Caterpillar

My typical day would always begin with a Safety meeting which would last around 20 minutes, from there I would then go back to my Dispatch work station and prioritize the days picks for the other team members. A large majority of the picks would be going overseas, while others would be going interstate or to other local businesses. Once the picking was organized I would then begin the packing and processing of the previous day picks, as well as archiving of processed pick slips i would also need to arrange courier collection for the packaged items. As a general rule if I had any spare time I would either Receipt goods in, unload or load trucks, do put aways or pick parts as workload required or clean up my work area.
One of the things that I learned over a period of time was the different types of individual people that I had to work with which included team members, management and other office staff, some were easy to get along with while others took a lot longer to gain their trust, once the team was formed we were just like a big family, where disagreements were always sorted with respect to each person.
The hardest part of my role with caterpillar was to ensure that all items required by our local and interstate customers was to have them packed, processed and offsite in a time frame that suited their business needs, for example some customers were happy to have their parts sent on Road transport while others needed Same day delivery which a lot of the time had to be arranged at the end of the shift or after hours (Call out)
I feel the most rewarding part of my job was training others to competently do the role when needed. You could see their interest grow as they became more involved in the complex processes of Dispatch / Receipt or any of the other areas of warehousing.

This job has got to be one of the best Engineering jobs going around.

Underground Mining presents one of the last real engineering challenges! We are in an industry that due to the harshness of the environment, is really one of the last frontiers. All the engineering problems aren’t solved yet. Our customers operate in a dangerous environment with so many processes and operations that are still really challenging and our machines are right there with them.  It’s hot, wet, corrosive, dark, there is impact damage, the productivity demands are high and everything has to be squashed into a small space.

I am encouraged to innovate and try new things to solve tough problems.  I've also got access to a huge amount of design resources, parts to use and the latest technology Caterpillar has.  I have all the latest tools I need to do my job well and I'm encourage to be practical and hands on with the machines, getting involved in testing and travelling to customer sites.

Were a small focussed team here but we can leverage the expertise of the global Caterpillar family.  I've made great friends all over the world working here.

I get paid really well and have really supportive encouraging managers who work hard to mentor and grow me.

Come work with us, you won't regret it.

The parent Caterpillar Inc is a great company, however the Underground Mining Engineering business unit located in Burnie, Tasmania, Australia is not in par with the corporate CAT Inc. The employees in Burnie are treated as 2nd class. The pay rates, benifits, superannuation and Salary Grades are not in line with other units within Australia. An Engineer in main land Australia will be at least 3 grade more than an Engineer in Burnie, Tasmania. The team in Burnie is great to work with, but we're all disappointed in the way Corporate treats the Burnie employees. Once you join the Engineering team in Burnie there is no further advances. The official communication to us who want to advance in career is to move out of Burnie. My advice to anyone considering a position in CAT Burnie is to consider it only if you're unemployed and desperate to find a job. Tasmania is an isolated place and hence switching job, once you move here is impossible. It's impossible to grow in CAT Burnie too. The work nature is great, people are also great, but due to the 2nd class employee treatment the employee commitment are extremely down.

When I first started at Hastings, It was a great place to work, good people and good supportive management, but as the years went by the company change hands from Bucyrus to Hastings Deering and it became a very missed match company were they lost there way in management.
It became over crowded and very heavy in politics and red tape and incorrect discessions from higher management, but this is expected of a big company.
We lost good people to incorrect placement of personnel.
This put a lot of commitment / responsibility on the team that was left due to the large lose of good employees-management and experience which lead to a downfall in customer relationship with stakeholders and the mining industry.
This potentially was the biggest down full of this company and inturn brought on heavy causilties in the workforce major redundencies and a very big downturn in the workforce and in the work relations.

Typical day currently is to keep all open work in progress clean, fix any issues/ problems through auditing. Provide support to Finance, accounts, purchasing, my team, project coordinator and the manager.

I've learnt to encourage team work, to always encourage the team to ask for help when needed, provide support and re-train where required.

I support management and they support me too.

Without co-workers the business would not run as smoothly, team work is very big in our department.

The hardest part is when a team member is not performing, and I have to sort out letting them go. (Even if they have been re-trained and supported to try and improve.)

The most enjoyable part of my job is seeing the final product complete and knowing my team and I helped in a way - whether that be admin/ordering.

Caterpillar is a global company where you can find great opportunities to grow personally and professionally.  Excellent share market which allows to be in contact with top customers.
Workplace culture is the one to improve with people too technical (and "too expert") in its field but with lack of leadership skills, very difficult to influence and very difficult to make their opinions to change. A lot of judging people behind the walls.  This sometimes impacts on the customer who feels the arrogance in some employees.  My advice to management would be to invest in leadership training rather than technical courses. 
Most enjoyable part of the job is that there is always something to learn in Caterpillar.

Production of Mining equipment documentation and design work was developed every day and a quick but thorough learning curve of design methods and practices was undertaken. My managers were brilliant and went out of their way to provide training and expertise to aid in the quality of the overall products and services provide. My co-workers and I developed strong professional and personal relationships. The hardest part of the work was keeping up to date with all the production and service tasks as Caterpillar and the mining industry were going through massive changes at the time. The most enjoyable part of the job was the diversity, but familiarity of day to day tasks and relationships built with all the people who worked there in the almost 5 years I was with the company.

Supervision on trades personnel / pre-starts, apprentice training / parts / plan project lay-out job QA standards.
Safety of personnel
Every day was a learning curve as different issues
Dealing with variations
Management meetings
 Enjoyable part of the job was meeting expectation on KPI and the completion of project and getting a good feeling of a job well done and no safety issues all going home safe / work culture.

Learn form management was hit & miss because do the large number of termination there was no one left we the knowledge and made it hard with no backing, engineering was good but they also left and most design was left to supervisor to take charge,/ lead with the experience that was in-house.

I have worked as a Engineer at Caterpillar for 23 years and they are by far one of the best Company's in the world to work for. The work is both challenging and satisfying. They have a great culture as far as work life balance goes as well as supporting family members when needed. Working as part of the marketing team over the last year or so has been great. 
Reviewing customer requests for modifications, upgrades and supplying work instructions, standard work documents, Presentations and spread sheets is a normal part of my day.

A typical day at work would start with responding to customer inquiries and replying to e-mails. Followed by workshop visit to inspect the quality of work undertaken. All the co-workers at Caterpillar were really nice, friendly and willing to teach each other. While the hardest part of the job was interacting with workshop staff who are not aware of the importance of quality and the most enjoyable part was to interact with customers, clients and sub-contractors from around the world including India, China, Russia, Australia and South Africa.

Working at Caterpillar: Company Overview and Reviews

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