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Caterpillar Inc. (nyse: CAT), also known as "CAT", designs, manufactures, markets and sells machinery and engines and sells financial products and insurance to customers via a worldwide dealer network. Caterpillar is the world's largest manufacturer of construction and mining equipment, diesel and natural gas engines and industrial gas turbines. With more than USD $67 billion in assets, Caterpillar was ranked number one in its industry and number 44 overall in the 2009 Fortune 500. Caterpillar stock is a component of the Dow Jones Industrial Average.

Founded in California in 1925 as the Caterpillar Tractor Co., the company re-organized itself as a Delaware corporation in 1986 under the current name, Caterpillar Inc. Caterpillar's headquarters are located in Peoria, Illinois, United States.

Caterpillar machinery is recognizable by its trademark "Caterpillar Yellow" livery and the "CAT" logo.

History
In the late 1890s and early 1900s, competitors Daniel Best and Benjamin Holt individually experimented with ways to improve the traction of steam tractors used in farming California's Central Valley. The steam tractors were extremely heavy, sometimes weighing 1000 lb per horsepower, and often sank into the rich, soft earth of the San Joaquin Valley Delta farmland surrounding Stockton, California. Holt attempted to fix the problem by increasing the size and width of the wheels up to 7.5 ft tall and 6 ft wide, producing a tractor 46 ft wide. But this also made the tractors increasingly complex, expensive and difficult to maintain.

Origin of Caterpillar name
One solution considered was to lay a temporary plank road ahead of the steam tractor, but this was time-consuming, expensive, and interfered with earthmoving. Holt replaced the wheels on a 40 hp Holt steamer, No. 77, with a set of wooden tracks bolted to chains. On Thanksgiving Day, November 24, 1904, he successfully tested the updated machine plowing the soggy delta land of Roberts Island. Company photographer Charles Clements was reported to have observed that the tractor crawled like a caterpillar, and Holt seized on the metaphor. "Caterpillar it is. That's the name for it!" Some sources, though, attribute this name to British soldiers in July 1907. Two years later Holt sold his first steam-powered tractor crawlers for USD$5,500. Each side featured a track frame measured 30 in high by 42 in wide and were 9 ft long. The tracks were 3 in by 4 in redwood slats.

Holt received the first patent for a practical continuous track for use with a tractor on December 7, 1907 for his improved "Traction Engine" ("improvement in vehicles, and especially of the traction engine class; and included endless traveling platform supports upon which the engine is carried").

Move to Peoria
In March 1909, Holt opened up a plant in Minneapolis, Minnesota, led by his nephew Pliny Holt. There Pliny met farm implement dealer Murray Baker who knew of an empty factory that had been recently built to manufacture farm implements and steam traction engines. Baker, who later became the first executive vice president of what became Caterpillar Tractor Company, wrote to Holt headquarters in Stockton and described the plant of the bankrupt Colean Manufacturing Co. of East Peoria, Illinois.

On October 25, 1909, Pliny Holt purchased the factory, and immediately began operations with 12 employees. Holt incorporated it as the Holt Caterpillar Company, although he did not trademark the name Caterpillar until August 2, 1910.

The addition of a plant in the Midwest, despite the hefty capital needed to retool the plant, proved so profitable that only two years later the company employed 625 people and was exporting tractors to Argentina, Canada, and Mexico. Tractors were built in both Stockton and East Peoria.

Use in World War I
When World War I broke out, the British War Office ordered a Holt tractor and put it through trials at Aldershot. The War Office was suitably impressed and chose it as a gun-tractor. Over the next four years, the Holt tractor became a major artillery tractor, mainly used to haul medium guns like the 6-inch howitzer, the 60-pounder, and later the 9.2-inch howitzer.

Holt tractors were also the inspiration for the development of the British tank, which profoundly altered ground warfare tactics. Major Ernest Swinton, sent to France as an army war correspondent, very soon saw the potential of a track-laying tractor. Although the British later chose an English firm to build its first tanks, the Holt tractor became "one of the most important military vehicles of all time." Admiral William F. "Bull" Halsey commented at the end of World War II, that "The four machines that won the war in the Pacific were the submarine, radar, the airplane and the tractor-bulldozer."

