A heavy equipment operator operates

heavy equipment Heavy equipment, heavy machinery, earthmovers, construction vehicles, or construction equipment, refers to heavy-duty vehicles specially designed to execute construction tasks, most frequently involving earthwork operations or other large con ...

used in

engineering Engineering is the practice of using natural science, mathematics, and the engineering design process to Problem solving#Engineering, solve problems within technology, increase efficiency and productivity, and improve Systems engineering, s ...

and

construction Construction are processes involved in delivering buildings, infrastructure, industrial facilities, and associated activities through to the end of their life. It typically starts with planning, financing, and design that continues until the a ...

projects. Typically only

skilled workers A skilled worker is any worker who has special skill, training, or knowledge which they can then apply to their work. A skilled worker may have learned their skills through work experience, on-the-job training, an apprenticeship program or form ...

may operate heavy equipment, and there is specialized training for learning to use heavy equipment.

Operator training

Various organizations set standards for training for heavy equipment operators. Such organizations typically offer what in the US is called " effective safety training". Specific organizations include the following: * United States ** International Union of Operating Engineers ** Association of Equipment Manufacturers ** National Association of Heavy Equipment Training Schools * Canada ** International Union of Operating Engineers

Safety

Much publication about heavy equipment operators focuses on improving safety for such workers. The

occupational medicine Occupational and Environmental Medicine (OEM), previously called industrial medicine, is a board certified medical specialty under the American Board of Preventative Medicine that specializes in the prevention and treatment of work-related ill ...

field researches and makes recommendations about safety for these and other workers in safety-sensitive positions. Hand signals are also important for machinery operators as it facilitates visual aid for safe work in spite of factors such as noise and a crowded environment.

Notable heavy equipment operators

* Mack Ray Edwards (1918–1971), child sex abuser/serial killer; buried victims at his construction sites; committed

suicide by hanging Suicide by hanging is the intentional killing of oneself (suicide) via suspension from an anchor-point such as an overhead beam or hook, by a rope or cord or by jumping from a height with a noose around the neck. Hanging is often considered to ...

in his prison cell

Types

These subdivisions, in this order, are the standard heavy equipment categorization. Tractor *

Bulldozer A bulldozer or dozer (also called a crawler) is a large tractor equipped with a metal #Blade, blade at the front for pushing material (soil, sand, snow, rubble, or rock) during construction work. It travels most commonly on continuous tracks, ...

(dozer, track dozer) *

Combine harvester The modern combine harvester, also called a combine, is a machine designed to harvest a variety of cultivated seeds. Combine harvesters are one of the most economically important labour-saving inventions, significantly reducing the fraction of ...

Snowcat A snowcat (a portmanteau of snow and caterpillar) is an enclosed-cab, truck-sized, fully tracked vehicle designed to travel over snow. Major manufacturers are PistenBully (Germany), Prinoth (Italy), and Tucker (United States). Snow groomer ...

Snowplow A snowplow (also snow plow, snowplough or snow plough) is a device intended for mounting on a vehicle, used for removing snow and ice from outdoor surfaces, typically those serving transportation purposes. Although this term is often used to ref ...

Skidder A skidder is any type of heavy vehicle used in a logging operation for pulling cut timber, trees out of a forest in a process called "skidding", in which the logs are transported from the cutting site to a landing. There they are loaded onto t ...

Tractor A tractor is an engineering vehicle specifically designed to deliver a high tractive effort (or torque) at slow speeds, for the purposes of hauling a Trailer (vehicle), trailer or machinery such as that used in agriculture, mining or constructio ...

(wheel tractor) * Tracked tractor *

Locomotive A locomotive is a rail transport, rail vehicle that provides the motive power for a train. Traditionally, locomotives pulled trains from the front. However, Push–pull train, push–pull operation has become common, and in the pursuit for ...

Artillery tractor An artillery tractor, also referred to as a gun tractor, is a specialized heavy-duty form of tractor unit used to tow artillery pieces of varying weights and calibres. It may be wheeled, tracked, or half-tracked. Traction There are two m ...

