Though I left Apex Tool Group to move on to bigger and… similarly amazing things, I’ve had a great first day at Caterpillar. This Cat facility in Clayton, NC manufactures and designs some of the “smaller” machines in Caterpillar’s global lineup, most notably: the “SMALL” wheel loader. (I’ve attached a promotional image below to give you some scale. It’s around 12 feet tall and authoritatively robust)
This morning we began by looking around the Product & Applications Training Center with Jake and Elizabeth, two engineers at Caterpillar. This is where Caterpillar dealers are sold and trained on new machinery in their lineup. Caterpillar works by distributing their products to dealers, who then sell them to individual customers. Therefore, the training center provides helpful information and comparisons between Caterpillar products and competitors, so that the dealers can more compellingly sell the machines.
We even got to sit in the cabs for some of Caterpillar’s popular machines!
After touring the training center, we had a pizza lunch with Jake and Elizabeth!
We followed that up with a tour of the assembly line at the Machine Development Center. While I’m not allowed to show you any pictures or discuss the assembly line, I can use ambiguous, thought provoking adjectives: gargantuan, rapid, loud, professional, sophisticated. The manufacturing was stunning, especially in comparison to the small-scale machining operations I saw last week.
I had a great first day at Caterpillar, I hope that I’ll learn just as much tomorrow!