Caterpillar is finally explaining what goes into each waste sector machine
Malcolm Bates, reports exclusively from Peoria, Illinois, USA, on developments at Caterpillar Inc. How will these new developments increase efficiency? Are there environmental benefits? And how will a new-found confidence at Cat impact on the market?
by Malcolm Bates
It’s strange how things happen in real life, isn’t it? Almost exactly a year ago, I was standing on a freezing cold landfill site in Finland, discussing a whole load of ‘what if’ and ‘why?’ questions with executives and local dealers of Caterpillar Europe. Now obviously, it would have made more sense to have these discussions in a nice warm hotel, but that’s exactly my point – the discussions got so involved, we didn’t notice the cold.
What was on the agenda? I wanted to know why Caterpillar – a manufacturer with an impressive global reach and one of the most comprehensive product ranges in the business – was (how can I put this diplomatically?) historically so slow at getting its corporate message across? And, why it didn’t do more to promote waste-specific design features? Expecting a list of defensive corporate excuses, I was surprised to find everyone in the group actually agreed with my observations.
Let me explain: the power of the Cat brand is not in question here – it is truly global. Nor is the quality of the product – Cat invests $6 million a day on R&D alone, I am told. And I’m not criticizing the ability of Cat dealers and their employees (all 200,000 of them) to sell and service machines in a tough business like waste and recycling either.
The image of a Cat ‘tractor’ (remember, ‘dozer’ refers to the blade on the front, not the whole machine) has projected power and strength ever since a Cat played a major role in that cinema epic The Grapes of Wrath. The film charted the plight of sharecroppers (poor tenant farmers) in the USA during the Great Depression of the 1930s, so it’s perhaps worth asking how the company is preparing to fight its way out of today’s recession? It’s a key question.
With new construction projects having fallen back in all but a few global economies, what should a major corporation be doing to ensure survival? Clearly, no amount of cost-cutting, or price-discounting, is going to stimulate sales if developers are not building property, or government departments don’t have funds for infrastructure projects.
So what is left? Agriculture? True, however poor we are, we have to eat, so farmers still need new machines. But agriculture is a very competitive market. Mining? This is home turf for Cat – but if houses and roads aren’t being built, there is less need for aggregate. And if industry is running at half speed, the demand for mineral resources is also reduced. A year ago on that frozen landfill site, everyone agreed, Cat should be channeling resources into developing more machines for the waste and recycling sector – after all, thanks to worrying population increases, waste is set to remain a major growth industry. But we also agreed Cat needed to increase its profile in our sector. A year on, it’s official – it has!
Explaining ‘waste-specific’ models
‘It’s a bit frustrating sometimes,’ a Caterpillar executive told me (we’ll withhold his name to protect his pension!), ‘in recent years, Cat has introduced a series of waste industry specific machines, which differ from models used in the construction sector. To the untrained eye, they might look the same, but they are not,’ he added. As a cynical journalist with a manufacturing industry background, I was sceptical of the ‘depth’ of such claims. After all, several manufacturers build so-called ‘waste industry specials’, so Cat is hardly unique. More corporate public relations than hard fact, surely? A cheap bit of mesh guarding here; a simple re-routing of the air cleaner there; a few easy-to-change items, such as an auto-reversing radiator fan. All more than covered by a substantial price hike. Wasn’t that closer to the true situation?
 |
| Even Cat articulated wheel loaders – like this 950H – specified for waste and recycling applications, have different features and loader arm geometry from those used in construction. |
Then it hit me, on this occasion we were were standing in a yard full of Cat equipment, both new and secondhand. My initial thought was: why doesn’t Cat invest in a programme where ex-construction machines are refurbed for use in the waste sector? After all, this would stimulate sales of new machines to construction industry customers, while providing a budget solution for the expanding global waste and recycling sector. It seemed logical. Until we walked past two Cat tracked loaders, that is. At first glance, they looked identical.
