Kobelco Construction Machinery USA is pleased to announce the opening of their new North American headquarters in Houston, Texas. Following the termination of a 10 year agreement with CNH in late December, Kobelco excavators will once again be directly marketed by the company in the United States and Canada.
Since the start of 2013, Kobelco executives have been diligently working to re-establish a presence in North America, starting with the acquisition of their new location in Houston. The centrally located facility at 4690 World Houston Parkway, will serve as a temporary home base for the company while a custom headquarters and manufacturing facility is built nearby. A comprehensive parts inventory will be on hand at this location, with equipment being stored near the Port of Galveston, TX, as well as several other strategically located ports around the country.
Kobelco has long been known for its quality line of excavators in the 3,000 lb. to 180,000 lb. classes. By focusing on a single line of equipment, the company has become known as excavator perfectionists. While some companies manufacture multiple lines of equipment, Kobelco dedicates their research and development dollars to improving and enhancing their singular product line, ensuring they deliver excavators that can withstand the day-to-day rigors of demanding jobsites, while providing operators with all the production and comfort features required for a profitable days work, according to the company.
Bringing back the Kobelco tradition to North America meant more than simply bringing the products back to market. The company wanted to reaffirm a leadership team driven by the same passion that Kobelco’s management team prior to the CNH agreement was notorious for. Leading the new Kobelco team is Katsuhiko Morita as President and CEO and past Kobelco employees Ron Hargrave as Vice President of Sales & Marketing, George Lumpkins as Product Marketing Manager and Eric Hoffman as National Parts Manager. Additional employees have all been carefully selected based on their industry experience to ensure that all personnel will be able to deliver on Kobelco’s promise of customer satisfaction.
Establishing a solid dealer network has proven to be a very small challenge for the company. “Once dealers learned that Kobelco would be directly marketed again in North America, the phone started ringing,” states Ron Hargrave. “The level of enthusiasm from past, current and prospective dealers has been unprecedented. One of the biggest challenges for many manufacturers today is building and maintaining a dealer network. The quality of Kobelco’s products and services has stood the test of time, which helped us to quickly secure stocking orders to have inventory in dealer yards in time for the spring 2013 selling season.”
With many customers already familiar with the Kobelco brand, the company is confident their new found independence will result in considerable growth throughout North America. “We are committed to manufacturing quality equipment and pricing it aggressively for today’s competitive marketplace,” states Katsuhiko Morita. “With a full network of established dealers behind us, we will be in a solid position to gain market share fairly quickly.”
Kobelco Construction Machinery USA is dedicated to producing a full range of crawler excavators for the rental, landscape, construction, aggregate, roadbuilding, material handling, site preparation, recycling and ancillary markets, including zero tail swing, standard and compact models. Kobelco machines are well-known for their advanced technologies including an innovative noise and dust reduction system, advanced hydraulic circuitry for reduction of pressure loss and superior fuel efficiency. For more information on Kobelco Construction Machinery USA or Kobelco products, please visit www.KOBELCO-USA.com.
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