Crawler-transporter The crawler-transporters, formally known as the Missile Crawler Transporter Facilities, are a pair of tracked vehicles used to transport launch vehicles from NASA's Vehicle Assembly Building (VAB) along the Crawlerway to Launch Complex 39. The ...

Military engineering vehicle A military engineering vehicle is a vehicle built for construction work or for the transportation of combat engineering, combat engineers on the battlefield. These vehicles may be modified civilian equipment (such as the Armored bulldozer, armo ...

s Grader *

Grader A grader, also commonly referred to as a road grader, motor grader, or simply blade, is a form of heavy equipment with a long blade used to create a flat surface during Grading (engineering), grading. Although the earliest models were towed b ...

Excavator * Amphibious excavator *

Compact excavator A compact or mini excavator is a tracked or wheeled vehicle with an approximate operating weight from 0.7 to 8.5 tonnes. It generally includes a standard backfill blade and features independent boom swing. Hydraulic excavators are somewhat diffe ...

* Dragline excavator * Dredger *

Bucket-wheel excavator A bucket-wheel excavator (BWE) is a large heavy equipment machine used in surface mining. Their primary function is that of a continuous digging machine in large-scale open-pit mining operations, removing thousands of tons of overburden a day. Wh ...

Excavator Excavators are heavy equipment (construction), heavy construction equipment primarily consisting of a backhoe, boom, dipper (or stick), Bucket (machine part), bucket, and cab on a rotating platform known as the "house". The modern excavator's ...

(digger) * Long reach excavator *

Power shovel A power shovel, also known as a motor shovel, stripping shovel, front shovel, mining shovel or rope shovel, is a bucket-equipped machine usually powered by steam, diesel fuel, gasoline or electricity and used for digging and loading earth or frag ...

* Reclaimer * Suction excavator *

Walking excavator The term walking excavator may apply to two different forms of heavy equipment, the historic walking power shovel or dragline excavator that began to appear already early in the 20th century, or the contemporary version of all-terrain excavator ...

* Trencher *

Yarder A yarder is piece of logging equipment that uses a system of cables to pull or fly logs from the stump to a collection point. It generally consists of an engine, drums, and spar, but has a range of configurations and variations, such as the swing ...

Backhoe *

Backhoe A backhoe is a type of excavating equipment, or excavator, consisting of a digging bucket on the end of a two-part articulated arm. It is typically mounted on the back of a tractor or loader (equipment), front loader, the latter forming a "backh ...

Backhoe loader A backhoe loader, also called a loader backhoe, loader excavator, tractor excavator, digger or colloquially shortened to backhoe within the industry, is a heavy equipment (construction), heavy equipment vehicle that consists of a tractor-like u ...

Timber *

Feller buncher A feller buncher is a type of harvester used in logging. It is a motorized vehicle with an attachment that can rapidly gather and cut a tree before felling it. ''Feller'' is a traditional name for someone who cuts down trees, and ''bunching'' i ...

* Harvester *

Forwarder A forwarder is a forestry vehicle that carries big felling, felled Timber, logs cut by a Harvester (forestry), harvester from the stump to a roadside landing for later acquisition. Forwarders can use rubber tires or tracks. Unlike a skidder, a ...

* Power saw * Track harvester * Wheel forwarder * Wheel skidder *

Logging truck A logging truck or timber lorry is a large truck used to carry logs. Some have integrated flatbeds, some are discrete tractor units, and some are configured to spread a load between the tractor unit and a dollied trailer pulled behind it. Oft ...

Pipelayer * Pipelayer (sideboom) Scraper * Fresno scraper * Scraper *

Wheel tractor-scraper In civil engineering, a wheel tractor-scraper (also known as a land scraper, land leveler, tournapull or simply called a scraper) is a type of heavy equipment used for earthmoving. It has a pan/hopper for loading and carrying material. The pan ...

