Page 358 - Peterson 85 Years and Going Strong

I got calls from the customer any time of the day or night. When they’re up, you’re up. When they need something, you go.
– Dave Nipar, parts & service sales rep, Peterson-Cat, Chico
Machine control guidance systems and project management tools from Peterson gave Kiewit the dexterity needed to meet its tight deadlines. GPS technology yielded precision guidance within mil- limeter accuracy. Kiewit’s hi-tech equipment in- cluded drones, base stations, rovers, robotic total stations, heavy equipment GPS guidance systems, and the software to run it all. Even its batch plant production and site security program were linked in.
In the planning stages, Kiewit used specialized software to digitize the old plans the DWR had on file from the 1960s and compared them to what its
drones were recording in the present. “A project of this magnitude would take three to four grade-set- ters multiple days to complete an ‘as-built’ topo- graphic map of the surface,” explains Chris Mata, Peterson’s machine control sales rep. “But Kiewit’s drone allowed one person to do it in 30 minutes and provided real-time volume quantities and progress updates for managing the site.”
PARTS ON-DEMAND
Peterson’s parts support has changed drastically since the 1960s. Today, customers can use Part- Store4 to order all their parts themselves. Online. 24/7. “Kiewit had a group of people who did all their parts ordering on PartStore,” says Nipar. “Then we ran two to three parts trucks a day up to the spillways. Kiewit had a huge onsite facili- ty for all their cutting edges, tips, wear plates and undercarriage parts. All they wanted from us was to deliver the parts. They inventoried it themselves onsite because our Chico store just wasn’t large enough to handle it all.”
Caterpillar was recovering from a worldwide parts shortage at the beginning of the project, so inven- tories were low and parts were often hard to get. “Caterpillar’s inventory was depleted because they weren’t expecting the demand to be as great as it was,” states Milt Taylor, Peterson’s Chico product support manager at the time, who retired in 2019. “All the contractors were getting busy at the same time. It wasn’t just the dam. Everyone was trying to get parts and Cat’s supply depots were just not stocked for it. Everybody was scrambling. We were flying in parts from the East Coast to keep the customer going.”
There was also a big learning curve on the parts side for both Kiewit and Peterson. Since it was a quick-start contract with a tight deadline, Kiewit
4 Peterson customers can use PartStore or parts.cat.com (PCC) to order parts online 24/7. Cat hosts both, which are essentially the same, although PCC is newer.
356 | PETERSON: 85 YEARS AND GOING STRONG