ONE KOMATSU – INTEGRATED AND HERE TO SERVE

Sean Taylor, MD & CEO 

By now, I’m sure all our customers will be aware that in April 2017, Komatsu Ltd finalised its acquisition of Joy Global, to form a completely new entity Komatsu Mining Corporation.

Our customers now have access to a highly complementary range of products, across mining (surface and underground), construction, quarrying, infrastructure and more from Komatsu.

Komatsu’s “traditional” product lines offer new opportunities to Komatsu Mining Corporation customers, while existing offerings include products that can deliver real productivity solutions in construction and infrastructure development.

Now I’m very pleased to be able to announce that we have been working tirelessly to integrate our operations to form a new One Komatsu organisation.

Under One Komatsu, in April 2018 we formed a single organisation dedicated to supplying, servicing and supporting our customers throughout Australia, New Zealand, New Caledonia and Indonesia.

So what does this mean for our customers, both our traditional Komatsu customers, and those who have come to us through their engagement with Joy Global products and services?

Integration with Joy Australasia means that Komatsu Australia, including New Zealand and New Caledonia has gone from around 2000 to 3000 employees.  This is a massive change for any organisation so careful planning is very important. A fundamental criteria for the integration has therefore been not to disturb our customer’s operations during the change. Actually, this directive came from the global HQ and we really appreciate it, focus on cost synergies is probably more usual in these circumstances.

We are pretty much over the main change phase now and with no impact at all on customer service levels.  Indeed, we have seen improvement in particular within our surface mining service teams to look after our combined fleets and customers.  Over the coming years, we will use this strong foundation to further strengthen our value to you in a number of concrete ways.

By joining Komatsu and Joy technical development and global manufacturing capability, the combined company is in the process of creating a whole which is more than the sum of its parts.  This is an area which is particularly exciting.  As always our central focus will be delivering quality and reliability in every product line as well as leveraging technology to give you unique and industry leading products.  Increased safety and productivity, lower life cycle costs and better sustainability are the value drivers we will focus our efforts on.

An important value driver right now is how we innovate and collaborate together with our customers, suppliers and other stakeholders like governments and local communities.  So with this regard we will focus more and more on the value in use of our equipment and services.  We will achieve this through bespoke application of digitisation both in Mining and Construction.  We want to empower your teams with data that will enable them to make accurate and timely decisions and move the dial in your business.  Both Komatsu and Joy bring to the table exceptional and complementary capabilities in terms of digital innovation. 

In a more direct example of value in use, we will continue our market leading focus on autonomy and semi autonomy built into our machines.  This also applies to both Mining and Construction applications, improved safety and productivity are at the heart of these innovations.

Finally, the local organisational structure we have decided to fulfil our commitment to you is very simple.  Three customer orientated business divisions;  Mining, Soft Rock Underground Mining and Construction.  Each business will be very focused on customer solutions.  Each division will work hand in hand with our vast global resources to ensure the best individual customer solutions are commissioned on your work sites.  Each division will also work very closely with each other as One Komatsu to ensure we share best practice and deliver a seamless experience for all of our customers, large and small.  We will look to drive cost saving synergies across your supply chains through combined business support administration and streamlined logistics.

We are all very excited here at Komatsu. The future is very bright because we know we will continue to move faster and with purpose to support you.