Dig Robotics is tackling the multi-billion dollar challenge mass excavation presents industries such as mining and construction. Excavation is an extraordinarily complex task of simultaneously controlling multiple independent variables -- including depth and length of the cut, speed, bucket angle, and precise timing. When conducted in intensive large-scale operation, inefficiency accumulates over time into substantial losses. Our superpower is motion control, the ability to project the optimal excavation trajectory to optimize bucket fill every cycle while reducing time, energy consumption, machine fatigue, and GHG emissions. We have developed 3D scanning capability allowing for tracking of the excavator arms and bucket, modeling of the material being excavated, and monitoring of the bucket fill in real time.

The Edison Awards Steering Committee follows the activities of the organization as they relate to its mission and serve in an advisory role toward developing strategic direction for the ongoing growth and sustainability of the Edison Awards. Steering Committee members are invited to share ideas for improving the Edison Awards’ platform so that it can provide maximum value to finalists, winners, partners and the next generation of innovators.

Advanced RISE™Technology is the intersection of hydraulic performance and linear actuator efficiency. RISE™Robotics' first commercial product is a fluid-free, electromechanical alternative to hydraulic systems. It helps support the battery-electrification of industrial equipment by delivering hydraulic-system-or-better performance at levels of efficiency previously available via some linear actuators. RISE™Technology delivers superior precision, speed, and weight and uses up to 90% less energy than hydraulic systems. RISE™Technology is a more cost effective, durable system compared to other electromechanical actuators and provides longer stroke and higher speed. This extraordinary efficiency makes the electrification of heavy machinery practical.

My goal is to help electrify construction and mining equipment. RISE™Robotics is the leader in high-performance and cost effective electric linear actuation solutions. RISE helps designers embrace high-efficiency, fuel saving actuation solutions that can replace hydraulic cylinders. Designed for medium and heavy duty applications, RISE™Cylinder provides fuel and emissions reductions, improves productivity and extends machine life.

GLG is a professional learning platform pairing top professionals with our Council Members - the leading experts in every field - thousands of times a week and around the world, to teach and learn from one another. To investigate further and/or engage with GLG, visit https://glg.it/clients/

With over 20 years of experience, FIT is the world’s premiere resource for additive design and manufacturing (ADM). FIT begins with a low cost partnership or alliance to quickly assess and immediately leverage a client’s ADM opportunities. Then the relationship deepens, perhaps through a joint venture, to fully integrate ADM into a client’s operations. Finally, FIT divests when the client is ready to take flight. FIT’s proven business model reduces a client’s ADM learning curve by years, perhaps even decades, and leaves them fully capable of reaping ADM’s extraordinary potential.

Our team was responsible for developing and executing Caterpillar's transformational innovation strategy to drive new economic value. We built upon Caterpillar's innovative history by strengthening existing capabilities and creating new ones. We fostered a culture of collaboration, safe risk-taking and velocity while generating new revenue streams for the organization through customer-centric offerings and services. We helped the enterprise prioritize, incubate and act on viable ideas and worked hand-in-hand with the Caterpillar businesses to reinforce our existing innovation capabilities with new, common tools, language and processes.

