Caterpillar Propulsion’s controllable pitch propellers power some of the world’s largest vessels. The company uses the Tacton product suite to turn a challenging quotation process into a competitive advantage. Complete custom quotes are now produced in a matter of hours, where it previously took up to a week, while error free production drawings are generated in minutes.

Caterpillar Propulsion is one of the world’s leading designers and producers of controllable pitch propellers for merchant shipping. The company started out building fishing vessels outside the Swedish port of Gothenburg in the early 1900s, and produced its first propeller in 1929. Today Caterpillar Propulsion operates out of state-of-theart production facilities in Sweden and Singapore, with sales offices across the globe.

A SEEMINGLY STRAIGHTFORWARD PRODUCT POSES A COMPLEX DESIGN CHALLENGECaterpillar Propulsion produces four different versions of its controllable pitch propeller, with 21 different sizes available per version. While a propeller seems like a fairly simple assembly – made up of a hub and a shaft – every vessel is unique, and each shaft arrangement is 100% customized. When you factor in all the different components and combinations involved there are a whopping 20 million possible configurations per size and version.

This created a challenge for the company. While the product experts had intimate knowledge of the components, no one person could grasp the entire shaft arrangement from top to bottom, with all its possible combinations and constraints.

The sales team would be with the customer trying to define the specification, and would then have to chase product specialists to confirm the order, and get drawings detailed for the quotation.

And once the order was transferred from contract into

production, there were different channels of information, with various versions of drawings and addendums. There was often a lack of clarity around what was actually going to be produced, and a stream of questions would go back and forth between the sales, design and manufacturing – all with a risk of causing confusion and delays.

END OF THE LINE IN A SHIP’S PRODUCTIONAdded to this was a timing issue. As Pär Hallgren, Purchaser Manager at Caterpillar Propulsion explains, “While it takes between 6 and 18 months to build a vessel, we are at the end of the line in terms of a ship’s assembly. We need a minimum of 18 weeks of internal lead time to produce a propeller. However, quite often the final design of the propeller system isn’t decided until 20 weeks before shipment. That leaves us with a short time-frame to design the propeller and produce all the drawings.”

The complexity of the product, the amount of manual work involved in designing and specifying the components, and the extremely tight timeline made for a process that was inefficient and error prone.

Caterpillar Propulsion wanted to be in a position to respond to customers more quickly, to increase efficiency in design and engineering, and to decrease error rate in the drawings – where every missing or incorrect dimension created disruptions.

TURNING A CHALLENGING PROCESS INTO A COMPETITIVE ADVANTAGEThe company found the solution in advanced design automation software from Tacton. Using Tacton’s technology, Caterpillar Propulsion was able to capture the knowledge of the product experts, and modularise the design of the propeller and its components.

Based on a customer’s requirements, the software now automatically configures and optimises the entire propeller shaft arrangement. All product information is

Caterpillar Propulsion charts new highs with Tacton software

“We are the only company in the marine business who can produce a quote for a complete shaft

arrangement including pricing within a couple of hours. This has been key to our success.”

– Pär Hallgren,

Purchasing Manager, Caterpillar Propulsion

managed within the Tacton system, from order, to design through to production. Caterpillar Propulsion has even brought its key suppliers into the process, streamlining further.

The starting point is now a fully automated “pre-order” shaft arrangement. The sales engineers discuss specific functional requirements while on-site with the customer. Those requirements are plugged in, and because design constraints are already defined within the system, an optimised arrangement is configured and created automatically. The order can be reviewed and tweaked in real-time with the customer.

“We now worry about 25 parameters, such as shaft length, diameter, and flange size instead of 250 – the constraints within the Tacton system take care of the rest,” explains Hallgren. The drawings for complex shaft arrangements can now be produced in as little as 20 minutes, where this process previously took between 24 and 60 hours.

Hallgren continues, “We can be confident of the integrity of the drawings which are created automatically for suppliers as well as internal production and assembly. Fewer errors mean we never have to halt our design process and redesign parts, which can be very expensive and frustrating when everyone is working with strict timetables.”

DESIGN TEAM FREED UP TO INNOVATECaterpillar Propulsion estimates an annual time-saving in design and production of 10,000 man hours. With routine tasks automated away, the design team has time to work on R&D and special projects. Hallgren explains that the new design automation solution has opened “amazing possibilities” for the company.

“We continue to harness our engineering expertise and technology to work smarter, develop even more reliable products, and deliver them sooner. Every day we hit upon a new idea for transforming our organization, and our customers are benefitting.”

And as Pär Hallgren points out, “We are in the forefront within the marine business when it comes to design automation of the shaft arrangements. Complete quotes including arrangement drawings focusing on delivering value to customers have been a key to our success.”

And that success has been nothing short of remarkable. When Caterpillar Propulsion (then named Berg Propulsion) acquired its first Tacton licenses in 2007, the company had a turnover of 10m USD. Six years on, the company had grown to 200m USD. This kind of success doesn’t go unnoticed, and in June 2013 Berg was acquired by heavy equipment giant, Caterpillar.

About TactonTacton Systems is the world leader in advanced configuration. Tacton’s technology redefines how products are configured – making it dramatically easier to design, configure and sell complex products. Tacton’s solutions integrate easily with surrounding systems and have standard integrations for many leading e-commerce, ERP, CRM, PDM, PLM, and CAD systems. Customers currently using Tacton’s solutions include ABB, GE, Siemens, Scania, Toshiba, and Aker.

Caterpillar Propulsion, a division of Caterpillar Inc. is one of the world’s leading designers and producers of Controllable Pitch Propellers. The company is at the forefront in the field of hydro dynamics and operates out of state of the art production facilities in Sweden and Singapore.

Tacton Systems AB | EU: +46 8 690 07 50 | US: +1 770 978 0372 | info@tacton.com | tacton.com

TAC-3864-en-US-1117-3