Think You Can Drive a Bulldozer? Fearing Shortage of Skilled Operators, Machinery Makers Add Auto-Pilot Technologies

August 26, 2013, 9:12 p.m. ET

Think You Can Drive a Bulldozer?

Fearing Shortage of Skilled Operators, Machinery Makers Add Auto-Pilot Technologies

JAMES R. HAGERTY

As experienced bulldozer drivers retire, heavy equipment manufacturers are including technology in new models to make precise earth-moving easier. This Komatsu bulldozer has a ‘machine control’ system that uses GPS to program movements around a work site.

CARTERSVILLE, Ga.—As he closed the door, leaving me alone at the controls of a 41,000-pound bulldozer with list price of nearly $432,000, a Komatsu Ltd.6301.TO -1.16% executive shouted, “No worries!” That’s when I started sweating. Typing I can do—blindfolded, if necessary. But mechanical flair has always eluded me. I recently had to ask a neighbor to help me start a lawn mower. Even so, Komatsu assured me that technological advances would allow me to learn the basics of dozing in a couple of hours. Dozers are used to smooth ground for roads and runways or shape the contours of building sites and golf courses. They are among the trickier types of heavy machinery to operate because drivers must shave huge mounds of earth to precise contours, often while perched on hillsides or mired in mud. Unlike excavators, dozers typically are in motion as they move earth.Skilled drivers can be hard to find. Some construction firms fear hiring enough of them will become even harder as baby boomers retire.

So Tokyo-based Komatsu and its big American rivals, including Caterpillar Inc. and Deere & Co., are trying to make dozers and other machinery easier to run. It has been a long process. Hydraulic controls decades ago eliminated the need to use a clutch and manual gear stick. Today’s cabs are enclosed and air-conditioned.

Over the past decade, manufacturers have introduced increasingly sophisticated electronic controls, including GPS systems that can be programmed to carve a plot of earth to within centimeters of a computer-generated plan. That eliminates the need to pound little stakes in the ground and have a worker traipse through the mud to ensure the dozer driver stays on course.

“Everybody is trying to make these machines easier to operate because it’s harder and harder to find people” with the required skills, said Frank Manfredi, an industry consultant.

At stake is a global market for dozers that last year totaled about $5.9 billion, or 28,100 machines, according to Off-Highway Research Ltd., a London-based consultancy. The GPS control systems, which are much more elaborate than those in cars, come from such suppliers as Trimble Navigation Ltd., Sunnyvale, Calif., and Japan’s Topcon Corp.

At a Munich trade fair in April, Komatsu introduced a model called the D61 PXi-23—the one I tried out—whose Topcon GPS “machine-control” system is installed at a Komatsu factory. The integration is a shift from many previous systems that were clamped on later by a dealer or customer. It eliminates exposed cables and awkwardly located antennas, Komatsu says.

Komatsu’s training ground for dozers and other equipment is on a patch of land surrounded by barbed-wire fencing, just off Interstate 75 in Cartersville, Ga. Dawn mists were drifting off the pine-wooded hillsides as I arrived. Jason Anetsberger, a product manager for Komatsu, led me directly into the mud.

Mr. Anetsberger, who had two days of stubble and infinite patience, showed me the exterior highlights of the yellow machine, including the tank-style tracks and a downward-sloping nose designed to improve visibility. Then I climbed into the cab. It had a new-car smell, a cup holder and a place to plug in an iPod. (I decided I didn’t need any musical distraction.)

As with a car, you start a dozer by turning a key. But there is no steering wheel. Instead, a joystick gripped by the left hand controls direction and speed. At the right hand is another joystick, used to move the blade.

In front of me were two screens, each about the size of a small tablet computer. The bottom one told me more than I could fathom about the machine’s workings and provided a handy rearview image whenever I backed up. The upper screen helped me control the nearly 13-foot-wide blade and confirm it was programmed to do the job at hand.

“That’s really enough to get you going,” Mr. Anetsberger said after explaining my initial task: lower the elevation of a bowling-lane-sized plot by precisely 12 inches. Striving to appear calm and confident, I twisted the throttle dial to maximum power, eased my right foot off the brake, lowered my blade and lurched forward.

Within seconds, I came to an abrupt halt. As the 168-horsepower engine strained, the blade was jammed into the earth. The machine couldn’t go forward, but the tracks were still spinning. The front end of my dozer began rising ominously off the ground, tilting me backward.

I applied the brake and shifted my joystick into neutral. Mr. Anetsberger, who was cheering me on from the ground, explained that I shouldn’t have held the joystick down after tapping it forward to lower the blade. The machine thought I was trying to override the automatic controls and so dug much deeper than was advisable.

Later I got stuck again after forgetting to push a button telling the machine I wanted automatic-cutting mode. I also had trouble remembering which way to move my joystick to turn right or left. Meanwhile, I fretted about smashing into one of the other Komatsu machines parked on the training ground—or squashing the photographer who was snapping pictures of me.

Soon, however, I began feeling more like Bob the Builder. The blade curled dirt into waves that crested, crumbled and spread neatly before me. I carved a reasonably flat lane, with a six-foot-high mound of dirt at the end.

Next I was instructed to put that dirt back where it came from. “This is like a fill scenario,” Mr. Anetsberger said. After a few false starts, I managed to iron out most of the dirt lumps. There were still a couple small drifts, but Mr. Anetsberger told me not to worry. He added that, with a few hours more practice, I might even be employable.

Michael Baker, the owner of Cast & Baker Corp., Canonsburg, Pa., which prepares building sites in five states, wasn’t so sure. Mr. Baker told me he prefers seasoned machine operators who have a firm grounding in mechanics. So how long did he think it would take me to learn to be a useful employee, given today’s technology?

“You might never be able to be a useful employee,” Mr. Baker said. “Don’t take that wrong.”