Equipment World Digital Magazine
Issue link: http://read.dmtmag.com/i/506694
EquipmentWorld.com | May 2015 13 reporter | by Equipment World staff F ollowing through on a promise to work to begin rolling out predictive diagnostic improvements to its Produc Link telemat- ics service, Caterpillar has created a new division within the company that will focus solely on data and producing new ways for its customers to put the information to work. The new Analyt- ics & Innovation (AI) division will be led by Cat vice president Greg Folley, who has led the Reman, Com- ponents & Work Tools (RCWT) division since 2011. Cat says the new division will work to create a "connected analytics ecosys- tem," and manage the company's relationships with third-party providers like Uptake. In March, Cat announced it had made a minority investment in Uptake, an analytics fi rm the company began working with in 2014. Cat CEO Doug Oberhelman said the aim of the investment is delivering heavy equipment operation data to customers in order to allow them to manage their fl eet proactively, or from a, "repair before failure stance." Cat says it will place some of the new AI division employ- ees in Chicago with Uptake to accelerate the development of that predictive diag- nostics platform. "We can transform the mountains of incoming data – from a single machine or engine, an entire job site, the supply chain, a shipping location and much more – into valuable information for our customers and suppliers more effi - ciently and effectively than anyone else," says Rob Charter, Cat group president of Customer & Dealer Support. Current VP of Strategic Services Doug Hoer will replace Folley as the head of RCWT. – Wayne Grayson Caterpillar doubles down on dedication to equipment data with Analytics and Innovation division Number of defi cient bridges down in 2014, but 61,000 remain in USDOT listing W hile there were ap- proximately 2,000 fewer structurally defi cient bridges in the United States last year than in 2013, there are still more than 61,000 that fi t that category, according to an American Road & Trans- portation Builders Association (ARTBA) review of the 2014 U.S. Department of Transporta- tion National Bridge Inventory database. Pennsylvania leads the list with 5,050 structurally defi - cient bridges, followed closely by Iowa at 5,022. The District of Columbia has the least at 14, followed by Nevada (34), Delaware (48), Hawaii (61), and Utah (102). ARTBA Chief Economist Dr. Alison Premo Black reviewed the report, which shows 61,064 structurally defi cient bridges in the U.S. are crossed 215 million times every day, with the most (continued on next page)