Post-war challenges
Holt tractors had become well-known during World War I. Military contracts formed the major part of the company's production. When the war ended, Holt's planned expansion to meet the military's needs was abruptly terminated. The heavy-duty tractors needed by the military were unsuitable for farmers. The company's situation worsened when artillery tractors were returned from Europe, depressing prices for new equipment and Holt's unsold inventory of military tractors. The company struggled with the transition from wartime boom to peacetime bust. To keep the company afloat, they borrowed heavily.

C. L. Best Gas Tractor Company, formed by Clarence Leo Best in 1910 and Holt's primary competitor, had during the war received government support enabling it to supply farmers with the smaller agricultural tractors they needed. As a result, Best had gained a considerable market advantage over Holt by war's end. Best also assumed considerable debt to allow it to continue expansion, especially production of its new Best Model 60 "Tracklayer".

Both companies were adversely impacted by the transition from a wartime to a peacetime economy, which contributed to a nationwide depression, further inhibiting sales. On December 5, 1920, 71-year-old Benjamin Holt died after a month-long illness.

Caterpillar company formed
The banks who held the company's large debt forced the Holt board of directors to accept their candidate, Thomas A. Baxter, to succeed Benjamin Holt. Baxter initially cut the large tractors from the company's product line and introduced smaller models focused on the agricultural market. When the Federal Aid Highway Act of 1921 funded a USD$1 billion federal highway building program, Baxter began re-focusing the company towards building road construction equipment. Both companies also faced fierce competition from the Fordson company.

Between 1907 and 1918, Best and Holt had spent about USD$1.5 million in legal fees fighting each other in a number of contractual, trademark and patent infringement lawsuits. Harry H. Fair of the bond brokerage house of Pierce, Fair & Company of San Francisco had helped to finance C. L. Best's debt and Holt shareholders approached him about their company's financial difficulty. Fair recommended that the two companies should merge. In April and May 1925, the financially stronger C. L. Best merged with the market leader Holt Caterpillar to form the Caterpillar Tractor Co. The new company was headquartered in San Leandro until 1930, when under the terms of the merger it was moved to Peoria. Baxter had been removed as CEO earlier in 1925, and Clarence Leo Best assumed the title of CEO, and remained in that role until October, 1951.

The Caterpillar company consolidated its product lines, offering only five track-type tractors: the 2 Ton, 5 Ton, and 10 Ton from the Holt Manufacturing Company's old product line and the Caterpillar 30 and Caterpillar 60 from the C. L. Best Tractor Co.'s former product line. The 10 Ton and 5 Ton models were discontinued in 1926. In 1928, the 2 Ton was discontinued. Sales the first year were US$13 million. By 1929, sales climbed to $52.8 million, and CAT continued to grow throughout the Great Depression of the 1930s.

Caterpillar adopted the diesel engine to replace gasoline engines. During World War II, Caterpillar products found fame with the Seabees, Construction Battalions of the United States Navy, who built airfields and other facilities in the Pacific Theater of Operations. During the post-war construction boom, the company grew at a rapid pace and launched its first venture outside the U.S. in 1950, marking the beginning of Caterpillar's development into a multinational corporation.

Acquisitions
In addition to increasing sales of its core products, much of Caterpillar's growth has been through acquisitions, including:

Expansion in developing markets
Caterpillar built its first Russian facility in the town of Tosno, located near St. Petersburg, Russia. It was completed in 16 months and occupied in November 1999. It had the first electrical substation built in the Leningrad Oblast since the Communist government was dissolved on December 26, 1991. The facility was built under harsh winter conditions, where the temperature was below -25°C. The facility construction was managed Lemminkäinen Group located in Helsinki, Finland.

The $125M Caterpillar Suzhou, People's Republic of China facility, manufactures medium wheel loaders and motorgraders, primarily for the Asian market. The first machine is scheduled for production in March 2009. URS Ausino, in San Francisco, California, manages facility construction.

Caterpillar has manufactured in Brazil since 1960. In 2010 the company announced plans to further expand production of backhoe and small wheel loaders with a new factory.

