Komatsu

Description

Komatsu’s family of intelligent Machine Control equipment at work on the demo grounds of its customer center in Cartersville, Ga. Photo credit: Wayne Grayson

One-stop shopping is a concept everybody knows from the retail world. For Komatsu this same idea is the key to getting more customers to engage with GPS/GNSS earthmoving technology.

Last week at its Cartersville, Georgia demonstration facility, Komatsu unveiled a program it calls “Smart Construction.” And though it shares the name of Komatsu’s radical drone-assisted, automated equipment service launched last year in Japan, the U.S. version of Smart Construction is basically a one-stop service to bolster the company’s intelligent Machine Control lineup, offering comprehensive training and support for anything and everything related to GPS/GNSS earthmoving operations.

Alongside its demonstration of Smart Construction, Komatsu introduced an expansion of their GPS/GNSS-ready machines, which now includes six intelligent control dozers and three excavators. For more on the dozers—including a fully-autonomous, remote control dozer—see our article here. To read about the GPS/GNSS controlled excavators, see this.

At the heart of Komatsu’s Smart Construction strategy is a new type of dealer employee—the TSE or technical solutions specialist—and its expanding line of intelligent control machines.

With a single phone call to your Komatsu TSE you can arrange for a demonstration of a GPS/GNSS machine, acquire the GPS/GNSS factory-ready machine and peripheral hardware (base stations, rovers, etc.), have the TSE to set up your first jobsite and get training for your operators. The TSE’s can also help you with trouble shooting, give you recommendations for best practices, get your site plans digitized for import into the machine monitors and even get an aerial survey of your site using drones/UAVs (unmanned aerial vehicles).

“If you are new to machine control, you don’t just need a machine,” says Jason Anetsberger, senior product manager. “You need data in that machine. Maybe you need a base station and rover, and a trained operator. In our model of support, all this is just a single phone call away. We’ll take you from being a non-user of machine control technology all the way to having a full set up without having to purchase any additional product or hire additional staff.”

The TSE service and support model can also be used when you need to rent an intelligent control machine or set up a GPS/GNSS site far from your home base.