Welcome -- Refining and redefining
by Clair Urbain
It’s impressive how excavators and other construction equipment have grown in sophistication over the past two decades. Each new generation of equipment has higher levels of electronics and electrical controls that can fine-tune performance, increase productivity and safety while reducing total cost of ownership.
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"Equipment manufacturers are rethinking every system – and even the whole machine – in their quests to provide more productive and reliable equipment." |
With that higher level of sophistication, these smart systems require higher level training to troubleshoot and repair them. Perhaps that’s why construction and other contractors are increasingly relying on equipment rental to get their work done. Renting eliminates their primary responsibility of maintaining equipment; they only need to make sure fluids are topped off, complete general inspections and use the machine safely and productively.
Equipment manufacturers are rethinking every system – and even the whole machine – in their quests to provide more productive and reliable equipment. That’s very evident in this issue’s Equipment Insight story on excavators. It’s exciting to see the technology that’s making dirt work more productive and precise. For example, Mecalac’s MCR series of skid excavators totally rethinks excavator design to come up with a compact machine that can travel twice as fast and use larger buckets when compared with similar-sized models.
Case recently introduced its Minotaur compact track dozer (see page 50) that reimagines how the unit puts power to the business end of the machine. It pushes power through the machine’s frame and its rear-mounted ripper makes it operate like a big-brother dozer. However, the unit’s arms can be used in a compact track loader configuration where its parallel linkage arms can raise high enough to load dump trucks or run a wide variety of attachments. This versatility will make it an attractive choice for rental fleets and contractors.
This story originally appeared in the September-October 2022 issue of Pro Contractor Rentals magazine. ©2022 Urbain Communications LLC. All rights reserved.
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