A brief history of Komatsu KVX

The history of KVX dates back to 1879 and the foundation of Kverneland Group by Ole Gabriel Kverneland who built his small forge in the village of Kvernaland, 25 km outside of Stavanger, Norway. He named his business “O.G. Kvernelands Fabrik” and started to manufacture scythes.

Origins

The history of KVX dates back to 1879 and the foundation of Kverneland Group by Ole Gabriel Kverneland who built his small forge in the village of Kvernaland, 25 km outside of Stavanger, Norway. He named his business “O.G. Kvernelands Fabrik” and started to manufacture scythes.

A talented inventor, Ole Gabriel designed his own water powered spring hammer and began producing 7000 – 8000 scythes annually by mass production. This gave him the competitive edge he needed over his rivals who still used traditional, manual production methods. In 1894 Ole Gabriel transformed his family owned forge to a Limited Company in order to finance further development and growth. At this time the company produced mainly horse powered ploughs and harrows.

Agricultural plough manufacturer Kverneland began in 1970 to produce forged excavator teeth utilising leftover materials from the manufacture of its plough frames.

With a number of forges producing them, there was already an established market for the teeth, mainly for backhoe loaders and the trackless excavator Broyt in a size range from 2 to 16 Kg.

Komatsu KVX

In the autumn of 1997 Komatsu America took an interest in the system and negotiations took place to form a joint venture company with Kverneland.

The new company, Komatsu KVX was established in July 1998 with Komatsu as a 60% shareholder. The remaining shares were acquired 4 years later. Komatsu also acquired Hensley, manufacturer of cast wear parts for construction and mining machines in 2000 and KVX became a subsidiary of Hensley in 2003.