Vice-president Tom Bluth will move from the earthmoving division to the mining products section, which is part of Caterpillar’s resource industry group and is responsible for product strategy development, design and sourcing.

Bluth joined Caterpillar’s legal division in 2005 and has since held legal, business and leadership positions with the company.

He will replace Luis de Leon, whose departure was announced following the bumpy takeover of Chinese manufacturing company ERA Mining Machinery, during which Caterpillar discovered accounting irregularities in ERA’s books, setting it back $580 million.

Filling Bluth’s role in the earthmoving division is Karl Weiss, who joined Caterpillar in 1992 as a design engineer and has since been promoted to a number of engineering, product support and product manager positions.

Both moves will be effective from April 1, 2013