Verachtert – 50 years of work tools

Archiv – It was in 1953 that Dutchman Piet Verachtert drew the profile of his first bucket on the back of a cigar box in an old shed behind his house. These were the beginnings of Verachtert, the well-known attachment manufacturer which was taken over by Caterpillar several years ago.It was in 1953 that Dutchman Piet Verachtert drew the profile of his first bucket on the back of a cigar box in an old shed behind his house. These were the beginnings of Verachtert, the well-known attachment manufacturer which was taken over by Caterpillar several years ago.
When hydraulic excavators appeared on the market in the mid-1960s, the then Managing Director Ton Verachtert decided to commit the company fully to the development and production of universally-applicable attachments for hydraulic excavators and wheel loaders, thus upgrading the excavators to multi-functional tool carriers. In 1972, the introduction of Verachtert’s Connect’€™o’€™maat quick-coupler system was a true breakthrough since it allowed work tools to be changed within a few minutes, thus providing excavators with maximum mobility and flexibility.
With the take-over in 1987 of Dutch competitor Heroco, Verachtert entered the hydraulic grab market and opened up the possibility of producing attachments for totally different applications. The firm’€™s first demolition work tools appeared on the market shortly afterwards. From the mid-1980s, Verachtert products increasingly found their way into international markets such as Germany, France, the U.K., Scandinavia and the U.S.
Since 1998, when Caterpillar acquired Verachtert’€™s production facility at Den Bosch in The Netherlands, the company has operated under the name Caterpillar Work Tools and Services (CWTS). Verachtert products have since carried the Caterpillar brand in countries outside of Europe and are now exported all over the world.
CWTS is currently engaged in the design, manufacture and marketing of high-quality universal work tools such as buckets, grabs, shears, crushers, rotary drums, pulverisers, multiprocessors, multi grabs and quick-coupler systems for wheel loaders, excavators and other machines used in the earth moving, demolition, scrap processing, agriculture and materials handling. The company recently introduced a Rotary Cutter and improved versions of existing work tools, including a new scrap grab and a new range of the multi-functional Multi-Grab.