After a second glance, I realized they were significantly different to each other. Why? ‘One is a construction industry specification, the other is for the waste industry,’ my guide replied. Further investigation proved that not only were there countless external differences – but even items you can’t see, such as the belly guarding, track drive componentry and suchlike, were significantly different. A waste-industry-specific machine would have had to have been laid down on the line as such, rather than modified before delivery. ‘Actually, it’s even more specialized than that,’ I was told. ‘Even the main skid (chassis) fabrication on a waste industry machine is different to that of a construction sector machine. But to get the full picture, you’d have to visit the production line and see for yourself.’ Were the changes really that significant? And does that attention to detail apply to other machines in the Cat range such as wheeled loaders, telehandlers and 360 materials handlers? There was only one way to find out…
Truly global
So here I am in Peoria, Illinois. It’s typical small town America. A million miles from overstated cities such as New York, Chicago and LA. Friendly, but not falsely so. Conservative? Certainly. But however you slice it, Peoria is ‘Cat Town’. The yellow machines have been built here for decades, but significantly, there are now greater numbers of personnel employed outside of the USA, than within it (59,000 outside/53,000 inside). This makes Cat as close as any American company is ever likely to get to being a truly global player. How do I measure this? By noting a refreshingly large percentage of senior executives and specialists in the company are not actually of American nationality. Unfortunately, it could be said that the same conservatism that has kept high-quality engineering at the top of the corporate agenda all these years, is also responsible for holding the company back from being bolder in marketing those very same design features more forcefully – as we’ll discover shortly.
 |
Bill DeBord (left) is one of Caterpillar’s Senior Market Professionals for the waste industry. Richard Bliss (right) has recently taken over as Regional Manager for Industrial, Recycling and Waste for Europe, Africa and the Middle East. |
Having spent three whole days touring various production facilities – and an a entire day in the impressive R&D facility – it’s clear that Caterpillar really is serious about winning more waste and recycling sector business. Dozens of product presentations, individual factory production line visits and late evening discussions later, I’m still reeling under the shear weight of commitment put into each waste industry-specific model on each product line.
Remember what we were taking about, earlier? How two seemingly identical crawler-tracked loaders could end up being so different? Those changes go right down to core details such as hydraulic ram geometry (construction equipment digs, waste machines lift, pick and load), underguards and bearing seals (construction machines need protection against water, dust and extremes of temperature, waste machines need all that plus screening to prevent wire, tape and plastic from wrapping around seals and wrecking them) – but what about the operator’s cab and environment? That can also differ.
Even simple details can make a difference – it’s not widely known Cat designs and engineers its own compactor wheels. During my visit, company researchers quietly announced that the latest design can reduce fuel consumption by 20% over some aftermarket designs. Twenty percent! That is huge. But R&D has also helped determine small things like the design of guards that help prevent window breakages on landfill compactor cabs – it showed that most damage occurred when the machine was going backwards. Strange but true.
Increasing reliability by reducing complexity
Understandably perhaps, I was not given ‘access all areas’ status at the Cat Technical Centre – a facility so large, it’s more like a university campus – but it’s clear that while many other major manufacturers have had to put all their resources into meeting ‘Tier-4’ engine emissions legislation, the designers and technicians at Cat have also had time to look at ways to isolate the sources of component failure and resulting downtime, while reducing driver fatigue. And what’s the best way to do that? How about reducing a large percentage – a massive 60%, in fact – of all the components normally found in a machine’s driveline?
The first physical manifestation of this thinking – the new Cat ‘D7E’ – is now in production. In fact, the first production machines started rolling off the line the week I visited the plant. The key clue here is the ‘E’. It stands for ‘Electric’. And while the D7E retains a conventional Cat diesel engine (like other machines in the range), the way the power from that engine is distributed to the track drive and the hydraulic pumps is entirely different from the D7R it replaces. In short, rather than using some form of physical propshaft or hydrostatic wheelmotors, the D7E uses electricity. In much the same way that a diesel electric railway locomotive does.
