Caterpillar Inc.

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Caterpillar Inc. <tr><td colspan="2" style="text-align:center; padding:16px 0 16px 0;">Image:Caterpillar logo.gif</td></tr>
Type	Public (NYSE: CAT)
Founded	1925
Headquarters	Image:Flag of the United States.svg Peoria, Illinois, USA <tr><th style="text-align:right; padding-right:0.75em;">Key people</th><td>James W. Owens, CEO & Chairman</td></tr><tr><th style="text-align:right; padding-right:0.75em;">Industry</th><td>Heavy equipment</td></tr><tr><th style="text-align:right; padding-right:0.75em;">Products</th><td>Construction & Agriculture Machinery</td></tr><tr><th style="text-align:right; padding-right:0.75em;">Revenue</th><td>Image:Green Arrow Up.svg$36.339 billion USD (2005) [1]</td></tr><tr><th style="text-align:right; padding-right:0.75em;">Employees</th><td>85,116</td></tr><tr><th style="text-align:right; padding-right:0.75em;">Website</th><td>http://www.cat.com/</td></tr>

Caterpillar Inc. NYSE: CAT is a United States-based corporation headquartered in Peoria, Illinois. Caterpillar (commonly referred to simply as CAT) is, according to their corporate website, "the world's largest manufacturer of construction and mining equipment, diesel and natural gas engines, and industrial gas turbines."

Famous for their products featuring caterpillar tracks and a distinctive yellow paint scheme (which is a special pigment titled "Caterpillar Yellow," as featured on an episode of American Chopper), Caterpillar produces a wide range of heavy equipment, mainly engineering vehicles, including the Caterpillar D9 bulldozer.

Caterpillar is one of 30 companies whose stock is tracked in the Dow Jones Industrial Average. It is a Fortune 100 company ranked first in its industry, with more than $30 billion in assets.

1 History
2 Corporate Governance
- 2.1 Current Board of Directors
3 Sales
4 Employment
5 Controversies
6 See also
7 External links

[edit] History

Image:Serpentine vtm cat d2 gnangarra.jpg The story of Caterpillar Inc. originates in the late 19th century, when Daniel Best and Benjamin Holt experimented with ways to fulfill the promise that steam tractors held for farming. By 1904, these large steam powered tractors had been plowing California fields for 14 years, and occasionally got bogged down in the soft California soil, especially after heavy rains. These huge tractors were difficult to pull free, even with teams of horses. Benjamin Holt had an idea-- why not carry the road with the vehicle? On November 24, 1904 he added wood block-linked treads around the idlers on Holt No.77, his test tractor. The results were impressive, and the modern tractor was born. Caterpillar became famous for its Caterpillar 30 and its Caterpillar 60 tractors.

Caterpillar formed April 15, 1925 with the merger of Holt Manufacturing Company of Stockton, California and the C. L. Best Gas Traction Company of San Leandro, California, forming the Caterpillar Tractor Co. Sales the first year were $13 million. By 1929, sales climbed to $52.8 million, and CAT continued to grow throughout the Depression of the 1930s. The Holt Manufacturing Company had earlier pioneered the use of the caterpillar track during World War I.

After the companies merged, Caterpillar went through many changes, including the adoption of the diesel engine. Caterpillar products found fame with the US Navy "Seabees" who built airfields in the Pacific War. Following World War II, the company grew at a rapid pace and launched its first venture outside the US in 1950, marking the beginning of Caterpillar's development into a multinational corporation.

Caterpillar products range from track-type tractors to hydraulic excavators, backhoe loaders, motor graders, off-highway trucks, wheel loaders, agricultural tractors, diesel and natural gas engines and gas turbines. They are used in construction, road-building, mining, forestry, energy, transportation and material-handling industries.

Caterpillar's crawler tractors inspired the first military tanks, which helped end World War I. Many of their machines helped build the Hoover Dam, tunnel under the English Channel, tumble the Berlin Wall and construct cities and neighborhoods across the United States.

Caterpillar was one of the "excellent" companies featured in the 1982 best-selling management book In Search of Excellence by business management guru Tom Peters.

[edit] Corporate Governance

[edit] Current Board of Directors

[edit] Sales

44% (current as of 1Q2006) of Caterpillar's sales are to overseas customers. Caterpillar products are sold in nearly 200 countries. The company has a worldwide network of 220 dealers: 63 dealers in the United States and 157 in other countries. Caterpillar products and components are manufactured in 42 plants in the United States and 58 plants 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, South Africa and Sweden.

