LEARN HOW TO MAXIMIZE VALVES AND SEATS PERFORMANCE AND LIFE

In an effort to avoid early-hour failures and downtime, are you replacing valves and seats too soon — wasting product life and money? A valves and seats trial is a great way to find out. Not only will you learn which brand delivers the most life in your application, but you’ll also uncover operational and maintenance improvements to help you run a safer, more profitable operation.

We’ve conducted more than 10 of these manned, on-location valves and seats performance trials since December 2015. Here are three reasons you should consider one on your site:

1. You get valuable data on performance, life and maintenance.

By participating in one of our valves and seats trials, you’ll gain knowledge could save you tens of thousands of dollars every year — or more. You’ll walk away with data-driven insights into how different brands perform in your application, what failure modes really look like and when is the ideal time for replacement so you get maximum life from your products.

Here’s how a typical trial works: You run a pump equipped with Cat® valves and seats next to one equipped with your current brand. For the first few days, we remain on site, and when you shut the pumps down for maintenance, we review how they’re wearing and help your team understand the wear they’re seeing. After we leave, your team continues to collect and send us valves and seats performance data. When the trial is complete, you return the valves and seats so we can conduct a failure mode analysis. Then we consolidate all the data and provide a final report with our findings — including maintenance and replacement recommendations.

2. You get to customize the trial around your operation’s needs.

We don’t take a one-size-fits-all approach to valves and seats trials. Instead, we design each trial around your needs to maximize the benefits — and minimize the disruption — for your operation. You decide:

• How long the trial lasts: A typical length is one to two weeks. You also determine when during the day (or night) the valves and seats trial runs.


• How many products to compare: You can review Cat valves and seats performance on its own, or you can compare our products to one or more other brands.


• Where the products are placed on site: Valves and seats wear differently in different locations. We’ll rig in where you want us to.


• What data is collected and shared: We keep all valves and seats trial information confidential and won’t release any data to your other sites or your parent company without your permission.


• Who is on site: Our field engineers have years of experience working on location and all the necessary safety training. We prefer to remain on site for two or three days to ensure everything’s set up correctly and provide training, but we’ll adjust our schedule as needed. While some work must be done in person, we can perform other activities remotely.

3. You get onsite training, troubleshooting and more as a bonus.

When we’re on site, we don’t just set up the products and walk away. Most valves and seats trials start with a training session for your team. Then, as we spend time with your personnel, we observe how they work and whether they’re applying best practices. We can answer questions about other Cat products on your site and troubleshoot any issues you’re having. After a few days on location, we’re typically able to provide an informal, third-party review of your operating, maintenance and safety practices.

Also, because we spend so much time with your operators during a valves and seats trial, they get the benefit of what’s essentially a multi-day, one-on-one training experience. We often see performance and uptime improve — and maintenance time decrease — once operators understand what different types of wear look like and what they mean.

Ready to schedule your valves and seats trial?

If you have questions or want to schedule a trial for your site, the first step is to talk to your local Cat dealer. Your dealer will coordinate schedules with our team and get the process started.