To mark the recent National Pothole Day, the BBC Radio 4 show - You & Yours - decided to focus upon the emotive issue of potholes.   As part of that feature, they chose to focus upon the newly-introduced PotholePro machine from British construction equipment giant, JCB. To provide some industry credibility to the show, You & Yours went in search of an expert guest.   When they couldn't find one of those, they called Diggers and Dozers instead.

At 1pm on Monday the 11th of January 2021, JCB declared war on poorly maintained roads with the official launch of the new PotholePro machine. Just a few hours later, Diggers and Dozers convened a meeting of the War Cabinet, gathering together industry influencers and representatives from JCB’s Battle Command to discuss how the scourge of potholes might be defeated. The show you’re about to hear is the audio highlights of that meeting. The full show was originally broadcast as a LIVE video show that includes footage of the new JCB PotholePro machine in action.   You can see that video here:  https://youtu.be/oPiVvQccq18

At first glance, Caterpillar's decision to exhibit at next year's Consumer Electronics Show might seem at odds with the company's heavy iron and blue collar reputation. But make no mistake - Caterpillar is an innovation giant; and it has thoroughly earned its place among the global technology elite.

According to  report in The Construction Index, JCB stands accused of human rights breaches because some of its machines were used in the demolition of Palestinian homes. Such accusations are misplaced and out of touch with the realities of global construction equipment sales.   Furthermore, the pursuit of this case merely dilutes and distracts from the true cause facing Palestinian residents.

The Komatsu stand at the recent ConExpo exhibition in Las Vegas was one of the big draws of the show. In particular, visitors were queuing to have their photo taken in the bucket of the massive WA800 wheel loader – one of the biggest machines at the show. But just behind that machine, Komatsu had dedicated a large part of its stand to a theatre area in which it was talking about Intelligent Machine Controls and – more importantly – a concept that the company calls Smart Construction. I was lucky enough to catch up with Komatsu’s Smart Construction Business Manager Chris Faulhaber to find out more. And I started by asking him what Smart Construction actually is.

If we lived in a normal world, this episode would have been recorded at the swanky Quaglino's restaurant in London during a posh lunch. Sadly, we find ourselves living in the COVID-19 world in which any sense of normality is but a distant memory; and in which posh lunches have given way to foraging for toilet paper.   So instead, I caught up with Chris Harvey - one of the founders of The Hire Exchange - to find out more about this unusual start-up company and its mission to marry those looking to sell equipment rental companies with those looking to buy them. You can find out more about The Hire Exchange here.

Imagine a matchmaking website that, instead of helping you find the partner of your dreams, paired telescopic handler customers with the most suitable and most local telehandler hirer. Well imagine no longer. Matchmaker-in-chief Lee Rigby has been in the rental industry for 30 years, working for small independent companies as well as the large nationals including A Plant, Speedy Hire & Nationwide Platforms.  He has recently started his own business called National Telehandlers

The reason this podcast is called What’s My Ride is – simply – because we wanted to concentrate upon the men and women who sit behind the levers and drive the equipment. So our latest guest doesn’t strictly qualify. Because Jeff Pinion is a freelance Brokk operator. And rather than being sat on or in a machine, Jeff is usually to be found standing beside his. Ironically, given that this was recorded in the middle of the COVID-19 lockdown, Jeff is one of the few equipment operators that can work remotely. That is precisely what a demolition robot is designed to do.

This is the second show in a two-parter recorded at the Las Vegas Convention Center and features a discussion between myself and vlogger, podcaster and journalist Peter Haddock of Content with Media. If you haven’t heard the first episode, I strongly urge you to go back and give it a listen. I have known Peter for many years. So when we sat down to record this episode, I wanted to discuss a growing feeling of guilt that I was experiencing about my presence at the show. There are hundreds of thousands of operators out there that are far more qualified to judge new machines. And yet here I was, strolling around Las Vegas, staying at a nice hotel, filling my suitcase with branded swag when others far more deserving might never get to enjoy that same level of privilege and access. In addition, both Peter and I spend our every waking hour talking about the need to reduce emissions and make the construction industry cleaner. Yet, here we are, jetting halfway around the world and expanding our carbon footprint, just to report on a bunch of diggers. So I started by asking Peter if he felt the same degree of guilt that I was experiencing.

The show you’re about to hear is part one of a two-parter that was recorded during the ConExpo exhibition in Las Vegas. Both parts are a discussion between myself and vlogger, podcaster and journalist Peter Haddock of Content with Media. Peter had just come from the finals of Caterpillar’s global Operator Challenge finals where he had met both the operators and their families. So when I asked him for his greatest highlight of the show, it s no great surprise that he started with his encounter with the children of the man crowned world champion. This episode touches upon subjects including autonomous and remotely-controlled machines, the growing skills shortage, and the prohibitive cost of operator training.    So sit back and enjoy this episode; and be sure to check out Part 2 as soon as it lands.