Sullair and Caterpillar: Putting Collaboration at the Center

Throughout much of its portable diesel air compressor portfolio, Sullair offers customers their choice of engines, including Caterpillar.

But it goes far beyond that. Caterpillar is more than an engine supplier. Caterpillar is instrumental to Sullair, and it’s a collaboration that is more than 20 years in the making.

With Sullair as experts in compressed air, and Caterpillar as experts in industrial engines, the collaboration ultimately benefits end customers. How exactly? Read on for more on that.

Enhanced Product Design

Caterpillar is instrumental in the concept phase of new product development. The collaboration then continues through the engineering phase via routine discussions, onsite visits, product evaluations, and signoffs.

We appreciate having close collaboration with Caterpillar, said Randy McCourt, National Account Manager at Sullair. Caterpillar is very valuable to us in our overall engineering process, from a feedback standpoint, because they use our products…they know what works and what doesn’t work in real-world applications.

This helps Sullair manufacture portable diesel air compressors with a technician’s mindset. Take the 375 Series, for instance.

Several Caterpillar dealers expressed concerns about having to access service points from the street side of the air compressor. This meant when a technician services the air compressor, it is sometimes done with cars whizzing by them. Thanks to Caterpillar’s feedback, Sullair has since moved the control panel and the service points to the curbside, ensuring operator safety.

New product development is a continuous process of refining and improving – and Caterpillar is vital in the process.

Well-Trained and Qualified Technicians

This year, Sullair is participating in three Caterpillar Rental University training seminars held across the United States. All newly hired Cat Rental Store sales team members are invited to the two-day training to get in the iron. At the training, equipment manufacturers including Sullair lead sessions on:

• How to safely operate the equipment
• Educating the team on which phases of construction require portable air compressors
• Emphasizing the need for safety and ancillary items

To make the experience truly hands-on, the Sullair team shipped concrete into the seminars to provide a demo of the portable air compressor and pneumatic hand tools in action. This allows the Cat Rental Store employees to receive the highest level of training to then equip end customers with the right sized compressor for their application.

Efficient Engines Reduce Lifecycle Costs

Let’s take the Sullair 375 Series Tier 4 Final portable air compressors as an example. One of the engine options, the Caterpillar C4.4, helps end-users save big money by reducing lifecycle costs, thanks to a 3% reduction in Diesel Exhaust Fluid (DEF) consumption and up to 20% lower fuel consumption compared to previous versions.

Easy Accessibility

Caterpillar offers an extensive network of dealers for service and assistance, which is critical for minimizing equipment downtime. From support to troubleshooting in the field, expert advice is always close by.

There is no time for downtime. With the long-standing collaboration between Sullair and Caterpillar, end customers can go to the job site each day knowing their portable air compressor is rugged and reliable.