Heavy Equipment Industry

The industry that designs, manufactures and sells heavy duty vehicles built to carry out construction tasks, most often earthwork, known variously as heavy equipment, heavy machinery, earthmovers or construction vehicles. Such equipment typically combines five systems, an implement, a traction system, a structure, a power train and a control system, using the mechanical advantage of simple machines to multiply force and complete work that would otherwise take hundreds of workers weeks to finish. The use of powered lifting and earthmoving equipment traces back at least to the 1st century BC, when the Roman engineer Vitruvius described a human or animal powered crane.