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March 11, 2007
Eat The Cat
When Komatsu decided to start manufacturing heavy construction equipment and compete with Caterpillar, their motto was "Eat The Cat". As in "Eat Caterpillar's Lunch". In 1985, Komatsu opened their first assembly plant in North American on 55 acres in Chattanooga. These days, Komatsu is making money hand over fist. They now have five assembly plants in the North America. They opened a 200,000 sq foot assembly plant in Aiken, South Carolina in 2002. They also have plants in Peoria, Illinois and Lexington, Kentucky. But I think that their largest assembly plant in the country is in Chattanooga (488,000 sq feet) where they assemble mid-size hydraulic excavators like the PC300LC-7 excavator (shown above) and articulated dump trucks. Next month, in April of 2007, the Chattanooga Manufacturing Operation will reach a milestone of producing its 34,000th machine.
I really can't begin to describe what this place looks like. It's a freak show. There's this huge assembly facility and you drive by and there are just rows and rows of these excavators all sitting out there and they're all exactly alike. Surreal.
Posted by Peenie Wallie on March 11, 2007 at 8:07 PM
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