HIGH PROFILE-CATERPILLAR_proof 25/05/2016 07:32 Page 1
HIGH PROFILE
Streamlined for the future
Paul Moore sat down with
Robert Droogleever Fortuyn,
Caterpillar Underground
Mining General Manager, to
talk about the global market
and focus areas for the group
A: We didn’t lose that many direct customer
relationship people in underground mining and
were able to replace those that did go in most
cases. The training for dealerships was mainly in
the Cat processes when it comes to parts supply;
we needed to train the former Bucyrus people, who
may have had engineering expertise but needed
training in our uniquely streamlined parts supply
and service/repair processes. The Cat dealers were
already familiar with these processes but had to get
up to speed with the products and engineering. But
we have been very successful in only a short time –
our Bergerat Monnoyeur dealer in Poland is a good
example of the success we have had, looking after
customers like Bogdanka and others.
Q: How has Caterpillar Underground Mining
evolved to the current structure?
A: Caterpillar created an underground group back in
late 2013, combining the three divisions that were
separate before that: Caterpillar Elphinstone, which
we bought in 2000; the Bucyrus assets from 2011
which brought a lot of underground coal
equipment, and the Chinese Siwei acquisition from
2012. All of those together make up Caterpillar
Underground, which I head up including all the
engineering, the factories and the sales groups. The
important thing is that it is one team focussed on
underground, as it is so distinct from surface and
construction. And through the downturn, we have
made great efforts to concentrate, keep and
maintain the underground expertise we have. We
have our main engineering centre in Lunen,
Germany, where I am based, along with additional
underground engineering centres in Australia in
Burnie, Tasmania and the US in Houston,
Pennsylvania. These cover the four product areas of
room and pillar, longwall, hard rock loaders and
trucks and hard rock continuous cutting. Actual
underground loader and truck production that was
formerly largely in Burnie with some production in
Brazil has now all moved to Rayong, Thailand, with
some production in Houston, Pennsylvania.
Underground coal equipment production is in
Houston and Lunen.
Q: Regarding the Cat dealer structure, and
transition from former Bucyrus underground sales
networks, has that process been a challenge?
A: The people that were responsible for particular
mines at Bucyrus and then Caterpillar moved to the
Cat dealerships; and we implemented this right
away. But as Caterpillar we are still there with the
customer too, as these underground products have
a lot of engineering needs, so we are still sitting at
the table with the customers, both in new
underground equipment sales which in some cases
can effectively be direct sales in conjunction with
our dealers, but also through regular contact with
A Caterpillar LHD equipped with Command for
Underground
106 International Mining | JUNE 2016
our dealers through product support and the
aftermarket. We are as close to the underground
customers as before, if not more so. At the end of
the day there are a limited number of big
underground mining players so we have to make
sure we stay on top with all of them. To give you an
example, we have over 170 Cat mining dealers
worldwide but only 20 of them have a major
underground focus. This 20 includes 12 hard rock
and 12 soft rock dealers, with 4 doing both. I am
able to concentrate efforts then on these specific
dealers. Australia remains a key market for us, and
we have our own Cat engineers based there along
with our dealers. The same is true in China. And our
German and US engineering staff travel extensively
to these and other regions.
Q: What about where a key person didn’t go to the
dealership? What training was needed?
Q: Can you go through the different regions in
terms of coal equipment demand and how are you
dealing with the difficulties in the coal market
particularly in the US and Europe?
A: There are structural changes going on and yes, in
the US in Europe where the coal market has
struggled and reduced in size we are unsure how
much of that will come back. But it is also cyclical to
some extent and from a global perspective coal is
still a necessity and will remain part of the energy
mix for a long time, OK it might go from 35% to
30% but that is still a lot of coal mining remaining.
In the US it is estimated that 1 billion short tons of
annual production will fall to 600 million short tons.
Longwalls in operation at one time 150 in the US
have now dropped to 40. But of course there
remains a lot of replacement business there. But
yes in the US and Europe it will be a smaller pool of