[1][2] Link-Belt is headquartered in Lexington, Kentucky, and is a subsidiary of the Japanese conglomerate, Sumitomo Heavy Industries.

Once broken, the entire chain belt had to be taken back to the barn for needed repairs, thus delaying all harvesting.

Continuous-track crawler systems moved Link-Belt products off the railroad chassis, removing the need for temporary tracks.

By 1922, Link-Belt expanded into this crawler-mounted crane-shovel excavator market, complementing its locomotive cranes and material handling equipment.

Merging Speeder with Link-Belt's Crane and Shovel Division expanded crane-shovel excavator line into the smaller capacity 3/8- to 3/4-yard range.

This period (post WWII - 1970) put Link-Belt into business history for managing disruptive innovation.

Harvard economist Clayton Christiansen analyzed the mechanical excavator industry to understand why disruptive technology innovations frequently cause well-managed companies to fail.

Following gasoline power, 1928 and onward included less-radical transitions to diesel engines and electric motors.

Clayton also noted the surviving companies integrated new articulated-boom technology, "which allowed longer reach, bigger buckets, and better down-reaching flexibility.

After World War II, excavators moved from cable-actuated systems extending and lifting the bucket to hydraulic mechanisms, which were safer and simpler.

Link-Belt faced strong new competition from hydraulic innovators, including Case, John Deere, Drott, Ford, Bamford (JCB), Poclain, International Harvester, Caterpillar, O & K, Demag, Liebherr, Komatsu, and Hitachi.

Link-Belt Speeder succeeded in competing against these new entrants, making it a showcase for managing disruptive innovation.

Two years after the 1947 British invention of the backhoe, Link-Belt launched its full-function "Speed-O-Matic" hydraulic control system.

This early adoption of hydraulics launched Link-Belt Speeder to the forefront of the worldwide crane-shovel market.

This culminated in the 1954 flagship model LS-98 crane and crane-excavator, one of the most successful pieces of construction equipment ever built.

FMC began an aggressive long-term capital expansion plan for manufacturing facilities and product lines.

This included the 1985 closure of the Cedar Rapids plant, which had 450 employees manufacturing excavators and both crawler and gantry cranes.