Grounded in northern Illinois throughout its century- longer history, large equipment manufacturer Caterpillar has evidently been smitten by commercial wanderlust of late, moving its headquarters from Peoria, Illinois, to Deerfield, Illinois, to Irving, Texas, over the past seven years.
But Caterpillar still has a significant manufacturing base in the Peoria region, including a private 2, 500 hectares site where the company is making a path forward.
The Peoria Proving Ground has been the key location for big yellow earthmoving equipment for more than 75 years. It is where the heavy lifting is done, refined, and ready to go. Set up amid steep ravines, thick woods and winding roads in the local area of Washington, it is the bank’s wet connection of innovation, with a legacy of groundbreaking product development.
Charlie Menke, Peoria Proving Ground’s chairman of system development, said,” We’re really happy of our past and the things we’ve contributed to this business over the years. ” This service developed the large drive monitor- type tractor. At this center, the initial tractor with an electric drive track was created. We’re now working on more electric drive systems”.
How mountains can be moved around the world in Peoria, a bustling and ancient town along the Illinois River.
400 employees put the cutting-edge machines through their paces, testing noise levels, leading speeds, and remote control operations that make plowing the earth equivalent to a video game. From massive energy drive bulldozers to intelligent tractors.
Launched in 1948, the sprawling facility is part nature preserve, part perpetual construction site.
The grounds have test tracks, steep climbs, and areas for digging where machines move piles of dirt in Sisyphean tasks from one side to the other.
Fun fact: A Cat motor grader can hit 32 mph on the Proving Ground’s oval test track, Menke said.
A cavernous acoustic room that could be used as a recording studio but instead measures a symphony of noises emanating from the gigantic machines, as well as a 50, 000 square-foot repair shop, an industrial-style car wash to spray gobs of mud off the field-tested equipment, and a 50, 000-square-foot repair shop.
” We test for regulation purposes, for diagnostic purposes”, said test engineer Colin Mitchell, firing up a 67, 000- pound 980 XE wheel loader, its roar dampened by the sound tiles lining the walls. ” We can test individual components in the machine to determine whether they are making noises that should n’t.”
In another building, engineers wire up sensors to a Cat D5 bulldozer to take transmitted readings as it operates in the field, a sort of tractor electrocardiogram. Nearby sits the pride of Peoria, a hulking D11XE, a prototype of the first electric drive mining tractor.
The D11 mining tractor, the largest bulldozer Caterpillar makes, is built exclusively at its East Peoria factory. Launched in 1986, the 230, 000- pound behemoth is a mainstay in mining and large construction projects. In October, the 6, 000th D11 rolled off the production line, bound for an Australian customer site.
Caterpillar and its bright yellow machines, which were founded nearly a century ago in Peoria as a result of the merger of the Holt and Best tractor companies in 1925, quickly developed into a global powerhouse, constructing bridges, dams, and roads all over the world.
Long one of the largest companies in Illinois, Caterpillar generated$ 67 billion in revenues last year, up 13 % over 2022, according to its annual report. The company has more than 113, 000 employees worldwide, including nearly 18, 000 in Illinois. Caterpillar also has a significant factory in Decatur that manufactures its large mining trucks, among other products, in addition to East Peoria.
Caterpillar equipment has always been inextricably linked to its Peoria home, despite having been present everywhere from Antarctica to the moon. But in 2017, citing proximity to O’Hare International Airport and Chicago, Caterpillar relocated its corporate headquarters to , north suburban Deerfield, taking over the vacated offices of premium spirits maker Beam Suntory, which moved to Chicago.
Caterpillar also opened a , digital office , in Chicago in 2016, now located in the West Loop, where a team of software developers, data analysts and computer engineers work on everything from e- commerce solutions to apps used for equipment maintenance and monitoring.
In 2022, as companies began downsizing offices and , shedding massive campuses , in the wake of the pandemic, Caterpillar moved its corporate headquarters again, consolidating operations at an , existing office in Irving, Texas, near an electric power division it established the previous year.
The decision to relocate the C-suite and a number of employees to Texas was “in the best strategic interest of the company,” according to Caterpillar Chairman and CEO Jim Umpleby at the time, but he gave few public arguments to back it.
The business declined to provide further information regarding the corporate relocation for this story. But Peoria and the Proving Ground remain central to Caterpillar’s future.
A trailer down twisting dirt roads, far from the main facility, where autonomous technology, which uses remote control to operate tractors, is being refined and starting to gain popularity among customers, houses that part of that future.
Caterpillar, one of the major companies developing autonomous construction equipment, is one of the many major players that has done so recently, along with Doosan in South Korea and Volvo Autonomous Solutions, which unveiled its new Swedish testing site in November. The potentially transformative technology is still in its early stages of commercialization.
A row of remote operating stations line a picture window with a view of a barren field at the Peoria Proving Ground’s autonomous test site, where a lone Cat D7 bulldozer sits waiting to receive internet instructions over an array of Wi-Fi access points.
The operating stations have a shifter, foot brakes, a chair with joysticks on either arm, as well as multiple video screens with a Cat ‘s-eye view of the field. A predetermined course can be manually plowed by the tractor, or both. When the tractor flashes a blue light and honks in response, a quick shift into drive, and it’s off.
It’s simple to forget that the joysticks are a 66, 000 pound bulldozer spinning on a dime in the field beyond and digging up dirt when it fixes on a screen. Anywhere an internet signal can be received, the technology can be used to run tractors 1, 500 feet or 1, 500 miles or farther away from the operating stations.
” We’ve operated machines in Malaga ( Spain ) from here before”, said Tim Pennington, a test operator.
The remote stations help users navigate dangerous terrain without putting themselves in danger physically. In addition, they can compensate for a dearth of qualified operators, allowing one person to control multiple machines at a work site, Pennington said.
According to Pennington, the technology has even aided in attracting some retired bulldozer operators back into the fold.
” The average dozer operator lasts until their mid- 40s, and then their back is shot”, Pennington said. ” With this, they’ve come out of retirement”.
Although a Caterpillar spokesman declined to disclose sales figures, Pennington said “quite a few” larger customers have switched to the remote control technology despite the difficulty of introducing Wi-Fi signals into some locations, such as underground mines.
A separate handheld radio signal reached and moved the tractor just before Pennington was scheduled to trudge across the muddy field to retrieve it by hand during a recent trial run, which hit a dead spot in the testing field.
The blue light began flashing once the Wi-Fi signal was back in range, and the tractor quickly responded to joystick commands.
The Peoria Proving Ground is working on the autonomous tractor, but its technology might be a good one for the business itself. For 12, 000 employees and the Peoria region, the heart of Caterpillar’s manufacturing operation remains in central Illinois, but the corporate levers are now being pulled 800 miles away in Texas.
Menke, a 34-year veteran of Caterpillar who has spent the last 131 days at the Peoria Proving Ground, believes the significance of the remote testing facility is well known.
” Solving problems”, Menke said. ” That’s what we do”.
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