Editor at Large: Visiting Doosan Headquarters and Discovering the LSC

The Ingersoll Rand brand has been in the forefront of compressor technology, design and manufacturing since the early 1900s. From piston to vane, and into the current era of screws, Ingersoll Rand has maintained its place as the North American leader for compressors and portable power in general, manufacturing gen sets, light towers and hand tools like compactors along the way.

But today it’s not called Ingersoll Rand – it’s called Doosan Infracore Portable Power. The global construction giant Doosan (one of the top five manufacturers of equipment in the world) bought the utility and attachment business of IR back in 2007 for 4.9 million (along with subsidiary Bobcat Co.). I got the opportunity to visit Doosan Infracore Portable Power headquarters earlier this month with a group of editors at its (relatively) new Statesville’s facility, which it moved into in 2008 after the acquisition.

The 441,650-sq ft facility, which is bright blue and white and enormous, was humming with activity — busy offices, conference rooms, assembly lines, welding stations, loading docks, paint booths and even a mini gym. With over 400 employees, the Statesville plant manufactures and assembles products as diverse as the futuristic, military-grade Blackhawk MVS-6 security light tower to simple, big, steel buckets and teeth for attachment brand Geith (a Euro attachment maker Doosan acquired with the IR purchase). 

Doosan Infracore Portable Power discussed plenty of topics with editors — its overall product lines, Tier 4 emission regulations and the transitioning of its nameplate from its Ingersoll Rand history to its Doosan Infracore future. All of that aside, the company showed off its new products, specifically gen sets, compressors and light towers. Out of the mix, what caught my attention the most was the small and innovative LSC light tower (LightSource Compact).

It’s the newest addition to the line of portable light towers from Doosan Infracore Portable Power, designed with class-leading durability and reliability to meet the rigorous standards of rental and construction markets. The new LSC is ideal for illumination of special events, road and bridge construction, emergency and disaster relief and general construction sites.

The LSC portable light tower features a compact platform for jobsite mobility as well as truckload maximization with 11 fully-assembled units on a standard flatbed for cost-effective transportation. That’s units are super small. The LSC also utilizes up to 20 percent less space during storage and full operational deployment on a jobsite compared to the industry average, while maintaining its wind stability, static roll threshold and 30-ft extension capabilities.

The heavy-duty galvanized steel tower of the LSC extends from 12 to 30 feet and the mast is raised by dual, hand-operated winches and an automatic safety brake. Four 1,000-watt, metal-halide floodlights provide a NEMA 6 x 7 beam. At full mast and with all four outrigger/jacks secured, the unit will withstand winds up to 65 mph. The telescoping tower can be rotated 360 degrees and locked into position for precise aiming of floodlights. For traveling and storage, a patented system automatically locks the tower into place when in the horizontal position. The new light tower is backed by an industry-leading factory warranty providing two-year/2,000-hour bumper-to-bumper coverage.

The LSC light tower is one of a many products and topics we’ll be discussing about Doosan Infracore Portable Power as move into 2011. The company is getting ready to launch Tier 4 engines into its product line, as well as rebrand its equipment with new logos and paint schemes. We’ll be covering all this and more at the Machine Works blog. – Keith Gribbins, Managing Editor, Compact Equipment