The participation of Cavpower South Australian Caterpillar dealer in the state's Local Government Association Roads and Works Conference at the end of August has pretty well guaranteed that every South Australian council was introduced to the Cat M-Series motor grader in a single day.

Each year the conference attracts representatives from virtually every council in the state, so the venue at Yankalilla, 80km south of Adelaide, offered an ideal opportunity for Cavpower to promote the new machines.
Most of the conference delegates knew of the pending arrival of the M-Series in Australia, but weren't fully aware of the huge impact the new models are likely to have on the motor grader market in Australia.

To explain the significance of the M-Series' arrival, Cavpower's major accounts manager Mark Taylor, introduced delegates to all the M-Series features and capabilities during a presentation held immediately before a 140M machine was driven into the trade expo arena for "unveiling".

According to Roger Rose, Cavpower's marketing manager, the delegates' response to the machine was immediate and extremely positive. Plenty of Cavpower staff were available to answer delegates' questions and an M-Series simulator was in place, so delegates could have a simulated test drive.

Following the conference, Cavpower took the simulator north for a week at Kadina where each of about ten councils in the region were invited to send two operators along for an introduction to the machine and for a half day of operator training on the simulator. A similar program was conducted the following week with council operators in the Murray Bridge region. A number of private contractors, feeling left out even at this early stage, traveled considerable distances to Murray Bridge so that they too could get a piece of the M-Series training action.
Roger said that without exception, every one of the 40 or 50 operators who attended the training sessions had the gist of the M-Series joystick controls within about 15 minutes of sitting in the operator's seat.

"A few of them said they felt the controls were just like an extension of their arms," Roger said. "All the movements are intuitive.

"And by the time they'd had an hour or two at the controls they hadn't just accepted the arrangement, they'd really embraced it and were enjoying it," he said. "You don't always find operators enjoying their work."

Feedback from all the operators was very positive as far as Cavpower and Caterpillar were concerned. However, there was one operator less happy than the rest. In the lead up to the M-Series launch, Cavpower engaged local contractor, Jeff Kennewell to undergo official Caterpillar training so he could help Cavpower demonstrate the machines to its customers. After driving M-Series machines and living and breathing M-Series machines for three or four weeks, Jeff wasn't really looking forward to going back to his regular job driving a Cat 120H. His 120H had seemed pretty good before he'd got used to the M-Series machines.

Due to the high level of M-Series interest across all sectors in South Australia, Cavpower is planning another series of training programs in coming months. These sessions will be targeted more towards private sector contractors. However anyone interested in an introduction to the M-Series or in test driving an M-Series simulator is invited to contact Cavpower to make an appointment.