Today’s DozersCombine Raw Power and High-Tech Performance DOZING AHEAD tility contractors have long used dozers as a workhorse on jobsites big and small. From clearing land to finish grad-ing, these rugged and versatile ma-chines deliver brute force yet allow for pinpoint accuracy with a feathery touch. While dozers’ roots can be traced back more than a century, innova-tion and technology have continued to raise the bar. To get a glimpse of the dozer market today and how they are continuing to evolve to meet the needs of contractors, we talked to Sam Meeker, Dozer Product Application Specialist for Caterpillar Inc. Meeker has more than 20 years of experience at Caterpillar, including 12 years in his current role. He works with deal-ers and customers to make sure they are getting the right tool for the job, as well as training dealers and customers to keep them up-to-date on the latest equipment and technology. U time, we have continued to develop and implement new features – every-thing from power shift transmission and torque converters up through tur-bo chargers and paper air filters. You name it, we have typically been the first to invent a lot of those things. Today, we continue to work to im-prove the dozer, its productivity and its efficiency. Sometimes those gains are related to engines, sometimes it is powertrains, and sometimes it is tech-nology and electronics. What makes Caterpillar dozers stand out? In the medium to large dozer mar-ket, one of the things that makes a Cat dozer stand out is the high-drive undercarriage – we call it an elevated sprocket – that we invented that back in 1978. The high-drive undercarriage was brought into the medium line in the 1980s in the D4, D5, D6 and D7. The high drive gives us some great fea-tures: good balance on the machine, the right amount of blade weight to be able to cut and carry; and the right amount of tail weight to be able to grade and finish. More recently we have introduced grade control technology like Slope Assist, which for the most part is stan-dard or optional on many of the small and medium dozers. Slope Assist is a simple feature that allows the custom-er to set the blade at a target, turn it on auto and the dozer holds the blade at the target slope, which is helpful for doing basic grade control. As you move up to 3D grade control, we were one of the first to have a fac-tory-installed, integrated grade control system. In 2011, we introduced the D8 with Cat GRADE with 3D, and we have continued to modify and improve that system over the years. In general, Cat dozers have always been known for great durability and reliability. We have a handful of design criteria that ensure customers can get the job done, do it comfortably and ef-ficiently, and with an eye toward ease of repair and serviceability. The result is a machine that is designed and built to last a long time and provide durabil-ity over the years. What should a customer consider when shopping for a new dozer? To me, it is all about the applications you want to do. You want to make sure to match the tool to the jobs you need to get done. And, of course, budget is a factor too. There are several different op-tions of blades, rear work tools, rippers, grade control systems and available technology, so the contractor needs to understand the type of work that work that they are going to do and get a ma-chine that is designed and specified cor-rectly to get that type of work done. One of the first choices a contractor is going to make is blade style. There are Tell us about Caterpillar’s back-ground in the dozer market. Cat’s involvement with dozers goes back to the beginning. In 1904 Ben-jamin Holt created the first track-type vehicle; 1925 was the birth of the Cat-erpillar Corp. (with the merger of Holt Manufacturing and C.L. Best Tractor Co.); 1931 was the introduction of the first diesel; and the first Caterpillar blades went on in the 1940s. Since that 22 Utility Contractor | July/August 2020