As previously announced, the Cat Global Mining headquarters will move to Oak Creek, Wis., and will include three mining divisions reporting to Wunning. Cat Vice President Dave Bozeman will lead the Integrated Manufacturing Operations Division, which will include the global manufacturing operations for Caterpillar mining products. Cat Vice President Chris Curfman will lead the Mining Sales and Marketing Division. Luis de Leon, previously COO for Bucyrus, has been elected by the Cat board of directors as a corporate vice president, and will lead the new Mining Products Division. The division will be responsible for overall mining product strategy development, product design and product sourcing.
For the past several months, Cat has evaluated the best approach for branding legacy Bucyrus products. “As we examined this issue, it became clear it would be in the best long-term interests of our business to have a single brand for our mining customers, and that brand will be Caterpillar,” Wunning said.
In addition, it became clear the capabilities of the Cat dealer network with mining customers meant all products should be sold and serviced by Cat dealers. “This is consistent with our long-held distribution strategy of strong, entrepreneurial, independent dealers,” Wunning said. “Since Bucyrus predominantly employed a direct model to sell and support products, we’re beginning the process to transition distribution and support to Cat dealers. We plan to sell the Bucyrus distribution business to Cat dealers that support mining customers around the world. While discussions with dealers are just beginning, we estimate the value of the Bucyrus distribution business to be substantial.”
