L&T’s construction and mining machinery business turns 75

Larsen & Toubro, an Indian multinational engaged in EPC projects, hi-tech machinery manufacturing and services, has completed platinum jubilee of one of its oldest businesses, the construction and mining machinery business (CMB).

The business has supplied over 60,000 units of various equipment in India during its 75 years association with the construction and mining industry.

L&T has developed its own ‘Make in India’ road machinery consisting of vibratory compactors and wheel loaders. These indigenously designed and manufactured machines are now aiding road construction and highway development and enabling L&T to move towards fulfilling the national mission of AtmaNirbhar Bharat.

The company took a major step in 1973 by introducing Hydraulic Excavators in collaboration with Poclain SA-France. This was a revolutionary and pioneering initiative which needed efforts to establish a completely new concept in earthmoving and made L&T a strategic partner in Infrastructure construction. Some of the other collaborations included—Albaret-France, JI Case, USA, Vibromax-Germany, Detroit Diesel-USA.

Later in 1998, the two engineering giants Komatsu and L&T formed a joint venture to manufacture Komatsu’s machines. The Komatsu PC200-6 excavator turned out to be the benchmark in quality, reliability and durability and became an iconic model. With the introduction of several models of excavators, such as PC71, PC130, PC300 and PC450 in later years, L&T achieved a leadership position and built a large and loyal base of over 25,000 valued customers.

Continuing with the spirit of innovation, L&T recently introduced Komatsu PC210-10M0 Hydraulic Excavator which has been a runaway success and breached all records to become the fastest growing model in the 22-ton class, reaching 1,000 mark in 10 months period and is now well on its way to become the market leader.

As mineral mining expanded in India, Komatsu and L&T decided to transform mining to make it safe, environment friendly and sustainable and introduced large mining machines, such as Dump Truck HD785, Dozer models D155 and D475, Excavator models PC1250 and PC2000. These machines have created new benchmarks in performance, productivity, and long life at customer sites. L&T also delivered Komatsu’s mammoth 240-ton class 830E Dump Trucks and 16 CuM class PC3000 Hydraulic Excavators for mega mining operations, which reinforced its capabilities developed over time.

To meet the growing coal production requirement, coal mining companies started overburden removal by contractors. This required a new segment of Mining Tippers which matched very well with Komatsu’s PC450 Excavator. L&T also formed an alliance with Scania to offer its latest generation Tipper Truck, which has since become highly popular in the mid-mining industry for its exceptional performance, unbeatable economy, operator comfort and safety.

L&T has a long tradition of customer service, hence to support the large population of construction and mining machines, L&T focused on developing strong infrastructure for after-sales and service support. It now has six world-class service centres, a team of highly skilled and experienced service engineers, a central training centre, 30 dealerships for construction equipment and a network of parts depots across India. This has proved to be the real differentiator in machine uptime and utilisation.

Image: L&T’s wheel loader 9020sx