27 January 2009

When the Swedish Cat® dealer PON Rental Sweden AB rented a Caterpillar 301.8C mini hydraulic excavator in Stockholm early last November, no one imagined that four days later the machine would be located, stolen, thousands of kilometers away - in the United Kingdom.

And maybe most surprised of all were the thieves: “The machine is equipped with the Caterpillar Product Link which, among other things, provides information on the equipment location. The thieves obviously did not realize this. We could see that already after a few days of rent the machine was moved down to Denmark and it then traveled through Germany, the Netherlands and France to its destination close to Bristol in the UK,” explains Mattias Bäckman, the Rental Manager of PON Rental Sweden AB.

PON Rental Sweden AB got connected to the local police authorities in the UK and got a confirmation that the 301.8C was indeed where Product Link indicated. “We also had the license plate number of the vehicle that picked up the machine at our store. That same vehicle was found with the excavator as well. And what more, the police found more stolen items in there as well!” Mattias Bäckman says.

Using satellite technology, Product Link is the hardware that enables information flow between on-board systems and the web based application, EquipmentManager. “EquipmentManager is a web-based application that uses key indicators from equipment such as hours, location and diagnostic codes. Combined with powerful tools such as mapping, maintenance scheduling and troubleshooting instructions, EquipmentManager quickly sorts through machine data to identify events that require attention and delivers information in a meaningful and actionable manner. What happened with the stolen Swedish 301.8C is a good example of what Product Link can do for our customers,” clarifies Andreas Clauss, Product Link Marketing Manager at Caterpillar.