Javier Aracama, director and owner of Grupo Grado Cero, started his own small business in 1990 with two employees in a 300 m² workshop equipped with four machines.

Initially, the company focused on machining precision parts to specification for other companies. Due to market forces, its business shifted towards repairing excavation machinery, and in 1991 it developed its first quick coupler for excavators.

The 2008 crisis

By then, Grupo Grado Cero had plants for manufacturing buckets for heavy equipment and patented GO MAX quick couplers. But in 2008, the crisis hit the construction industry in Spain hard, forcing many construction companies in the country to close. As a result, Grado Cero went from selling 250 buckets per month to only two units per month.

Despite the company’s dire financial situation, Javier Aracama decided to keep all his employees rather than cut costs by laying them off, and with great effort he was able to turn the situation around. That was when the XCENTRIC RIPPER project began.

At the same time, one of its divisions, Finerlan, was carrying out large rock excavation and trenching projects in northern Spain. Thanks to this unique combination, they were able to invent and develop a completely new implement and execute these difficult projects much faster and much more efficiently.

In early 2009, the first prototype of the Xcentric Ripper began undergoing practical testing in all kinds of different rock conditions, with the aim of achieving a 100% reliable and virtually maintenance-free implement.