Simulation center celebrates moveDon Dodson, The News Gazette Champaign facility employs more than 100, including many UI students. Champaign - Are there enough bolts in this? What effect will vibrations have? Is this vehicle's operator compartment safe in the event of a rollover? Thanks to Caterpillar's Champaign Simulation Center, the Peoria-based heavy equipment company no longer has to build a peice of equipment in order to find out. Using sophisticated computing analysis, engineers at the simulation center can calculate stresses on equipment and predict what parts are vulnerable before the equipment is built. The center, located in the SAIC Building in the University of Illinois Reserach Park, recently expaned to 13,000 square feet of the buildings second floor. On Tuesday, about 100 corporate, university and civic leaders gathered to toast the new quarters, with remarks from both UI President B. Joseph White and Chancellor Richard Herman. The center employs slightly more than 100 people, with UI students making up about 40 percent of the work force. Many of the full-time engineers are Cat employees, while others are contract employees through Belcan Engineering. Students work flexible hours at the round-the-clock facility, coming and going as their schedules permit, said Mark Pflederer, vice president of Caterpillar's Technology Solutions Division. That's fine because the center does simulation work for many Caterpillar plants, including overseas facilities where business hours don't match up with domestic plants. According to Pflederer, the simulation center has three primary roles: - Problem-solving for Caterpillar design facilities. - Early simulation work on new machine concepts. - developing software tools used throughout the company to design products. The location on campus has proved ideal for attracting and recruiting UI engineering students, Pflederer added. "There's real value to having it where you can draw on students," he said. Brian Budzynski, a team leader at the plan, is one of several employees who started with Cat as a student and ended up working for the company full-time. He began as a high school intern in 1997 and worked for Cat as a graduate student in mechanical engineering. After working for Cat in Aurora, he's now back in Champaign-Urbana. The simulation center has a different feel from the company's other facilities, Budzynski said. "Being close to the university, there's a certain amount of freedom to research ideas and different ways of doing things," he said. Budzynski said that when people at Caterpillar facilities call the simulation center with questions, employees "run an analysis and make a recomendation about what should be done differently to improve the designs." "We're the place to go if someone doesn't know how to solve the problem," he added. Pflederer said the simulation center was established in 1999 and has expanded five times since then. The center's personnel represent 14 different countries, and 26 of them have doctorates, he said. Andrea Ruedi, chief executive officer of Fox Development Corporation, said the center was originally located on Fox Drive but moved to the Reserach Park in 2001. At the outset, it had only four full-time employees and four part-time employees, she said. On any given day, the center is working on "dozens of projects," said Walt Lohmann, engineering manager for the simulation center. Lohmann said he couldn't predict how many employees might be added this year. "Despite the fact we doubled (in space), we don't have room to double employment," he said. Growing computer capabilities is one reason the center has grown so quickly, and that's a good sign for the future, Lohmann said. "The use of computer technology is growing, and that's true at Caterpillar," he said. February 22, 2006 |