In the year that we celebrate the sale of over 400,000 machines since 1978, you may have wondered why the Doosan range is orange. As we explain below, there are a number of reasons and there is more than meets the eye to the use of orange as our colour of choice.
Technology partnership 40 years ago
The first use of the orange colour on Doosan equipment dates back to more than 40 years ago. In February 1977, Doosan signed a technology partnership agreement with another company, which was already known for its vivid orange construction equipment. Throughout the technology partnership, Doosan learned and absorbed as much knowledge as possible about the construction equipment and benchmarked orange as an equipment colour because it was easily recognizable on machines at civil engineering sites on Korea’s mountainous terrain.
After the end of the technology partnership, Doosan’s orange excavators dominated the domestic market in Korea in the 1980s as there was no other competitor that could manufacture excavators as good as Doosan at the time. For this reason, the public started to associate orange with Doosan so much so that other players in the market wanted to paint their equipment orange too.
Orange colour reflects a strong, powerful image
Construction equipment is painted to protect the machine from corrosion and to provide an attractive look, shape and finish. As excavators, wheel loaders and ADTs are designed to be working in heaps of earth and other materials with lots of dust, manufacturers have tried to choose colours that are not easily stained and orange or yellow were found to be the best. Bright colours like orange or yellow are also easily visible in green areas like forests. This probably explains why most machines around the world are either orange or yellow.
As Doosan’s equipment is considered ‘strong and powerful’ in the market, Doosan chose what it saw as a more powerful colour, orange, over yellow. Since then, orange has become part of Doosan’s identity. Doosan also factored in possible promotional effects resulting from brand exposure as well as safety issues in choosing orange as it is easily visible on construction sites.
“The current orange colour that Doosan uses is a complementary colour to earth at construction sites. It emphasizes safety through colour contrast,” says Jinhup Yeu, general manager of the Institute of Technology Design Team in Korea. “To be more precise, it’s called Ultra-Doosan Orange, which was patented by Doosan.”
Changing its colour to meet customer needs
Whilst it is predominantly orange, Doosan’s construction equipment can always change its colour at any time depending on customer needs. For example, in the second half of last year, a batch of Doosan DX225LC-5 excavators at the factory finished in bright blue at the request of a customer became a social media hit. In December, when Doosan received an order for eight DL420A wheel loaders from Saudi Aramco, a Saudi Arabian state company which is the most valuable company in the world, the normally orange wheel loaders were painted white, to match the corporate colours of the oil company. We have also supplied excavators to the Republic of Korea Army (ROKA) which were painted khaki green.
“I think we have chosen the right colour because there are very few orange excavators in overseas markets,” said Yunseok Park, vice president of Doosan Heavy BG Korea Production, who has extensive knowledge of the painting processes for Doosan’s equipment.
Yunseok Park continued: “As we have made remarkable technical advancements compared to earlier years, we are currently using eco-friendly paints that are free of heavy metals. Once exposed to ultraviolet rays, the paint gets discoloured. In orange paint, this is more easily recognizable compared to other colours. Therefore, we have developed and applied weather-proof paints that barely result in discolouration.”
Since its foundation, Doosan has gone through numerous changes, including the diversification of its equipment range over the last 81 years. However, one thing has remained unchanged: the choice of orange as the colour of the company’s construction machines. We hope that Doosan’s orange equipment will be a mainstay of construction sites across the globe not just in 100 years time but in 200 years and beyond.
