Hitachi

Hitachi Construction Machinery is a worldwide leading manufacturer of construction machinery, headquartered in Japan. The company has maintained twelve production sites in Japan, thirteen production sites outside Japan and affiliates maintain a further five global production sites. Since 1965 when Hitachi Ltd. developed the UH03, Japan’s first hydraulic excavator made purely with domestic technologies, Hitachi Hydraulic Excavator has been a flagship product. The company developed hydraulic excavators with operating weights of 159 to 173 tonnes in 1979 and continued to develop larger models, culminating in the EX8000 Ultra-large Hydraulic Excavator with an operating weight of 800 tonnes, among the highest in the world with a bucket capacity of 40 cubic metres, which is in operation at mines around the world.

Hitachi Construction Machinery products operate for more than 20 hours a day at open-cast mines around the world to excavate and transport minerals. The company offers Mini Excavators, Mini Wheel Loaders, Hydraulic Excavators, Wheel Loaders, Compaction Equipment, Large Hydraulic Excavators, Ultra-large Hydraulic Excavators and Rigid Dump Trucks. Hitachi ICT Hydraulic Excavators are equipped with Solution Linkage Assist, a proprietary machine control feature that performs semi-automated control of the front section of the machine in accordance with design parameters based on machine positional information obtained from a GNSS receiver and three-dimensional information from the tip of the bucket. Hitachi Hybrid Hydraulic Excavators maintain operability while improving fuel efficiency for lower management costs and reduced environmental impact.

Hitachi Construction Machinery Group companies have engaged in global manufacturing initiatives since fiscal 2005 with senior engineers visiting production sites in and outside Japan once a year to diagnose skills and workplace management in welding, painting, assembly, machining and heat treatment. Since fiscal 2008, production engineers at Hitachi Construction Machinery Group companies have been accepted at production sites to learn practical skills over a three-year period; more than 100 participants have completed the program. The International Skills Competition has been running for 20 years and involves competition across eight categories: welding, painting, measurement, assembly, transportation, machining, robot welding and facility maintenance. In 2020, Hitachi Construction Machinery established the Japan Construction Machinery Global (JCMG) mark to signify the technologies and quality cultivated over 70 years of development and mass production of domestically produced construction machinery.

Hitachi Construction Machinery offers Autonomous Haulage System (AHS) that addresses global mining challenges of safety, productivity and cost reduction. The AHS offers integration with manned trucks and is backed by a Technological Centre of Excellence providing 24/7 system and field communication support. Autonomous Haul Trucks have operated for over 144,000 working hours with zero safety incidents, travelled 1.66 million kilometres, with one site integrating 28 Autonomous Trucks, 22 manned instrumented trucks and 41 manned instrumented vehicles operating optimised AHS and manned circuits together, and have moved more than 58 million tonnes of material.

Fleet Management System (FMS) provided by Wenco International Mining Systems Ltd., a Hitachi Construction Machinery Group company, provides real-time monitoring of each dump truck to optimize vehicle operation and support efficient mining operation. Wenco has developed an open and flexible IoT platform allowing FMS-based software applications to link with systems customers already own and those business partners provide. The FMS tracks excavator positions, the number of dump trucks being use, and calculates the volume of materials moved, truck travel speed and other productivity contributing factors.

Hitachi Construction Machinery provides ConSite, an ICT/IoT solution that monitors machines’ operational status and alarms through monthly operational reports and emergency alarm notifications. ConSite includes ConSite Shot, an app for daily inspections and acceptance and delivery inspections of rental machines; ConSite Pocket, available on smartphones; ConSite OIL, a service to monitor oil condition on machines; and ConSite Air, a remote support tool for keeping an eye on customer machines remotely and maintaining machine performance. Global e-Service is a support solution providing a wealth of operational information about equipment so customers can remotely manage sites, with Telematics API complying with ISO 15143-3 (AEMP 2.0) standard providing operational data about machines and equipment to customers and dealers in real-time frequencies of every 60 minutes or 10 minutes.

Hitachi Construction Machinery offers ICT construction solutions providing customers optimal solutions from initial construction surveys through as-built data delivery, with ICT Hydraulic Excavator ZX200X-7 enabling highly accurate work regardless of operator skill level. The company provides after-sales services including warranty programs, repairs and inspections, with genuine and remanufactured parts available. Remanufactured parts come with a manufacturer’s warranty equivalent to that of new parts and are cheaper than new parts with lower total cost than repairs. Hitachi Construction Machinery also provides Parts Remanufacturing services and rental options for machinery and equipment.