(belly scraper) Mining * Construction and mining tractor * Construction and mining truck * Dumper *

Dump truck A dump truck, known also as a dumping truck, dump lorry or dumper lorry or a dumper for short, is used for transporting materials (such as dirt, gravel, or demolition waste) for construction as well as coal. A typical dump truck is equipped ...

Haul truck Haul trucks are off-road, heavy-duty dump trucks specifically engineered for use in high-production mining and exceptionally demanding construction environments. Most are dual axle; at least two examples of tri-axles were made in the 1970s. Hau ...

Mining equipment Mining is the extraction of valuable geological materials and minerals from the surface of the Earth. Mining is required to obtain most materials that cannot be grown through agricultural processes, or feasibly created artificially in a la ...

Articulated * Articulated hauler Compactor * Wheel dozer (soil compactor) * Soil stabilizer Loader * Loader (payloader, front loader, wheel loader, integrated tool carrier) * Skip loader (skippy) Track loader * Track loader Skid-steer loader *

Skid-steer loader A skid loader, skid-steer loader (SSL), or skidsteer is any of a class of compact heavy equipment with lift arms that can attach to a wide variety of buckets and other labor-saving tools or attachments. The wheels typically have no separate ste ...

Material handler * Aerial work platform, Lift table * Crane * Block-setting crane * Bulk-handling crane *

Crane vessel A crane vessel, crane ship, crane barge, or floating crane is a ship with a crane specialized in lifting heavy loads, typically exceeding for modern ships. The largest crane vessels are used for offshore construction. The cranes are fitted to c ...

* Aerial crane *

Container crane A container crane (also container handling gantry crane or ship-to-shore crane) is a type of large dock (maritime), dockside gantry crane found at container terminals for loading and unloading intermodal containers from container ships. Containe ...

Gantry crane A gantry crane is a Crane (machine), crane built atop a wikt:gantry, gantry, which is a structure used to straddle an object or workspace. They can range from enormous "full" gantry cranes, capable of lifting some of the heaviest loads in the wor ...

Overhead crane An overhead crane, commonly called a bridge crane, is a type of crane found in industrial environments. An overhead crane consists of two parallel rails seated on longitudinal I-beams attached to opposite steel columns by means of brackets. ...

* Electric overhead traveling crane * Ring crane * Level luffing crane *

Mobile crane A mobile crane is a cable-controlled crane mounted on crawlers or rubber-tired carriers or a hydraulic-powered crane with a telescoping boom mounted on truck-type carriers or as self-propelled models. They are designed to easily transport t ...

Travel lift A travel lift or travelift (also called a boat hoist, boat gantry crane, or boat crane) is a specialised type of crane used for lifting boats out of the water and transporting them around Dock (maritime), docks or marina, marinas. These cranes al ...

Forklift A forklift (also called industrial truck, lift truck, jitney, hi-lo, fork truck, fork hoist, and forklift truck) is a powered industrial truck used to lift and move materials over short distances. The forklift was developed in the early 20th c ...

Garbage truck A garbage truck is a truck specially designed to collect municipal solid waste and transport it to a list of solid waste treatment technologies, solid waste treatment facility, such as a landfill, materials recovery facility, recycling center ...

* Grapple truck, Knuckleboom loader (trailer mount) * Straddle carrier *

Sidelifter A sidelifter is a specialised vehicle or semi-trailer used to hoist and transport International Organization for Standardization, ISO standard intermodal containers over longer distances. Overview The sidelifter loads and unloads containers via a ...

* Reach stacker * Telescopic handlers *

Tow truck A tow truck (also called a wrecker, a breakdown truck, recovery vehicle or a breakdown lorry) is a truck used to move disabled, improperly parked, Vehicle impoundment, impounded, or otherwise indisposed motor vehicles. This may involve recoverin ...

Paving * Asphalt paver * Asphalt plant * Cold planer * Cure rig * Paver *

Pavement milling Pavement milling (cold planing, asphalt milling, or profiling) is the process of removing at least part of the surface of a paved area such as a road, bridge, or parking lot. Milling removes anywhere from just enough thickness to level and smoo ...

