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- Hi, everybody. I'm Judson Alhoff,
and I'm delighted to be here with Rod Schrader,
the chairman and CEO of Komatsu America.
And we want to talk a little bit
about how they're leveraging
digital technology to really leapfrog
and advance the company forward.
So let's maybe start off a little bit,
just high-level talking about Komatsu.
- We're a global company. We've got 60,000 employees.
Focus is construction and mining industries,
and we're supporting our customers
in over 200 countries.
We've been a leader in autonomous mining trucks.
We introduced Smart Construction.
We're really focusing on technology solutions.
- Got it. So we spend a lot of time
in our industry these days talking about
digital transformation, and it's, you know, probably
the most overused term in the industry right now
and it's ironically sometimes the least understood.
What does it really mean for Komatsu?
- You know, our heritage is manufacturing, expertise,
efficiency, and excellence.
We're familiar with utilizing data
from a manufacturing and engineering standpoint.
We've got to now transform our business by connecting it
to our dealer network and our customers, to add that value.
- This direction you're headed in in terms of becoming a--
more of a solution provider versus just a product company--
the aspect of not only selling the original product to market,
but continuing that serviceability relationship
throughout time.
Talk to us a little bit about the strategy.
- You know, rental is becoming a bigger piece of our business,
so that puts the burden back on the dealer
and the OE to make sure that that product
is properly maintained.
We don't have enough people to follow every single machine,
but that data exists, and we can manage that
most effectively to optimize the utilization of the asset,
the health of the asset, and then eventually,
that product gets sold into the used market.
And the better maintained it is,
the higher the value of that.
- You're sort of pretty cutting edge on a lot of things.
- Yeah. - With autonomous
and semiautonomous equipment, as well as, like,
even using drone technology.
Talk to us about the future. Like, where do you see
tech like that driving your business?
- Probably about three or four years ago--
I tried to spend a lot of-- a big portion of my time
going out and talking to customers,
and I had a contractor tell me a couple years ago--
he said, you know, "Rod, I get paid the same amount of money
today to move a yard of dirt that I did in 1970."
- Wow.
- And you think about that-- the inflationary aspects
of every--all his other input costs
have gone through the roof.
So how do we make our customers more efficient?
And, you know, we introduced first
a machine called IMC-- Intelligent Machine Control.
Fly the drone, take the 3-D data models,
put 'em in the machine, and make the machine
more efficient. And that's for, you know,
leveling material, digging a hole,
our dozers and excavators.
Once, then, we got that going, we found out there's a limit
to us improving the productivity of the job site
because there's other inputs that have nothing to do
with the Komatsu product--
delivering asphalt and concrete and pipes
and things like that--
that if we really truly improve
the overall job site efficiency,
we have to think just beyond our product
and we have to think of the entire customer process.
And partners like Microsoft help in that--
putting that kind of platform in place.
- Awesome. Really cool.
Well, Rod, thank you so much
for spending some time with us here.
I think that the direction you're headed in
is an impressive one, and we're really thankful
to be your partner on this journey.
- And we're thankful for your collaboration
and partnership. - Great. Thanks, Rod.
Appreciate it.
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