Tucson is a key technology hub for heavy-equipment giant Caterpillar Inc., which develops new systems and products at its mining-tech center downtown and tests them at its Tucson Proving Ground near Green Valley.
And when the company needs to train its dealers and their customers on the latest technologies and how to use them, they come to a special facility not far from the Proving Ground.
A machine operator uses a remote control to scoop up a pile of dirt with a Caterpillar 320 excavator on a test track at the Tinaja Hills Demonstration and Learning center near Green Valley, 5000 W. Caterpillar Trail, on Tuesday.
The Tinaja Hills Demonstration and Learning Center hosts an average 6,000 people annually for demonstrations and training, with a state-of-the-art education and conference complex and thousands of acres of desert for instruction and testing.
Though Tinaja Hills is not open to the public, Caterpillar recently offered the Star and other media a rare glimpse of the facility and some of its training work.
Caterpillar is a major area employer in the Tucson area, with more than 600 workers at the downtown tech center it opened in 2019 and at the proving ground and training site, which is sprawled across about 6,500 desert acres in the shadow of Freeport McMoRanโs Sierrita copper mine.
Tinaja Hills is one of three such demo and training sites Texas-based Caterpillar operates, also including its Edwards Demonstration and Learning Center near Peoria, Illinois, and a center in Malaga, Spain, said Marty Dains, marketing and facilities manager at Tinaja Hills.
A staff of about 30 manages the center, including โdemonstrator instructorsโ who must have at least 10 yearsโ experience in heavy-equipment operations and are versed in a range of Caterpillar mining and construction equipment, Dains said.
โThink of this facility as a showcase or a showroom floor for our dealers around the world, over 120 dealers for Caterpillar around the world,โ he said, noting that dealers typically donโt have equipment like one of Caterpillarโs multi-million-dollar mining trucks on hand, or a place to demonstrate them.
โThey call us up and say โhey, weโve got a customer pending a deal to purchase one, weโd like to get them down there to get them on it, talk to your service techs, talk to your operator instructors,โโ Dains said. โThey bring them down, we put them on the machines, usually bring in a product expert or engineer if they have questions, and give them all the information they need.โ
On the day of the media tour, about 125 dealers and Caterpillar employees assembled in the auditorium to learn about the companyโs new electric-powered hydraulic mining shovel, Dains said.
Every spring, Dains said, Caterpillar brings in about 250 dealer sales staffers each week for three to four weeks to learn about new products, services and systems coming out so theyโre up to speed.
The facility has a main 160-seat auditorium, a smaller auditorium, a dining hall and several conference rooms, locker rooms, offices and service bays.
The company also conducts training at the Tinaja Hills center for dealer service technicians, as well as equipment operators, said Dains, who was named manager in 2020 after nearly a decade as manager of the Edwards center.
โWe do a lot of operator training with customers once they buy the machines, they want to make sure they get that return on investment, so they send their operators here and our instructors train them how to be safe and efficient,โ he said.
Grandstanding
Among several training areas linked by gravel roads across the site, the Tinaja Hills center includes training areas and bays for service technicians, a training area for road-paving machines, a general-line demonstration area with a grandstand that seats 400 people and separate demonstration arenas for paving and mining equipment.
โAs the customers are sitting in the grandstands, we have GoPro cameras in the cab of the machines so they can see on monitors in front of the grandstands what the operators can see from their perspective,โ Dains said, adding that the operators are linked via microphones to interact with audience members.
As Caterpillar continues to advance autonomous and semi-autonomous technology for mining and construction vehicles, Tinaja Hills is where dealers and customers learn how to use it.
Caterpillar โ which dabbled with remote-controlled loaders to remove slag in steel plants way back in 1968 โ developed its first prototype autonomous mining truck in 1994 and rolled out its MineStar Command system for autonomous mine haul trucks in 2013.
Ten years later, Caterpillar has more than 620 autonomous trucks operating with 15 customers on three continents, autonomously hauling more than 6.9 billion tons of material over more than 143 million miles without causing any reported injuries, the company said.
The companyโs Cat Command system for hauling uses satellite, radar and laser rangefinding to navigate and avoid obstacles, and includes an โall-stopโ system allowing on-site workers to immediately halt all remotely operated vehicles in their area.
Most recently in Arizona, Phoenix-based Freeport announced in late October that it is working with Caterpillar to convert the companyโs entire fleet of 33 Cat 793 haul trucks at its Bagdad mine in Yavapai County to an autonomous haulage system using MineStar Command.
Remote control
Autonomous technology also is a key piece of Caterpillarโs vision for a โmine site of the future,โ also including sustainable solar and energy storage, which the company showcased at the Tucson Proving Ground in February along with its first battery-powered electric mine haul truck.
Caterpillar has adapted its autonomous and semi-autonomous control systems to many of its mining and construction production models, as well as offering autonomous system retrofits, and says most of its vehicles in the future will be autonomous-ready.
During the Starโs recent visit, two operators trained in line-of-sight mode, remotely controlling a Caterpillar bulldozer and a tracked excavator along a test track, walking along as they relayed commands via an over the shoulder console.
Once trained, operators using Caterpillarโs system can operate a machine from anywhere in the world, Dains said, but just the ability to operate remotely within site of the machine can protect workers from unsafe conditions.
On another excavator at the training site, horns honk and blue lights flash to warn that an unseen controller in a nearby training building is taking control.
A Caterpillar 793F hall truck towers over a training ground near the companyโs Tinaja Hills Demonstration and Learning Center near Green Valley. The 793F weighs about 150 tons empty with a payload of 256 tons and is 6% faster than competitive trucks, the company says.
Big-boy toys
While an array of construction equipment can be seen across the sprawling Tinaja Hills site, none are quite as impressive as Caterpillarโs massive mining trucks.
The Cat 793F truck demoed for media members โ not even the biggest haul truck Caterpillar makes โ stands about 20 feet high, on 12-foot-tall tires, and is 26 feet wide, 44 feet long, weighs more than 150 tons empty and can carry a 250-ton load.
With a birdโs-eye view forward but little else below, the operator navigates and keeps track of obstacles via a system of cameras, sensors and sideview mirrors the size of coffee tables.
Dains jokes that operating the huge truck โ which at a top speed of 37.5 miles per hour is touted as 6% faster than comparable trucks โ is like driving around a two-story house.
Indeed, riding in the cab of the massive truck, while surprisingly smooth, feels a little like sitting on a second-story balcony while the ground rushes past below.
