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I know that a lot
of our readers were at ConExpo earlier this year because I
had the opportunity to speak with a whole bunch of you as
I dashed back and forth between the furthest reaches of Las
Vegas Convention Center’s South Hall and Gold Lot and
all points between in what seemed to be an endless round of
meetings, presentations, and demos of a schedule that could
only have been scripted by a madman. Though the final tally
has yet to be released, I have heard that there were more
than 120,000 attendees plowing their way through the million-plus
square-foot venue.
And what was the
attraction? Well glitter, gaming, and excitement of course—after
all that’s what Vegas is famous for—but as most
attendees will confirm, the stunning display of products and
services served up by more than 2,000 exhibitors had “The
Strip” beat, hands down.
This is the third
once-every-three-years ConExpo I’ve attended—each
with its own special character and sense of purpose—but
this one stands apart not so much for its size or even introductions
of new and exciting equipment and services, but because it
was a validation of the depth and significance of the changes
wrought to the construction industry over the past several
years. To illustrate this let me take you back to the two
previous happenings.
ConExpo 1999:
Holding onto the Past
I remember vividly the disgust of an outspoken loader
driver for what he viewed as puny controls on a new offering
from a long-standing bastion of the lever-and linkage world.
“I never thought I’d see the day…” he
opined bitterly to his fellow witnesses to this heresy, and
it was apparent that most within earshot held to his opinion.
“Why not take
advantage of more of the digital data for the displays?”
I asked one salesman. “Because,” he explained with
great patience, “our customers don’t like to see
change.”
Yet all the tools
for change were there—digital data buses, electro-hydraulic
actuators, laser designators, joystick controls—but to
many attendees, those things belonged to the world of kids’
games rather than that of mud, dirt, and searing heat or numbing
cold that were the realities of the jobsite. It may not have
been apparent at the time, but the battle lines were drawn,
not so much about the technology as to their applicability
to the tasks at hand.
ConExpo 2002:
Clash of the Cultures
Hardly had we set foot into the new millennium that we
found ourselves in a showdown between traditionalists and
those who reasoned that technologies that performed reliably
on the battlefield should be able to stand up to the rigors
of the jobsite.
Armed now with
several years of experience with the technologies and emboldened
by a rather clear vision of what the future held in store
for the construction industry, the equipment manufacturers
cast aside their own fears of change and arrived in Las Vegas
with the greatest array of “whiz-bangs” ever assembled
under one roof. The question no longer hinged on the applicability
of the high-tech innovations, but whether their benefits could
justify the added expense.
ConExpo 2005:
From Iron to Solutions
What to me was most striking at this year’s event
was the almost universal acceptance of those innovations that
only half a decade ago had been regarded by mainstream dirt
movers as, if not pie-in-the-sky, at least far-fetched. In
contrast with the past, the questions by attendees reflected
not just a grudging willingness but a genuine desire to push
the suppliers for even greater change, and the exhibitors
for their part were eager to talk about “solutions”
not just machinery.
Still, ConExpo
for the kid in all of us remains a huge and wondrous toy store,
filled with the same things—maybe a little more refined—that
lit our fuses in the first place and set our feet on their
inexorable course.
As one attendee
in front of me at the entrance to the North Hall said with
more than a touch of awe in his voice, “Boy, howdy.”
Send
John an Email
GEC
- May/June 2005
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