Heavy equipment and farm machinery

Earth, mine and farm, the excavators, tractors and harvesters

Every road or metro site in an Indian city has a yellow excavator digging at it. In a village, a tractor pulls a plough, and a combine harvests the wheat. These machines are called heavy equipment. They move earth, rock and crops.

Three kinds of heavy equipment

Construction machines

Excavators dig. Dozers push earth. Cranes and lifting platforms raise people and loads.

Mining machines

Haul trucks, some as large as a house, carry rock out of a mine. Pumps move slurry, the mix of water and crushed rock.

Farm machines

Tractors pull and power other tools. A combine cuts a crop and separates the grain in one pass.

Who buys, and how they are sold. The buyers are construction contractors, mining companies, farmers and rental companies. The makers usually sell through independent dealers, who also service the machines and supply spare parts. A machine works hard for many years and wears out its parts. So spare parts and service earn the maker and the dealer a steady income long after the sale.

Why these makers hire software engineers. The machines are now connected.

Telematics

Each machine reports where it is, how many hours it has worked, how much fuel it has used and what faults it has. Owners use this to manage their machines, and dealers use it to plan service. (More on telematics in Market Segment 38.4, Fleet management and telematics, in Industry Vertical 38, Automotive and mobility.)

Machine control

Software guides the blade of a dozer or the path of a tractor by GPS, to within a few centimetres.

Autonomy

Some machines now work with no driver at all.

How heavy equipment is sold and kept working: the maker sells through independent dealers to contractors, mining companies, farmers and rental companies, and the connected machine reports its location, hours, fuel and faults, so owners manage it and dealers plan its service.

The makers employ large numbers of engineers to design the machines and write this software. Many of them are in India.

Every company named here has posted software engineering jobs in India. Famous companies that don't actively hire software engineers in India are left out.

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Machines for construction, mines, farms and airports

Machines for construction, mines, farms and airports

Who makes what: Caterpillar Inc., Terex Corporation and The Weir Group PLC make machines for construction and mines, AGCO Corporation, CNH and John Deere make farm machines, and TLD makes machines for airports.

Construction and mining

Caterpillar Inc.

with engineers in Chennai and Bengaluru, is the world's largest maker of construction and mining machines, and of large engines. Its Chennai and Bengaluru centres design machines, and write the software and telematics that connect them. Caterpillar has the most job postings in this Industry Vertical.

Terex Corporation

with engineers in Bengaluru, makes Genie aerial work platforms, which lift workers to a height. It also makes equipment that crushes and sorts rock and other materials.

The Weir Group PLC

makes pumps for mines, and wear parts. Wear parts are the parts of a machine that wear out in use and are replaced often.

Farm machines

AGCO Corporation

with engineers in Pune, makes Massey Ferguson and Fendt tractors.

CNH

with engineers in Bengaluru, makes Case IH and New Holland tractors and combines.

John Deere

makes tractors and farm machines. It runs a large technology centre in Pune. It has only a few job postings here, which says little about the size of that centre.

One company here works at airports instead

TLD

with engineers in Bengaluru, makes the tugs that move aircraft on the ground, and the loaders that lift baggage and cargo into them.

One company covered mainly in another Market Segment also works here:

Niqo Robotics

with engineers in Bengaluru, makes camera-guided sprayers for farms. (More on it in Market Segment 45.3, Farm robotics, in Industry Vertical 45, Agritech.)

The machine with no driver.

Haul trucks with no driver already run in mines. Tractors are following. They steer themselves, and spray only the weeds their cameras see. The heavy-equipment makers are becoming software companies. The software that lets a machine drive itself is among the most demanding engineering work in this Industry Vertical.

That is heavy equipment: machines for construction sites, mines and farms, sold through dealers and kept working for years. Their makers design many of them, and write their software, in India.

Who they hire

Who these companies hire, and for what, is on What manufacturing tech companies hire for.

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