Cat® Connect Keeps Customer Powered in Remote Location
What Happened?
A Cat® dealer in Africa supplies electricity to a state-owned power provider with four power stations. Total capacity for the installations exceeds 50 MW. To streamline the way these assets are managed, the dealer equipped all gen sets operating for the national grid with remote monitoring technology from Cat Connect. Even a 15-year-old Cat 3606 with virtually no advanced electronics was connected using Cat AssetIQ™, a retrofit solution for aging engines and generators.
What Was The Underlying Cause?
Before connecting the gensets, the dealer faced several challenges that made managing them difficult.
- Conflicting priorities. On-site power managers, often pressured by immediate production and delivery obligations, postponed critical maintenance and repairs, which increased the risk of failure and unplanned downtime.
- Remote locations. The island where the customer was located is rugged, isolated, and largely undeveloped.
As a result, when a failure happened, it was often costly and time-consuming to get parts and technicians to the site. - Fragmented data. Because each site was tracking its own assets manually, there was no easy way to create and execute a high-level maintenance and repair plan.
What Was The Value to The Customer?
Now that the dealer’s assets are connected, the state-owned power provider has an even more reliable source of electricity for the grid. A dedicated engineer from the dealership monitors the generator sets remotely. With real-time access to performance and health data, he can identify issues early, accelerate troubleshooting, and work remotely with site managers to resolve problems before failure. In one case, the engineer received an alarm for high crankcase pressure on a 3512. He instructed the site manager to shut down the genset. A quick investigation revealed an out-of-spec cylinder head, which was replaced immediately. The unit was back in service within eight hours. Had it run to failure, downtime could have exceeded two weeks, and repair costs would have been exponentially higher. Ultimately, Cat Connect has helped the dealer improve availability and reduce operating costs so it’s in a stronger position to fulfill its contract.
