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Digger Man Blog

by Nick Drew  |  Mon 12 Aug 2019

A Flying Visit to Komatsu in Japan

Our friend and Senior Purchasing Engineer at Komatsu UK Grant Young, has recently been visiting some Komatsu facilities in Japan and has very kindly shared some photos from his visit with us here on the Digger Man Blog.

A Flying Visit to Komatsu in Japan
Grant and other members of the UK based team went to visit the long-established Komatsu Osaka plant and also to visit a couple of suppliers in the local area there, in addition to a trip to see the engine manufacturing plant in Oyama. Standing proud at the entrance to the Osaka facility are two machines with a historical relevance to the factory. This fully restored Komatsu D80A was the first trial machine produced at the Osaka plant way back in July 1962, incredibly when the author of this post was just one year old! Parked right next door is a D455A which tips the scales at 76 tonnes and was powered by a 620hp Komatsu engine. This machine was produced at Osaka in 1975 and was only the second example to roll off the production line. At the time Komatsu claimed it was the largest dozer in the world. The machine was shipped to America where it spent its entire life working in a mine during which time it amassed over 11,000 hours on the meter. Eventually it returned to the factory just in time to celebrate Komatsu’s 80th anniversary. The machine was totally refurbished and repainted before being parked up as a heritage exhibit. Of course, no visit to a Komatsu facility would be complete without a tour of the excavator manufacturing assembly line. Anyone who has been lucky enough to visit the UK factory in Birtley will be aware that the Japanese production quality techniques are closely replicated in all Komatsu plants. Checkout this video which features the Osaka assembly line.
   

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