1990
While equipment built to accommodate urban environments, by generating less noise, vibrations and emission, became more common, super sized equipment that could withstand harsh working conditions in places like giant mines were also developed.
This machine was developed with a brand new concept of recycling "gala(rubbish in Japanese)" from demolition sites, such as lumps of concrete, by crushing them on site and reusing them as materials for roadbeds and building foundations.
Until then, the debris was first transported to a plant to be crushed and transported again for recycling or land reclamation. The Galapagos series was able to lower both the cost and burden to environment generated from those extra processes at the same time.
A year after the first model, BR60, Komatsu released BR200 with higher throughput, in 1993.
It was a business move aimed at a solution benefiting the environment and became a forerunner of the Galapagos series.
Other Equipment
There were other construction machines built by Komatsu over the years. We can see how the various designs mirrored different eras if we look at them set against the flow of history.
