Artificial intelligence, remote operation and advanced safety systems are among the technological advancements Caterpillar is working to incorporate into its construction and mining equipment.
The manufacturing giant welcomed hundreds of its customers and contractors to the Edwards Demonstration and Learning Center on Tuesday to showcase some of its modernized equipment.
“We’ve got customers from around the nation here that we’re showing the technologies we have available to help them solve their toughest challenges in the dirt, said Jaime Mineart, Caterpillar’s Chief Technology Officer.
“These technologies are helping them to be more efficient, be more effective, and to continue to develop and build their own businesses.”
Mineart said some of the advancements Caterpillar is adding to its equipment parallel the technology available to what everyday consumers have in their personal lives and vehicles.
“We have collision mitigation systems that will stop a machine if they see a hazard in the way, or prevent a machine from moving when there is a hazard in the way,” she said.
Safety is a major consideration, Mineart said, with the construction industry accounting for 5% of the North American workforce but 20% of jobsite fatalities.
“We’re doing everything we can to bring technologies into the machines to prevent those fatalities and prevent the challenges that that our customers see on their job sites,” she said.
Interactive exhibit
The demonstration Tuesday leads into the start of Manufacturing Month, as Caterpillar opens a new gallery and interactive exhibit on innovations in construction technology Thursday at the Visitors Center in downtown Peoria.
Mineart said the feedback Caterpillar gets from its customers on the desire for more technology in the equipment frequently repeats the same message.
“They need safer technologies to be able to make their job sites safer. They need our help to solve their labor shortages, and then they need to have technology help them be more productive so that they can just get more work done,” she said.
As technology evolves rapidly, Mineart said they strive to make the advancements in their equipment both adaptable and user-friendly.
“We work really hard to make it as easy to use as possible. We’re bringing things like an AI assistant in the cab of the machine to help our customers and our operators be able to use the technology a lot quicker,” she said.
“We also have a lot of experience, not just developing technology, but how to incorporate that technology into the job site. So a lot of the conversations we’re having with our customers here over the course of these couple days is helping them to incorporate that technology into their job site and really get those outcomes in terms of productivity and safety.”
Mineart said shortening the learning curve goes a long way to improving jobsite efficiency.
“We can even take operators out of the cab and put them in a remote command station, and they can operate more than one machine at a given time,” she said. “Forty percent of the work on a construction site is unproductive. It’s just one operator waiting for another operator to do something.
“When you’re in a situation like this industry is in today, where you don’t have enough labor, the ability to have an individual do more than one thing at a given time — you start to introduce autonomy into the mix, and you have the ability to solve these challenges.”
Another area Caterpillar is looking to address with its equipment is fuel efficiency, as the global fuel market copes with escalating prices.
“We’re doing a little bit of electrification, but we’ll always follow our customers’ lead,” said Mineart. “As much as we’re talking in this event, we’re listening. We want to understand what their challenges are, and where they have challenges around needing to bring electrification to the job site.
“We have a lot of technology that we’ve developed for years and years around emissions. As we bring in technologies that become more efficient with the machines, it takes less fuel. The whole job site becomes more efficient, and it saves the cost. It saves them, whether it’s cost of fuel or cost of labor and the ability to attract labor to be able to staff these jobs.”
