Construction machinery firm Develon reports a huge success for its first Global Develon Day, held recently in South Korea. The firm was formerly known as Doosan Construction Equipment and received a positive reaction from customers and dealers alike. Held eight months after the new Develon brand was first announced by parent company, HD Hyundai Infracore, the event attracted a global audience, with a strong presence from the USA, Europe, South America and the Middle East.
Taking place over three days, the event began with the Develon Day at the company’s Proving Ground facility at Boryeong to the south of the capital, Seoul. The events on the second and third day included a tour of the Develon manufacturing facilities in Incheon and a special visit to the Demilitarised Zone.
The Develon Day programme at Boryeong showed how the company intends to do this with a display of the very latest Develon construction equipment and demonstrations of cutting-edge technology. These included its latest generation Concept-X2 autonomous solutions and the exclusive Transparent Bucket safety system for Develon wheel loaders.
A key aspect of the Develon Day was the Expert Talk, where specialists talked about the evolution and current status of autonomous construction equipment at Develon. The company sees five stages in this work, the first is the use of technology to increase safety, with the second the automation of processes such as auto digging. The third stage is to make tasks autonomous with the fourth stage being fully autonomous with an external control centre, moving finally to Stage 5, which is full site automation. According to the Develon experts, the company is currently between Stages 3 and 4, but is hoping to demonstrate a Stage 5 solution in 2024.
Developed in-house, Concept-X2 is the latest version of Develon’s Concept-X, an innovative automated construction solution. Develon gave a demonstration of the latest Concept-X2 autonomous construction equipment, including the DD100-CX dozer and DX225-CX crawler excavator. Both machines feature a new cabinless design.
The firm highlighted other advanced concepts. This included the new DX225LC-7X - the company’s first ‘Smart’ crawler excavator, designed to help operators work quickly and efficiently. This included a close-up of how the DX225LC-7X works via a video screen showing the various machine functions in action, including Full Electric Hydraulic (FEH) technology; integrated 2D Machine Guidance and Semi-Automatic 2D Machine Control as standard.
Develon demonstrated the company’s Transparent Bucket 2.0 safety system mounted on a DL320-7 wheel loader. The transparent bucket is a system that allows the wheel loader driver to see blind spots in front of the bucket on the machine, using the monitor in the cab.
Another new product on display was the new DD130 dozer. The new DD130 dozer offers a wide range of features of interest to customers, resulting in a productive fine-grading solution for residential and light commercial construction projects.
Develon also provided a preview of its new DTL35 compact track loader, the latest addition to the company’s line-up of compact construction equipment. This prototype 86.5 kW (116 HP) compact track loader is the company’s first entry in this product category, designed primarily for the North American construction market.
The DX20ZE-7, the electric mini excavator manufactured by Develon, was also included. The DX20ZE-7 mini-excavator is powered by an in-house-developed 20.4 kWh lithium-ion battery pack, with all of the electrical system and components on the machine optimized for work in harsh environments.
Complementing the Concept-X2 demonstration, Develon presented a range of smart technology solutions, including the first view of the new Quarry-X solution, designed to integrate all the operation processes involved in running a quarry, from order taking to sales using ICT technology to manage the site and increase productivity with minimal cost and time.
