#80 First Pile

Today was a major event in the construction of our new Caterpillar China factory - the driving of the first pile. Piles form the foundation of our factory floor which is required to carry heavy loads due to the weight of our machines. Pilings are concrete tubes which are driven deep into the ground to support the floor. We will have 6000 piles supporting the floor of our factory and another 4000 supporting the roads and test track outside. All of our employees signed their name on the first pile before it was driven 100 feet into the ground.

In the pictures above you can see me signing the first pile as well as many of my colleagues doing the same. The next picture show the pile of piles waiting to be driven into the ground. The remaining pictures show the Caterpillar property and the pile driving machine. We have had quite a lot of rain in the past week, so the site is quite wet and muddy.

As I said, this is a major milestone for our project. It represents the first start of construction of the factory building. By October of this year we expect to start installing our process equipment in the factory. We will manufacture our first pilot machines in March of 2009. I can tell you that this is an exciting time for Caterpillar in China and an exciting moment for me and all of our employees.