Caterpillar has carried out an official renaming ceremony for the Chinese operation formerly titled Shandong Engineering Machinery Co. It is now called Caterpillar (Qingzhou) Co. The Qingzhou facility will be used to produce the Caterpillar-branded 950GC wheeled loader at present) and SEM-branded products at the plant. Caterpillar will carry out a dual brand (Caterpillar and SEM) strategy in China, so as to provide differentiated products to the Chinese users.
The firm has also opened a factory building SEM-branded crawler dozers. Ed Rapp, Caterpillar Group President said that there are major development opportunities in China and the rest of the Asian Continent. Since the Shandong Joint Venture was established in 2005 and then bought out in 2008, Caterpillar has invested heavily in developing entirely new SEM-branded wheel loaders with better quality and higher reliability. At the same time, the production line was extended to SEM-branded grader, roller and crawler bulldozer. The 960GC wheel loader is the first model produced by Caterpillar (Qingzhou) Co and is designed especially for clients with similar purchase demand from China and other markets.
