As part of the collaboration, Caterpillar autonomous solutions will be deployed at the Luck Stone Bull Run plant in Chantilly, Virginia. Luck Stone is the largest family-owned crushed stone, sand and gravel manufacturer in the United States.
The project aims to improve the safety and productivity of quarry operations that use autonomous technology with a minimum number of mobile devices.
Caterpillar currently has the largest autonomous haul truck fleet in the world with over 560 vehicles. In total, autonomous CAT dump trucks have traveled more than 187 million kilometers and transported more than 5.1 billion tons of cargo autonomously. It is especially important that these indicators are demonstrated without a single injury with loss of ability to work.
Marking first step in partnership, alliance expands Caterpillar’s fleet of autonomous trucks
In an effort to bring more AI to the mining industry, Caterpillar is updating the Cat MineStar Command for Hauling system at Bull Run on a fleet of 777G trucks. This is Caterpillar’s first autonomous deployment in the aggregate manufacturing industry.
The insights gained from the partnership will further help CAT to better adapt the next generation of autonomous mining solutions.
“Caterpillar has a long relationship with Luck Stone. <…> We are excited to dive into the dirt and work alongside the innovative Luck Stone team to learn how to scale our already proven mining solution to another industry,” said Denise Johnson, Caterpillar Group President, Resources Industries.
Caterpillar mining growth and strong demand
Caterpillar’s revenue was $51 billion last year. In the third quarter, Caterpillar’s sales increased 21% to $15 billion.
The current bottom line looks solid, with Wall Street forecasting earnings growth of 48% this quarter, matching the same increase in the third quarter of 2022. Analysts expect earnings-per-share growth of 28% for the full year.
AI technologies are expected to have a positive impact on CAT shares in the near future.