Nice dozer, Ego. Too bad it tanked.

Let’s talk about the biggest production bulldozer ever made.

In the early 1980s, Komatsu previewed the D575A. It weighed in at over 300,000 pounds, had a blade big enough to park a compact car in, and made every other dozer on the market look like a backyard toy. For a certain kind of heavy equipment enthusiast, it was glorious.

It was also a commercial dead end.

While numbers have never been publicly discussed, we know that development was stopped and restarted multiple times, which almost certainly hurt efficiency. Between delays and the sheer scale of the machine, total development costs were likely double that of a typical new model. Even with all that investment, Komatsu still ran into problems with Product Market Fit.

Yes, the D575 had the highest production capacity of any dozer on the market. But it wasn’t proportionally more productive than running multiple smaller machines. That meant Komatsu couldn’t command enough of a premium price and, in fact, lost money on each one they sold.

After nearly two decades of development only about 53 units were ever built before the model quietly disappeared from the lineup. Komatsu had built the absolute king of bulldozers... They had a crown jewel, but not a viable product.

So what happened?

The D575A wasn’t a bad machine. It did what it was built to do. The problem was that it was built to win an argument, not a market.

When product development gets hijacked by pride, ego, or internal politics, it can lead to beautiful, bold machines that miss the mark completely. Sometimes it’s about being “the biggest.” Sometimes it’s about chasing a legacy. Sometimes it’s about proving a point.

We’ve seen it in all forms:

  • Machines overbuilt for the actual job.

  • Features that look great on a spec sheet but confuse real users.

  • “Specs” that are actually just a competitive brochure instead of actual customer needs.

It’s easy to get caught up in these mistakes. Product development is exciting. Engineers want to push the envelope. Sales wants the hero product. Marketing wants a story. And before long, the team forgets what problem they were trying to solve.

That’s when risk goes up and margins go down.

This is where process matters.

A good process keeps decisions grounded in structured feedback and hard data. It surfaces tradeoffs early. It gives customers a voice at the right time. And it helps teams stay focused on building the right thing, not just the biggest or boldest.

At iron echos, we help equipment manufacturers stay rooted in reality. That might mean writing tighter specs, running customer interviews, or creating a product review structure that filters out the noise and focuses on what matters.

Because pride is not a strategy. And gut instinct is not a spec.

Reach out to us if you want to be sure you avoid building the next Super Dozer.
Contact iron echos and let’s talk about how to build products your customers actually want—and your business can actually sustain.

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