Business lines
Caterpillar divides its products, services and technologies into three principal lines of business: machinery, engines and financial products for sale to private and governmental entites.

Machinery


Caterpillar has a list of some 400 products for purchase through its dealer network. Caterpillar's line of machines range from tracked tractors to hydraulic excavators, backhoe loaders, motor graders, off-highway trucks, wheel loaders, agricultural tractors and locomotives. Caterpillar machinery is used in the construction, road-building, mining, forestry, energy, transportation and material-handling industries.

Caterpillar is the world's largest manufacturer of wheel loaders. The medium size (MWL) and large size (LWL) are designed at their Aurora, Illinois facility. Medium wheel loaders are manufactured at: Aurora, Illinois; Sagamihara, Kanagawa, Japan; Gosselies, Charleroi, Belgium; Piracicaba, São Paulo, Brazil; India and the People's Republic of China. Large wheel loaders are manufactured exclusively in the United States on three separate assembly lines at Aurora, Illinois.

Engines
A portion of CAT's business is in the manufacturing of diesel and natural gas engines and gas turbines which, in addition to their use in the company's own vehicles, are used as the prime movers in locomotives, semi trucks, marine vessels and ships, as well as providing the power source for peak-load power plants and emergency generators.

In 2004, the company introduced with ACERT diesel engines that exceed federal guidelines for emission standards. In 2007, Caterpillar released a second generation of ACERT to meet even stricter standards.

Caterpillar Defence Products
The Caterpillar Defence Products subsidiary, headquartered in Shrewsbury, Shropshire, provides diesel engines, automatic transmissions and other parts for the UK's Titan armored bridge layer, Trojan combat engineering tank, Terrier combat engineering vehicles, and tank transporters; the Romanian MLI-84 armored personnel carrier and the Swiss Piranha III light armored vehicle, which is currently being developed for use by American light armored formations; large fleets of military trucks in both the U.S. and UK; and the CV90 family of infantry fighting vehicles used by the armies of Sweden, Norway, Finland, Switzerland, the Netherlands and Denmark.

This division also provides both propulsion engines and power generation systems to the naval shipbuilding industry, such as the Series 3512B turbocharged V-12 diesel engine for American Virginia class nuclear submarines. Caterpillar diesel engines are also used in San Antonio class amphibious transport docks, Spanish Alvaro de Bazán class frigates, British River class patrol vessels, Mexican Sierra class patrol boats, and Malaysian Kedah class MEKO A-100 offshore patrol vessels.

Brand licensing
Caterpillar sells the right to manufacture, market and sell products bearing the Caterpillar brand and trademarks to licensees world wide. Wolverine World Wide is one example, a licensee since 1994 and currently the sole manufacturer, worldwide licensed to produce Cat branded footwear. Other licensees sell items including clothing, hats, watches, scale models of Cat machinery and other consumer products.

Manufacturing
Caterpillar products and components are manufactured 110 facilities worldwide. 51 plants are located in the United States and 59 overseas plants are located in Australia, Belgium, Brazil, Canada, England, France, Germany, Hungary, India, Indonesia, Italy, Japan, Mexico, the Netherlands, Northern Ireland, the People's Republic of China, Poland, Russia, Singapore, South Africa and Sweden.

Caterpillar's historical manufacturing home is in Peoria, Illinois, which is also the location of Caterpillar's world headquarters and core research and development activities. Although Caterpillar has contracted much of its local parts production and warehousing to third parties, Caterpillar still has four major plants in the Peoria area: the Mapleton Foundry, where diesel engine blocks and other large parts are cast; the East Peoria factory, which has assembled Caterpillar tractors for over 70 years; the Mossville engine plant, built after World War II; and the Morton parts facility.

Product distribution
Caterpillar products are distributed to end-users in nearly 200 countries through Caterpillar's worldwide dealer network 220 dealers. Caterpillar's dealers are independently owned and operated businesses with exclusive geographical territories. Dealers provide sales, maintenance and repair services, rental equipment, and parts distribution. Finning, a dealer based in British Colombia, Canada, is Caterpillar's largest global distributor. Most dealers use the Dealer Management System called DBS (Dealer Business System) for their day to day operations.