Participants:

John Bartz, emission solutions manager, Volvo Construction Equipment

Tom Bucklar, marketing support manager, Caterpillar

Robert Desel, vice president Americas & Asia, Terex Construction

Michael Gidaspow, product manager, wheel loaders, Komatsu America Corp.

Anker Henningsen, global sales and marketing manager, Cat Work Tools

Blaine Pressley, segment manager, Volvo Construction Equipment

Dan Rafferty, North American attachments manager, Volvo Construction Equipment

Terry Rasmussen, marketing supervisor, Caterpillar

Jacob Thomas, senior vice president, product development, marketing and Terex Business System, Terex Corp.

Mark Wall, product marketing manager for excavators, Deere and Hitachi

Tom Winter, sales support general supervisor, Cat Work Tools.

RER: What are some of the new technological developments in your equipment?

Pressley: We've just come out with a new feature called OptiShift, an exclusive Volvo feature. It is two items: One is a lock-up torque converter that improves fuel efficiency and productivity mostly on load-and-carry operations. The other feature is the reverse-by-braking, we call it RBB. It helps in truck-loading applications, for example, an operation where you're constantly loading, backing up, pulling forward, dumping and going back to the pile.

When you back up out of a pile you normally shift from reverse to forward while going backwards. The torque converter and entire driveline has to slow the machine down as you switch from reverse to forward and throttle up. Our innovation puts the transmission in neutral and engine at idle RPM as you shift from reverse to forward, for example, and uses the service brakes to slow the machine down automatically. So the operator doesn't have to touch the brake pedal, it's all done electronically. With the OptiShift we're seeing up to 15-percent fuel savings compared with a normal system. That's a huge number.

Another Volvo exclusive is the full suspension articulated hauler. It has a fully hydraulic suspension system that automatically adjusts to center the load and shifts hydraulic fluid to the cylinders as needed when cornering. It gives the operator a smoother ride and better productivity in rougher terrains.

Bartz: Tier 4 is the technology that is compelling everyone. With wheel loaders, it depends on the size. Wheel loaders with more than 175 horsepower will be affected by Tier 4 beginning in 2011. Smaller wheel loaders will be affected in 2012. You'll see the inclusion of diesel particulate filters and all the other supporting technology that comes with that.

Wall: Probably the biggest new developments in the excavator lines are emissions technology and telematics. Emissions has been on everybody's change pattern here since the late ‘90s, and continuing to progress to reduce NOx and particulates up through Tier 3 in 2005-6. Now we're all preparing for the next round of emissions regulations, the Interim Tier 4, with those changes for the U.S. market taking effect in January of 2011.

The past couple of years there has been great emphasis on telematics, getting information off of the machine to the customer for several purposes. We have JD Link at John Deere and Hitachi, which we offer as standard equipment on excavators that weigh 20 metric tons and above, including three years of communications so you get the hardware and three years of communications.

Gidaspow: Komatsu is continuously working to improve our products. Some of the latest examples are our WA150-6 through WA320PZ-6 wheel loaders, powered by a Hydrostatic Transmission (HST). HST gives these loaders excellent machine response, quick acceleration, plenty of power and very low fuel consumption. Our -6 models also have Variable Traction Control with S-Mode, which reduces the tractive effort of the machine, easing operation in applications where tires are prone to slipping. This improves productivity and increases tire life. Finally, Komatsu's construction equipment comes standard with Komtrax, Komatsu's wireless equipment monitoring system. Komtrax is constantly being upgraded to offer benefits, such as viewing of fuel consumption and actual working hours.