The Global Product Manager creates shareholder value and customer satisfaction through development and execution of the worldwide strategy for the product line. As entrepreneur, this role leads all facets of this USD $2.5+ Billion business from strategy, design and production capacity, product differentiation, quality and cost through geographic sales strategies and order-to-delivery performance. Each Caterpillar Product Manager is the CEO of their respective business. Our team delivered the best worldwide quality to customers in the product line’s history, restored the product line to worldwide market leadership and developed Caterpillar’s first EPA Tier 4 Interim / EU Stage IIIB machine, the 336E Hydraulic Excavator, highly regarded by customers for outstanding productivity, reliability, and fuel efficiency. Our team launched Caterpillar's first hybrid, the 336E H Hydraulic Hybrid Excavator, revealed to the public in Fall, 2012 and brought to full production in Spring, 2013. The fuel efficiency generated by the hydraulic hybrid technology featured on the 336E H dramatically reduces customers' owning and operating costs - and their carbon footprint. In addition to the extraordinary customer response, the 336E H Hybrid Excavator is widely recognized by government and industry as a technological and sustainability breakthrough. Our team launched our 336, 349, 374, and 390 F-Series, Tier 4 Final / Stage 4, hydraulic excavators including the 336F XE Hybrid, arguably the most technologically advanced and fuel efficient excavator ever built. The two largest models, 374 & 390F, use the ACS (Adaptive Control System) independent metering valves first available in our 336E H Hybrid Excavator, to deliver substantially lower fuel consumption -- up to 25% or more -- to reduce our customers' owning & operating cost and their carbon footprint. Our team also delivered hybrid technology to the developing world with the launch of our 336D2 XE Hybrid Excavator in early 2015.

During this time as CEO of this business, the Small Excavator Product Group reinforced our product line's reputation as the benchmark for Caterpillar product quality, maintained profitability during the 2007 US housing construction crash, and introduced the EPA Tier 3 (emissions) compliant D-Series products. Building Construction Products (BCP) is one of Caterpillar's most cost-sensitive and entrepreneurial divisions. Anyone's sensitivity to cost -- customers' owning & operating cost, material cost, period cost -- cannot help but be amplified by an opportunity to work in BCP. This was also my first experience leading a $500+ Million (USD) global business and learning to do so virtually with direct reports on three continents. It also reinforced the value of scenario planning / thinking by having developed and debated beforehand a "trough plan," an action plan to be executed when the industry falls dramatically. Instead of debating what to do when the time came, we had our plan ready to go -- as difficult as it was -- and executed.

Widely regarded as Caterpillar's most desirable role, the District Manager is accountable for managing Caterpillar's business relationship with our greatest competitive advantage -- our dealers. The role is accountable for dealer process development, achieving the district's annual revenue, price realization and market share business plan, and delivering customer satisfaction. Of all of the District Manager assignments worldwide, the Los Angeles District Manager is among the most desirable, because it includes some of the very best Caterpillar dealers in the world who happen to serve our customers in California, Hawaii, and a few other pleasant places in the Pacific.During this period of record industry sales, the Los Angeles District team helped restore market share to a 10-year high, deployed 6 Sigma and our dealer Contamination Control initiative, reduced period cost by consolidating from two district offices to one, and facilitated two dealer mergers. Our team was highly regarded for our success deploying Contamination Control and was distinguished with what is common today -- the first 5-Star Contamination Control dealer main store worldwide, the highest possible rating a dealer can achieve for our customers. We also like to think we had something to do with one of our dealers receiving Caterpillar's first "Platinum Dealer Excellence" award recognizing them for maintaining the highest level of annual dealer performance, "Gold" of course, for three consecutive years.

Commonly referred to as the New Product Introduction or NPI Manager, this role leads the development and introduction of new products. During this time frame, our NPI Team launched the highly successful C-Series medium excavators, widely regarded at the time as Caterpillar's most successful product launch ever, as well as the industry standard B-Series large excavators, and developed Caterpillar's 10-year excavator product strategy. Executed well, this role manages far more than the design, manufacturing, and supply chain aspects of introducing a new product. It is also accountable for the product strategy, functional and technical specifications, go to market strategy, introduction timing, product support, and parts. In short, this role manages the future for the global product manager.

This role is accountable for delivering the annual North American sales, revenue, and market share business plan for hydraulic excavators and track-type loaders.

This role is responsible for developing, marketing, and supporting excavators for demolition and material handling customers throughout Europe, Africa, and the Middle East. The Special Products Team established what remains the record for unit and revenue shipments in a one-year period and Introduced the innovative pin-on boom, hydraulic variable wide gage, and tilt cab demolition configurations at the 1998 bauma equipment fair. This was an early experience managing a P&L with a $30+ Million (USD) top line and balance sheet. It also was a great leadership experience inheriting a fine team and helping them find ways to make themselves even better.

