Not many know that despite having its vast presence in the world of construction equipment and mining, Caterpillar has its big presence in the world of defence too. “Caterpillar has been working with the US Army for more than 70 years now. US armforces is our biggest customers worldwide. They have more than 70,000 machines and over 150,000 engines of Caterpillar,” reveals Kanchan Saha, India Manager – Industry Solutions.
The second part of Caterpillar’s business is that it offers a lot of power packs for defence application. “We have the largest engine range worldwide, right from 20 horse power to 40,000 horse power, that includes the marine engines too. We modify our engines for the defence application and can use them to power infantry combat vehicles. One of the important criteria for infantry combat application is the power-to-weight ratio. It has to be very efficient, and we being the technology company can provide that”, averred Saha.
Thanks to the maturing Indian defence segment in the last couple of years the Indian Army wants good modern products. That technology is important gives a lot of confidence to Caterpillar that entered the Indian defence segment a couple of years ago, to exhibit at the show and showcase the right products and technology expertise for India.
“We are open to working with Indian and foreign OEMs in India for various applications. In fact we are already working with a couple of them. We have 10,000 employees across 5 manufacturing centres in India, namely, Aurangabad, Thiruvallur, Pondicherry, Hosur and Chennai. In Aurangabad and Hosur we manufacture engines and in Thiruvallur we manufacture earthmoving and mining machines. Also in Chennai we have our engine design centre which itself is employing 5,000 persons, Saha added.