direction and strategy that made things look better. Despite the concession of a profit-sharing plan, the wage freeze that the firm won in the contract dispute helped stem rising costs. The anticipation of the bottled-up demand that would create a larger market after the recession made investors think that Cat stock might be a good buy.
By committing itself to less expansion, more creative marketing techniques, and reduced costs, Caterpillar intended in late to ride out the economic slump and position itself to return to profitability in Caterpillar's problems continued, however, in Despite this being the expected comeback year for the firm, the plant closings and layoffs continued. The Burlington, Iowa, parts plant locked its doors to workers and, despite optimistic projections of recalling around 3, workers in , Cat actually laid off about 3, other workers during that year.
Caterpillar continued to cut back operations at its factories, then eliminated cost-of-living allowances in wages, and delayed the completion of its Morton, Illinois, distribution center.
In February George A. Fites was named president. During this year Caterpillar made two key strategic moves, which, despite their controversial nature, would be credited with making the firm once again profitable. Caterpillar first shifted some of its production and purchasing functions overseas. This meant that jobs previously performed in Peoria were moved to Scotland or Japan.
The high value of the dollar overseas made such a change necessary for company survival, management argued. It would reduce permanently the labor force needed to make tractors by automating as many manufacturing processes as possible. Approximately 2, workers were cut from the Caterpillar payroll during Company executives argued that the firm needed to compete with Komatsu, which had a much greater manufacturing efficiency than Cat because of its highly automated plants.
The firm bounced back from its problems by marketing a new automated lift truck, which had the potential to secure part of a multibillion-dollar market for Caterpillar. The firm even directly challenged Komatsu by expanding Cat's partnership with Mitsubishi Heavy Industries to include the production of hydraulic equipment. Caterpillar faced, however, another strike during this year. Workers in Joliet walked out for four weeks, but were brought back to work under terms much like those previously rejected.
Caterpillar again won a wage freeze, but cash bonuses as well as the firm's promise to lay off other workers as long as the strike continued were enough to get the Joliet workers to settle their grievances. The weakening of the dollar abroad raised production costs and cut into profits for Caterpillar in Though the firm improved its sales and earnings over , Caterpillar was still forced to close three factories.
In early Caterpillar's stock took a sharp downturn. The cost of the program continued to affect company profits through , while the company also suffered from the effects of the recession of the early s. Meanwhile, newly appointed CEO Fites initiated a corporate reorganization in which moved Cat away from a function-oriented structure to one revolving around product lines and geographic areas.
Labor strife returned to Peoria in late when Caterpillar tried to alter a pattern agreement that had been agreed to in October at John Deere. When the UAW and Cat workers refused to accept the company's offer, they struck two Cat plants with 2, workers in early November. Caterpillar responded by locking out 5, more workers.
Over the next five months, Caterpillar used managers to fill in at the affected plants, then threatened to permanently replace 15, UAW workers. In April the workers returned to their jobs without a contract and eventually accepted a company-imposed contract. The striking workers, however, returned to what they believed was a hostile environment, where they faced suspension or dismissal for wearing union-supporting T-shirts or buttons.
0コメント