Thiess takes delivery of the 6000th Cat® D11 dozer, marks 90-year collaboration

When we took delivery of the 6,000th Cat® D11 dozer at its Lake Vermont mining operations in Queensland, it marked a meaningful moment in Thiess’ 90-year association with Caterpillar.

The 6,000th D11 dozer rolled off the production line at the Caterpillar factory in Peoria, Illinois, USA, last year with great fanfare. It was then shipped 15,000km to Queensland where Cat dealer, Hastings Deering, delivered the machine to Thiess in Australia’s Bowen Basin mining region.

Thiess Executive Chair & CEO Michael Wright said: "Taking delivery of the 6,000th D11 dozer symbolises our enduring association with Cat, which goes back nine decades to 1934 when the fledging Thiess Bros business started with Caterpillar Model 15 and 22 tractors in their fleet. As the company grew and took on bigger and bigger projects, the brothers progressively upsized, acquiring a Caterpillar D4, D6 and then a D8 – the most powerful dozer at the time.

“Today, we have 310 Cat dozers across our operations in seven countries, including six that are equipped with Cat® MineStarTM Command for dozing semi-autonomous tractor system (SATS). Last year, we signed a Global Agreement with Caterpillar that supports our ongoing collaboration on reliable and cost-effective mining solutions to enable enhanced fleet reliability, availability and productivity and collaborate on innovation and technology.

“Our innovative and committed people, combined with the consistent performance of the Cat dozers, are a winning combination that has stood the test of time.”
Hastings Deering CEO and Managing Director, Mark Scott said: "Thiess is a long-standing customer, and we are honoured to celebrate this milestone with them. The delivery of this new Caterpillar D11 dozer reflects our enduring shared commitment to quality and efficiency. Hastings Deering is proud to support Thiess across Queensland and the Northern Territory to increase productivity, reduce costs and introduce new technology. We look forward to continuing our strong collaboration with Thiess."

Denise Johnson, Caterpillar Resource Industries’ group president added: “Caterpillar values our decades-long relationship with Thiess. We’re happy to honor the company on taking delivery of this iconic dozer as well as the factory workers and team members who contributed to its build. Our closer-than-ever collaborations with companies like Thiess help them to grow their business, leverage the use of technology, and increase production efficiency and safety. With innovation at their core, the Thiess team have embraced automation technologies beyond SATS for their D11 dozers to include Command for drilling, where they recently celebrated 1 million meters autonomously drilled using three Cat drills, and Command for hauling to boost truck productivity through autonomous haulage. We look forward to growing our relationship.”