Progress was slow as a man could dig perhaps one cubic meter of earth in an hour. In the mid 1800 s engineers came up with ideas of building steam excavating equipment. They were capable of moving a few tens of cubic meters of production per hour. Today we have many different excavating machines for many different tasks. The size of the project and topography influence the choice of excavating equipment.
Stationary machines are face shovels, backhoes, draglines and grabs.
This machine loosens the soil and load without changing positions. This results in some loss of mobility when compared to other machines. Moving machines which are bulldozers, loaders, scrapes, graders, skid steers, and trenching machines. The material that is excavated is removed, transported and deposited in a cycle. This is useful when large volumes of earth need to be removed over rough terrain.