Hitachi Construction Forges Ahead With Oracle Cloud

Hitachi Construction Machinery (HCM), a global manufacturer of mining and construction equipment, has chosen Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI) to relocate its essential business systems. 

The move is part of the company's digital transformation strategy, aimed at consolidating data from core systems and machinery to prepare for future AI integration.

The migration encompasses a wide range of critical operations, including accounting, development, production, design, sales, parts management, export, human resources and services. 

HCM, which has over 400,000 units of equipment in operation worldwide, opted for Oracle's cloud solutions to ensure a smooth transition with minimal disruption to existing applications and databases.

HCM: Cost reduction & performance boost

By shifting to the cloud, HCM says it has achieved “significant improvements in both cost-efficiency and system performance”. 

The company reports a 20% reduction in infrastructure operating costs, alongside a 50% increase in online transaction processing speed and a 60% enhancement in batch processing for several core business systems.

Noriko Momoki, Senior Officer and President of the DX Promotion Group at HCM, explained the decision: "OCI is the only public cloud that can securely migrate mission-critical databases running on Oracle Exadata and VMware virtualisation environments.

“This means we can migrate quickly without configuration changes and reduce costs. Other clouds would have increased our costs due to having to rebuild applications."

Technical implementation and future plans

The migration involves moving approximately 500 virtual servers and 100 databases to Oracle Cloud VMware Solution and Oracle Exadata Database Service on OCI. 

These services allow Hitachi Construction Machinery to maintain its existing IT infrastructure while benefiting from cloud advantages such as scalability and flexibility.

The company is also implementing a new disaster recovery environment using Oracle Cloud's Tokyo and Osaka regions to enhance business continuity. 

“This move demonstrates our commitment to maintaining operational resilience in the face of potential disruptions, the company says.

HCM plans to further modernise its applications and migrate remaining databases to OCI – aiming to leverage multicloud capabilities and integrate AI technologies as part of its ongoing digital transformation efforts.

Momoki concluded: "The increased performance has significantly improved business processing time while reducing operational and management tasks, meaning our IT department can now focus on new projects to strengthen our business competitiveness."

About Hitachi Construction Machinery

Hitachi Construction Machinery was founded in 1970 as a spin-off from Hitachi Ltd. The company is headquartered in Tokyo, Japan. As of 2024, it employed approximately 25,000 people worldwide. 

It specialises in the manufacture and sale of construction and mining equipment, producing a range of excavators – from compact models to ultra-large machines used in mining operations. 

It also manufactures wheel loaders, rigid dump trucks, and crawler cranes. In the mining sector, Hitachi Construction Machinery is known for its electric-powered excavators and haul trucks, which are used in large-scale mining projects.

The company offers various services to support its products, including equipment monitoring systems, parts supply, and maintenance programmes. 

It has also developed technologies for autonomous and remote-controlled operation of construction and mining equipment.

Some of Hitachi Construction Machinery's well-known products include the EX-7 series of mining excavators, the ZW wheel loader series, and the EH electric drive rigid dump trucks. 

The company also produces specialised equipment for forestry, material handling and road construction applications.