In answer to the question why?, it’s worth studying history. Back in the 1950s, locomotive designers couldn’t decide which form of power transmission was best. The options were mechanical (by shafts and gears), hydraulic (by pump and motor), or electric (where the engine drove a generator, which in-turn transmits power to the traction motors). Diesel-electric won that battle thanks to reduced shocks to the drivetrain, an ability to keep the diesel engine running at maximum fuel-efficiency and significantly, because without the need for a physical connection, the back of the engine block didn’t need to line up with any gearbox or axle. So components could be located where they worked most reliably. If it works so well on a railway locomotive, why couldn’t the same idea work on a tracked loader, a landfill compactor, or indeed any other item of plant?
Does the idea work? There was only one way to find out – pull a new Cat D7E off the line and try it for myself. I have to tell you, it wasn’t that easy. In fact I had to work very hard on my hosts to get my hands on a brand new demo machine, but it was worth the effort. Does it work? Yes it does. There are no driveline shocks. There is less risk of over-revving the engine and a much-reduced power surge compared to a conventional transmission. But the beauty of this system – like many of the spec differences between construction and waste sector machines – is out of sight. Fewer components should make a major difference in reducing downtime and running costs. And even if units do go down (as they surely will at some stage in any machine’s life), the ‘plug-in’ nature of the components used on the D7E, should result in a much quicker turnaround.
 |
The recently-announced Cat D7E crawler tractor/dozer is the first machine to be produced with a diesel-electric transmission. |
The modest Americans
You may think if this system is so good, then why isn’t Caterpillar developing this transmission option on other waste sector machines? The official corporate line – that it is primarily suited to heavy crawler tractors and dozers – isn’t a lie. But the diesel-electric drive is being looked at for incorporation into wheeled loaders, telehandlers and 360 materials handlers. And why not? It’s a great idea.
So, why has Cat kept quiet about all these developments? And how come the significant differences between machines for each industry-specific application aren’t promoted more widely? And why do the machines not have a logo stamped to the outside telling the world they are purpose-built waste industry machines?
It’s hard to judge what the biggest story is. After the best part of a week talking to Cat executives in Peoria, I’m still suffering from information overload and still haven’t covered the extensive driver training simulator programmes which can help save significant percentages of fuel and extend the operation life of your landfill sites – as well as reduce machine damage. Nor have I covered the health and safety at work programmes, run by Valerie Cantrell and Tara Cox, either. Or the four stage component and complete machine refurb programmes…
But an even bigger story is that over the last 12 months, the entire structure of Caterpillar Corporation has changed from the traditional product-related (with product managers), to industry-specific in order to match the requirements of each industry such as mining, construction, agriculture, waste – and so on. The advantages to the customer? They should be significant in that Cat engineers should now know as much about your business as the products and services the company wishes to sell.
While the introduction of the D7E is a major new product launch worth an article in its own right, the bigger story is that Cat is already well down the road of incorporating diesel-electric transmission into other machines in the product range.
But the biggest story of all and the best kept secret in the industry is finally ‘out’ – that is how much design and production effort goes into each Cat machine destined for the waste and recycling sector. What is mystifying is why Cat has maintained such an understated stance. As we’ve seen, it’s as if the international Cat corporate marketing policy is that of a local store.
In America ‘brand recognition’ is often seen as more important than product quality. Yet in Caterpillar Corporation, we have the exact opposite – instead of over-promoting a product built down to a cost, Cat goes to extraordinary levels to increase the reliability and efficiency of its products. Then keeps quiet about it!
But just to show that you can’t keep good news a secret forever, I can reveal that as of this summer, all Cat machines built to meet waste and recycling industry demands will carry ‘Waste Handler’ logos. So now all the hard work that’s gone on in areas you can’t see will be much more obvious.
Malcolm Bates is collection & transport correspondent for Waste Management World.
e–mail: wmw@pennwell.com
