THE INCREDIBLE SUCCESS STORY OF JCB
The JCB brand is an acronym of its founder’s full name – Joseph Cyril Bamford. The company is now the biggest manufacturer of construction machines and equipment in the world run by a private owner.
Bamford decided to open a small shop in 1945 after WWII ended and his services were no longer needed by the Royal Air Force. His business endeavor began in Staffordshire on the same day his son was born. He worked hard and this resulted in his first product, introduced 3 years later. The Major Loader was a cleverly designed front-end loading mechanism and it happened to be the first in Europe. The machine was revolutionary for all the tasks related to agricultural work. The device was designed to be easily attached to tractors from the Fordson Major range, but Bamford began exporting his invention to France modified to be adaptable to any other tractor.
THE FIRST STEP TOWARDS RAPID GROWTH
The 50’s brought change to JCB as the company relocated from Uttoexeter to Rocester. This was a must due to the rapid growth Bamford experienced in terms of his business endeavor. The new location was a former cheese factory suggested by Bill Hirst –the first apprentice hired by Bamford. The new headquarters of the JCB company was opened in 1950 and it eventually grew from one to 175 acres, and it serves as the JCB World HQ now.
A huge step ahead for JCB was the introduction of the backhoe loader – the first of its kind in the world. Bamford was inspired by the idea during a business trip and he comes up with attaching an excavator arm to the rear end of a stock front-end loader. The first prototype was shown in 1953.
After another decade of successful business operations and sales, Bamford initiates the famous JCB stunts which are one really spectacular tradition to date. These stunts were a smart marketing move showing the machines’ capabilities.
THE EXPANSION
By the end of the 60s more than half of JCB’s production is exported and the Queen of England personally presented Bamford with an award for his huge success with the Export Achievement Award. This was the first of a total of 30 awards JCB has received from the Queen until now.
The telescopic handler and its modified version available in configurations with two or four wheels were launched in 1977 and 1979 respectively. Bamford knew that these machines would easily become a hit in the construction world.
1985 was marked by the introduction of the 3CX Sitemaster, a super important part of JCB’s history. The machine was developed after an unusually long research and development process that took a lot of money to be completed, but the result was worth it: the machine became the bestseller among backhoe loaders. That same year marked the 100,000th unit that came rolling down the backhoe loaders’ production line. Three years later Bamford showed the JCB GT concept – a suit-up backhoe loader with a top-speed of more than a 100mph. It was nothing than a show vehicle used for marketing, but the world had never seen something similar before.
Bamford introduced the first tractor capable of unusually high speed on the market in 1991 after millions worth of investments. It was a revolutionary product that increased farmers’ productivity. A couple of years later the skid-steer loader with additional safety features was introduced. It featured a number of innovations and patented technology.
Fast-forward to 2004 when JCB marked the 500,000th unit produced in their factories. It was a huge success that eventually took the company to another major step forward just four years later: JCB opened an enormous brand new factory in Uttoexeter meant to cover the company’s plans to extend their export to new markets. The product range at the time includes machines varying from 7 to 46 tons. The 750,000th machine was assembled in 2009. Just a year later, a new low fuel-emission backhoe loader was introduced.
THE IMPRESSIVE NUMBERS
JCB produced their 1,000,000th unit in 2012. Four years later the first excavator with wheels instead of tracks was put into production, and later that year the Fastrac tractor product line celebrated a successful quarter of a century on the market. The following years is an important one, as the company won a $142,000,000 order by the U.S army and later delivered 1,600 forklifts designed for rough terrain use. The JCB Access equipment product range was launched that same year, featuring different warehouse scissor models.
The mini excavators and the track skid-steer fitted with a unique telescopic boom were introduced, followed by the groundbreaking electric version shown for the first time last year.
JCB sells an exceptionally wide range of machines including track loaders, backhoe loaders, forklifts, mini excavators and dumpers. The rest of the machine variety offered by JCB includes telescopic handlers and wheel loaders, skid-steer machines, excavators and tractors.
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