Page 50 - Peterson 85 Years and Going Strong

Truck tech using the EZ-Tech laptop to troubleshoot repair issues
THE SAME ONLY DIFFERENT
When it comes to computer diagnostics, the big difference between Power and Tractor is the soft- ware. “The Power Division is really diverse,” ex- plains Patrick Fleming, Power tech out of Santa Rosa (2006–19). “For the tractor world, most of the stuff they deal with is Caterpillar. On the pow- er side, we have lots of different software programs for different brands of switchgear, transfer switch- es, control panels, and ECMs. The IT guys have helped acquire a lot of those for us.”
Although the Tractor and Power techs all use SIS and ET, Tractor techs generally use half a doz- en software programs to get the job done. Power techs have over two hundred programs to draw from, depending on a wide range of components and brand names. “Everybody thinks Power is just about generators, but it goes a lot farther than that,” says Fleming. “It goes into the switchgear room, into the building management system, and even remote monitoring. The amount of controls we deal with is crazy. You might go a couple of months before you see a particular system again, but when the customer calls up, you’ve got to start jogging your memory because you’re the expert.”
And then there’s the International Truck side of the business. PTI (Peterson Trucks Inc) is a com- pletely different animal because it’s not the tradi- tional Caterpillar product anymore. International Truck technicians troubleshoot with their own specially formatted computer called the EZ-Tech. “Those first couple years we only had seven or eight EZ-Techs to share among us,” recalls Mike Lasater, San Leandro Peterson Truck tech at the time. “Before that, we got our computers from the IT Dept. at Tractor, with Caterpillar’s ET program on it. Now we’re dealing with a lot of other en- gine manufacturers—basically the entire vehicle— which comes down to anti-lock braking systems and driver display systems. And each one of those use a different program. The EZ-Tech comes as a whole package with everything you need to diag- nose a truck from bumper to bumper.”
In early 2019, Diaz and Lasater created the first Peterson-built EZ-Tech computer. “I downloaded all the software that Navistar puts in their EZ- Techs onto a computer we had in inventory,” says Diaz. “Then Mike Lasater tested it to make sure it worked.” Since then, it has saved Peterson a lot of money. “Andrew Olivero [PTI shop tech] called me one day and said his laptop wasn’t working,” says Diaz. “I went over there and saw that it just kept rebooting. We tried updates and several other things, but it ended up being an operating system failure. There was nothing we could do but replace it.” Instead of buying a replacement EZ-Tech from Navistar, Diaz re-imaged the computer with his Peterson EZ-Tech backup, which saved the com- pany $700. Olivero was back working the same day. That scenario has played out several times since, making the Peterson-built EZ-Tech a very savvy move.
THE RIGHT TOOLS
“IT is really starting to listen and understand what our needs are,” says Harden. “They’re starting to pay more attention to what’s coming up in tech-
48 | PETERSON: 85 YEARS AND GOING STRONG