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[edit] Employment

Caterpillar’s worldwide employment was 93,233 in third quarter 2006, up 9,334 from 83,899 in third quarter 2005. Of the increase, about 5,200 was a result of acquisitions, and about 1,900 hourly and 2,200 salaried and management employees were added to support higher volume and new product introductions. The increase related to acquisitions was for Progress Rail and a logistics business in Europe. According to a 2001 article [2] in the Nashville Business Journal, 60% of Caterpillar's employees work outside the United States.

[edit] Controversies

[edit] Israeli use

Israel Defense Forces bulldozers are Caterpillar tractors (bulldozer, excavator and wheel loader) which are armored by Israeli industries and used for combat engineering applications. The most notable dozer is the Caterpillar D9, which is used for counter-terrorism operations in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, operations which often include the demolitions of buildings and clearance of shrubbery.

A coalition of groups[3], led by the Jewish Voice for Peace, has called for protests against the sales of Caterpillar bulldozers to Israel, citing the use of the equipment in the demolishing of the homes of Palestinian residents, the destruction of olive groves, and the death of American protestor Rachel Corrie while trying to obstruct such activities, and alleging that Caterpillar profits from the construction of the Israeli West Bank barrier. Some human rights groups, such as Amnesty International also have criticized the Israeli usage of bulldozers. [4]

JVP and a group of Presbyterian Churches raised a motion in Caterpillar's Annual Shareholders Conference to review and also cancel the sales of equipment to Israel. The motion was rejected 97% to 3%. Caterpillar maintains it has no right or means to monitor how its equipment is being used.

In February 2006, the General Synod of the Church of England voted overwhelmingly to divest its $2.2 million of stocks in Caterpillar Inc. as an ethical statement against the destruction of 4,000 Palestinian homes, the deliberate uprooting of 1,000,000 olive trees and the construction of the wall between Israel and the West Bank.

[edit] Labor problems

Caterpillar almost went under in the early 1980s due to massive labor union strikes and a downturn in product demand. Several news reports of the time indicated that products were piling up so high in facilities that temporary workers hired to work the lines could barely make their way to their stations.

Caterpillar suffered another long strike in the 1990s, in which the company hired what it termed "permanent replacements" for striking union workers.

In both strikes, jack rocks were placed in the home driveways of many Caterpillar executives and employees, puncturing tires of vehicles and further worsening relations between company heads and laborers.

Not long after the 1990s strike ended and the economy started to pick up again, Caterpillar adopted the "6 Sigma" quality management program, so as to reduce costs and inventory, and identify and correct defects in the company's processes and products.

[edit] Environment

Caterpillar has been under fire by many environmental groups. Products produced by the company include tree logging trucks, strip and under-ground mining equipment, and of course, diesel engines. In 2004, the company came out with "ACERT" diesel engines that exceed federal guidelines for emission standards.

In 2005, Caterpillar donated millions of dollars to The Nature Conservancy in a joint effort to protect and preserve river systems in Brazil, USA, and China.

In 2006, the company issued its first annual Sustainability Report, touting its remanufacturing, recycling, and environmental projects around the world. This report can be found on their website.

Caterpillar has for many years been a member of the World Business Council for Sustainable Development (WBCSD), based in Geneva, Switzerland. In 2005, Cat expressed a strong commitment to sustainability.

[edit] See also

Caterpillar has a list of some 400 products for purchase through its dealer network. Of those, these are some of the more well known and notable:

Track-type tractors (bulldozers)

Backhoe Loaders

Truck
- Caterpillar 740 Ejector
- Caterpillar 797B, the second largest truck in the world

Front-loaders
- 950E
- 955E
- 966E
- 966G

Engines
- C7
- C9
- C11
- C13
- C15

Software
- MineStar
- Aquila, Onboard Mining Systems

Footwear (Work boots and shoes)
- Alaska
- Colorado
- Second Shift

According to this site (relayed by Slashdot), the power loader used in Aliens is not an invention of the movie, but a Caterpillar Power Loader J-5000

Cat is the world's largest manufacturer of high-speed diesel engines, large scale diesel engines, as well as being the world’s largest manufacturer of gaseous fueled engines. (Natural gas, methane, propane, etc., also referred to as spark ignited engines.) Cat is also involved in manufacturing large marine-grade diesel engines and solar turbines.