Heavy Equipment

Industry specific analytics for important decision-making

About the industry

The Heavy Equipment industry has large opportunity for growth, especially if organizations embrace advanced analytics and business intelligence to assist executives in making optimized decisions. Research and Markets provides a comprehensive overview of the Heavy Equipment industry, writing, “The global heavy construction equipment market is estimated to reach USD 166.05 Billion by 2020, with a projected CAGR of 6.80%, signifying a steady increase in the demand for heavy construction equipment.

Heavy construction equipment is a critical tool for any construction project. They are used extensively at construction sites to reduce labor cost and time. The high construction and infrastructural growth, technological developments and their adaptations, and rapid urbanization have fueled the growth for heavy construction equipment. Infrastructure is the largest end-use area for heavy construction equipment especially in emerging markets such as China, Brazil, and India.

The global heavy construction equipment market is witnessing decent growth based on heavy investments done in the infrastructure recreation to accommodate smart residential and commercial buildings. The developing markets in Asia-Pacific are witnessing a strong demand for heavy construction equipment; therefore, large investments are made in these regions.

The heavy construction equipment market is dominated by large firms such as Caterpillar Inc. (U.S.), CNH Global N.V. (The Netherlands), Hyundai Heavy Industries Co., Ltd. (South Korea), Volvo Construction Equipment AB (Sweden), JCB Ltd. (U.K.), Komatsu Ltd. (Japan), Deere & Company (U.S). They provide advanced heavy construction equipment, and by gaining considerable expertise and experience over the years, have optimized their processes and practices to become even more efficient.

The material handling equipment segment is projected to grow at the highest CAGR of 8.42% from 2015 to 2020. The key players of heavy construction equipment market implement different strategies such as expansions, agreements, contracts, joint ventures, and partnerships to garner a larger share in the market. The leading heavy construction equipment providers are focusing on countries with emerging markets that are estimated to show potential for industrial development in the near future.

The heavy construction equipment market is a highly fragmented one owing to the huge infrastructure demand and changing technologies. Major companies rely on regional and local distributors to increase their share as well as geographical presence in the market. One of the major developments observed in the heavy construction equipment market is agreements, contracts, joint ventures, and partnerships. Companies are adopting inorganic growth strategies such as acquisitions to cope with the increasing demand for heavy construction equipment in key emerging markets. These strategies have aided companies to create a large customer and partner base in key markets. The applications requirements for heavy construction equipment and well as the operating conditions are continuously changing making it essential for the manufacturers and service providers to continually invest in research and development activities and come up with innovative solutions.”

Analytics reshaping the industry

Equipment World, an online resource for information about the Heavy Equipment industry, wrote an article after interviewing Paolo Fellin, Vice President of Construction and Infrastructure Industries at Caterpillar. The article describes the changing environment of the industry as big data, analytics, and advanced technology become more prevalent and important. The article explains, “The boom in heavy equipment technology is reshaping the industry, changing the role of partnerships and redefining competitors. For the contractors who have the desire and the means to deploy this technology it is creating double-digit gains in productivity, cost efficiency and fuel economy. And those who resist technology may find themselves marginalized as their tech-savvy competitors continue to drive down costs and boost productivity. The industry has just emerged into the first stages of what will prove to be a decades-long revolution. And this fast pace of change has OEMs, suppliers and contractors scrambling to adjust to new realities, find the best value, and decide on the right technologies and the best path forward into an uncertain future. Uncertainty and questions abound for contractors, dealers and OEMs.

In describing the history of heavy equipment, Fellin says the 1960s and 70s were all about mechanical innovation. The late 70s and 80s saw big improvements in hydraulics. And the 90s to early 2000s reaped benefits from electro-hydraulics. “Now we are going into the era of analytics, data and connectivity,” Fellin says. “But we can’t only do it by ourselves, like Cat has done before. We have to collaborate with other companies that are quicker in this space than Caterpillar. That’s why we welcome these partnerships. We have to learn how to do it and we’re not discounting anybody.”

How do we serve your industry?

Competitive Analytics empowers heavy equipment companies such as NES Rentals (the largest heavy equipment rental company in North America) by integrating business intelligence solutions, big data solutions, and advanced analytics to improve the management of supply and demand, optimize pricing, optimize efficiency in operations, minimize cost and risk, and maximize profits. On both the desktop and mobile analytics fronts for NES Rentals, Competitive Analytics successfully developed a mobile business intelligence solution using Roambi as well as an integrated BI solution using Tableau Software. Specifically, Competitive Analytics provided new analytics to assist in pricing, budgeting, and new market initiatives. The return on analytics (ROA) for this project was estimated at well over 800%, making the ROAA (Return on Advanced Analytics) well worth the investment.