Caterpillar, the world’s leading manufacturer of construction and mining equipment, approached Graco seeking assistance with a fluid management solution within their machine shop in Peoria, IL.

The shop uses an average of 2,000 gallons of cutting oil per month between 21 assets. Overfill risk mitigation was the main priority to minimize environmental risk as well as reduce costs associated with fluid loss and personnel time.

The other need was to improve analytics on when they use and lose the most oil - whether it is due to machinery issues or during specific parts runs - to help better implement smarter fluid management practices.

“Before installing asset, we could only track to the hose reel level.” says Wayne Donahoe, Facilities Engineering Manager for Process Maintenance & Fluids Management Oversight. “This gave us a general idea of where our fluid was going, but lacked specific machine data that would allow us to be even smarter with our fluid management process.”

Caterpillar employees have responded well to the implementation of the Pulse Asset system. The ease of installation and training has only positively impacted their operations. After 3 months of use they are still collecting a baseline of data but have already noticed some fluid use reduction.

“I am confident that Pulse Asset is the right solution to help us optimize our fluid management practices.” Says Donahoe. “We are still fine tuning the system and collecting our baseline data but am confident with the support we are receiving from Graco we have the right partner and solution.”