* Pneumatic tire compactor * Roller (road roller, roller compactor) * Slipform paver * Vibratory compactor,

Compactor A compactor is a machine or mechanism used to reduce the size of material such as waste material or bio mass through compaction. A trash compactor is used in business and public places like hospitals (and in the United States also in homes) to ...

Underground *

Roadheader A roadheader, also called a boom-type roadheader, road header machine, road header or just header machine, is a piece of excavating equipment consisting of a boom-mounted cutting head, a loading device usually involving a conveyor, and a crawler t ...

Tunnel boring machine A tunnel boring machine (TBM), also known as a "mole" or a "worm", is a machine used to excavate tunnels. TBMs are an alternative to drilling and blasting methods and "hand mining", allowing more rapid excavation through hard rock, wet or dry so ...

* Underground mining equipment Hydromatic tool *

Ballast tamper A tamping machine or ballast tamper, informally simply a tamper, is a self-propelled, rail-mounted machine used to pack (or tamp) the track ballast under railway tracks to make the tracks and roadbed more durable and level. Prior to the intr ...

* Attachments *

Drilling rig A drilling rig is an integrated system that Drilling, drills wells, such as oil or water wells, or holes for piling and other construction purposes, into the earth's subsurface. Drilling rigs can be massive structures housing equipment used to ...

Horizontal directional drilling Directional boring, also referred to as horizontal directional drilling (HDD), is a minimal impact trenchless method of installing underground utilities such as pipe, Electrical conduit, conduit, or Telecommunications cable, cables in a relativel ...

* Earth auger *

Pile driver A pile driver is a heavy-duty tool used to drive piles into soil to build piers, bridges, cofferdams, and other "pole" supported structures, and patterns of pilings as part of permanent deep foundations for buildings or other structures. Pili ...

* Post pounder *

Rotary tiller A cultivator (also known as a rotavator) is a piece of agricultural equipment used for secondary tillage. One sense of the name refers to frames with ''teeth'' (also called ''shanks'') that pierce the soil as they are dragged through it li ...

(rototiller, rotovator)

Hydraulic machinery Hydraulic machines use liquid fluid power to perform work. Heavy construction vehicles are a common example. In this type of machine, hydraulic fluid is pumped to various hydraulic motors and hydraulic cylinders throughout the machine a ...

Highway *

Tractor unit A tractor unit, also known as a truck unit, lorry unit, power unit, prime mover, ten-wheeler, semi-tractor, semi-truck, semi-lorry, tractor cab, truck cab, lorry cab, big rig tractor, big rig truck or big rig lorry or simply a tractor, truck, ...

Ballast tractor A ballast tractor is a specially weighted tractor unit of a heavy hauler combination. It is designed to utilize a drawbar to pull or push heavy or exceptionally large trailer loads which are loaded in a hydraulic modular trailer. When feasi ...

* Pushback tractor * Railcar mover * Highway 10 yard rear dump * Highway bottom dump (stiff), pup (belly train), triple * Highway end dump and side dump * Highway transfer, Transfer train *

Concrete mixer A concrete mixer (also cement mixer) is a device that homogeneously combines cement, Construction aggregate, aggregate (e.g. sand or gravel), and water to form concrete. A typical concrete mixer uses a revolving drum to mix the components. For ...

* Concrete mix truck * Concrete mix dozer *

Lowboy (trailer) A lowboy (low-loader in British English, low-bed in western Canada and South Africa or float in Australia and eastern Canada) is a semi-trailer with two drops in deck height: one right after the trailer (vehicle), gooseneck and one right before t ...

Street sweeper A street sweeper or street cleaner is a person or machine that cleans streets. People have worked in cities as "sanitation workers" since sanitation and Waste management, waste removal became a priority. A street-sweeping person would use a b ...

* Street sweep truck * Street sweep dozer

References

External links