Bobcat’s birthday
Bobcat mini-ex hits 25 Bobcat celebrates 25 years of producing mini excavators
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n 2012, Bobcat celebrates 25 years of success in the compact excavator market. From what began as an important diversification for Bobcat as the premier manufacturer of skid-steer loaders, the last 25 years have seen the company evolve to become one of the world’s leading compact excavator manufacturers and lay claim to being the global leader in compact construction equipment. Scott Nelson, President for the Europe, Middle East and Africa (EMEA) region at DICE, says: “We are very proud of our achievements in the compact excavator market over the last 25 years. This is a tribute to the tremendous efforts and commitment of our salesforce and distribution network worldwide. Most importantly, we thank all our excavator customers, who have demonstrated confidence in our products and expressed their loyalty to the Bobcat brand.” The story of the Bobcat compact excavator began in 1987 when the brand first appeared on machines sourced under an OEM agreement. Demand was so strong, particularly in Europe, that the decision was made to design and manufacture the company’s own line of excavator products. This led to the debut in October 1988 of the company’s first compact excavator product, built in collaboration
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with a Japanese manufacturer and introduced to European dealers at Da Balaia in Portugal. In 1989, Bobcat began production of its own line of compact excavators at the company’s plant in Bismarck in North Dakota, USA. Throughout the 1990s, successively larger models were added to the Bobcat-designed excavator product offering. In the Spring of 1998, the 5-tonne 337 and the 341 long arm variant were added to the line, with the 337 being exhibited for the first time at Bauma 1998. This brought the range of Bobcat compact excavators to four core models: the 320, 325, 331 and 337 models.
Continued expansion The company lost ground in the 1990s but at Samoter 2002, another significant development was marked with the addition of the 7.5 tonne 442 excavator. Not only did the 442 represent an important expansion in terms of operating weight and digging depth; it was also the first Bobcat excavator product offering zero tail swing. More recently, complementing the introduction of new products, came a determination to design and build products that meet the needs of customers in the local markets.Illustrating the intensified focus of listening to the voice of the customer was the
1.4 tonne 319 compact excavator, introduced early in 2006, the first excavator product to be designed and built specifically to meet the needs of Bobcat customers in EMEA.
LoCaL produCtion In 2001, Bobcat acquired Superstav s.r.o., at the time a manufacturer of compact loader backhoes based in Dobris in the Czech Republic. This acquisition was an important stepping stone to establishing a manufacturing capability in Europe for Bobcat compact excavators, compact loaders and attachments. At first, there was only manufacture of selected high volume attachments such as buckets and backhoes. In 2004, however, manufacture of the line of loader backhoes was discontinued, freeing up capacity to produce compact equipment. At Bauma 2010, the Bobcat E45 and E50 zero tail swing compact excavators were introduced. In 2011, based on a platform similar to that of the E50 zero tail swing model, Bobcat launched the E55 compact excavator with a conventional upper structure. Also introduced was the new 2.6 tonne zero tail swing E26 compact excavator, completing the new E-generation of machines. Replacing the 425, 428