This role was responsible for incorporating customer requirements into Caterpillar's excavator New Product Introduction (NPI) process and for developing and executing competitive evaluations, sales literature, and salesman training for Europe, Africa, and the Middle-East (EAME). The purpose of this developmental, broadening assignment was twofold: elevate the technical capabilities of the EAME sales force and develop a deep understanding of dealer and customer businesses in the richly diverse EAME markets. Reinforcing that one's desk is no place from which to learn, this assignment was a great training ground for a future global product manager requiring clear articulation of customer requirements gathered through experiences gained in these years which averaged 180 business days on the road.

This role was accountable for teaching structural analysis and design techniques to (Japanese) members of the Hydraulic Excavator Development Center (HEDC) and for analyzing and correcting root cause of field failures. What a great time it was to be in Japan to contribute to arguably the most successful joint venture ever between a Japanese and US company. We advanced the state of the art in structural design and analysis during this period refining non-linear gap analysis techniques, introducing robust non-linear finite element tools, building the first solid model at the HEDC, and generating the first finite element model directly from solid model geometry. We introduced Caterpillar's 300-Family excavators during this time which represented a complete and revolutionary resdesign of the entire model lineup.

The primary purpose of this all too short assignment was to advance this team's capabilities in non-linear finite element analysis, specifically the application of gap elements to model sliding contact in, for example, bolted joints and rotating bushings.

This developmental assignment was an experience contributing to writing patent applications and other legal instruments. The ongoing benefit of this experience is an understanding of confidentiality and intellectual propetry, its value and the various means of protection available. Perhaps even more valuable over the years has been the sense of when this layperson needs to seek legal counsel, an understanidng developed during this assignment.

Many of these team members remain close to this day, have done very well in their careers in and out of Caterpillar, and hold this experience up as the benchmark of teamwork by which all others are measured. This team was accountable for developing, supporting, and teaching structural design and analysis tools and techniques for the enterprise and became widely respected as a center of excellence for finite element modeling and analysis. Often invited to join design teams on a case-by-case basis, this assignment provided opportunities to work on components and machines from virtually every Caterpillar product line from engines to hydraulic pumps from lift trucks to backhoe leaders, and this team became highly adept at solving design and field problems and in the application of sophisticated finite element tools such as MSC/NASTRAN, UAI/NASTRAN. ABAQUS, and others.Recently (January, 2016), an old friend crystallized why this team was so successful. He said, "Everyone was dedicated to the success of everyone else." When you know your teammates will support you, it's incredible what you can accomplish together. All of us strive today to recreate these benchmark feelings of mutual trust, support, respect, and fun that helped deliver such high levels of performance.

Similar to Caterpillar's current Engineering Rotational Development Program, the CGT or College Graduate Training Program was designed to help recent college technical graduates establish a professional network in our large organization and gain some early success by assigning them to six different project leaders across disciplines and business units. This was my first exposure to full-scale vehicle field testing and applications of boundary element and non-linear finite element analysis techniques.

This is an assignment which means more as the years go by because it was a chance to work with some of the finest scientists and engineers in aerospace. This team was responsible for managing vehicle dynamics, whether the vehicle is on the ground, in flight, or in orbit. This assignment provided early, practical application of linear finite element techniques and also was an early oppotunity to develop rigid body dynamic simulations.

Caterpillar's Cooperative Education Program was designed to provide real work experience to university undergratuate students. Participants rotated by working for a semester, returning to school the following semester, and so on. Assigned to a planning group in what was then the most modern grey iron and investment casting foundry in the world, we eliminated stop watches and automated the process of collecting cycle times for establishing production rates. Assigned to our corporate quality group next, it was a great learning experience to participate as a member of the team who completed the first two Caterpillar Supplier Certifications. The third assignment was in Large Track Type Engineering, the product line which attracted me to Caterpillar in the first place, on the D10 high-drive dozer program.