{"id":16700,"date":"2021-09-28T08:00:08","date_gmt":"2021-09-28T15:00:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/newed.any0.dpdns.org\/en-us\/power-platform\/blog\/power-apps\/western-states-caterpillar-fusion-teams-use-microsoft-power-platform-to-build-mobile-apps-for-field-staff\/"},"modified":"2025-06-11T07:52:27","modified_gmt":"2025-06-11T14:52:27","slug":"western-states-caterpillar-fusion-teams-use-microsoft-power-platform-to-build-mobile-apps-for-field-staff","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/newed.any0.dpdns.org\/en-us\/power-platform\/blog\/power-apps\/western-states-caterpillar-fusion-teams-use-microsoft-power-platform-to-build-mobile-apps-for-field-staff\/","title":{"rendered":"Western States Caterpillar \u2013 fusion teams use Microsoft Power Platform to build mobile apps for field staff"},"content":{"rendered":"

Western States Caterpillar Equipment Company<\/a> (\u2018Western States CAT\u2019 for short) is an authorized Caterpillar dealer for five mountain states in the United States, with seventeen branches located across Idaho, Wyoming, Montana, Oregon, and Washington. With over sixty-five years of experience in the heavy equipment industry, Western States CAT has a rich tradition of service, innovation, and leadership. They employ over a thousand employees to provide machine parts, service, rentals, new and used equipment sales and power generation for many industries, including construction, forestry, dairy, railroad, mining, and health care. As the premier heavy equipment dealer for the northwest, they are a go-to resource for technology, machines, and ideas to help customers get more done, more accurately, in less time.<\/p>\n

With a thriving rental business across several stores, the company looked at how Microsoft Power Platform can improve several core business processes and accelerate the service provided to their customers. Their journey started in 2018 after coming away inspired from an exclusive Microsoft event for Caterpillar dealers. In this episode we look at how they digitized, modernized, and transformed two business processes fundamental to their growth:<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. Reducing the turnaround timeframe of rental returns, and<\/li>\n
  2. Enabling their sales team out in the field to better understand their prospects and customer spend.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    They accomplished this by working as a fusion team using a combination of low-code technologies (Power Apps, Power Automate, Power BI) along with \u201cpro-dev\u201d or code-first technologies (ASP.NET Core, Custom connectors, Azure Blob storage, Azure SQL).<\/p>\n

    \"Thumbnail<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n
    Watch the MBAS 2021 presentation: https:\/\/aka.ms\/MBAS\/WesternStatesCAT<\/a><\/strong><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

    Meet the Strategy & BI Solutions Team<\/strong><\/h3>\n

    The Western States CAT Strategy & BI Solutions team, led by Justin Bailey, Director of Strategy & BI, is tasked with enabling innovation and insight within the business by providing data and application solutions. The team utilizes an agile approach and a variety of Microsoft applications to deliver products and data solutions in alignment with Western States CAT\u2019s corporate strategy. The past year has been a particularly busy and successful year for the team. Despite the COVID-19 pandemic, they collectively delivered 284 products or product feature releases and 884 individual work items for the business.<\/p>\n

    \"Photo<\/p>\n

    From left: Chris Jaques, Shayne Ephraim, Justin Bailey, Michael King, Saif Al Mahmud<\/em><\/p>\n

    The Power Platform journey for Western States CAT started in 2017 when Justin attended a meeting of North American CAT dealerships hosted by Microsoft in Redmond, WA. Here, James Phillips and his team presented their vision and plans for the Power Platform. Justin was hooked. He went back, and as a citizen developer with no formal programming background started to build simple Power Apps solutions. He then shared his excitement with Chris Jaques, a code-first developer on their IT team with over twenty years of experience building software solutions using tools such as Visual Studio and .NET. Chris was hesitant at first, but after seeing firsthand what the platform could do and how \u201cwhatever they threw at it, they managed to get it working\u201d, he was sold on the idea of expanding his code-first toolbelt to include low-code technologies offered by the Power Platform.<\/p>\n

    \"Photos
    \nBI Strategy & Solutions team working hand in hand with business teams in the field to test and improve apps<\/em><\/p>\n

    Justin provided input from a low-code perspective on behalf of the business while Chris elevated the apps using code-first approaches. They worked hand in hand with business teams across the stores to get direct feedback on the Power Apps solutions and ensure what they created would be of value and assist the users in their daily operations. As a result, the Strategy & BI team has developed an underlying architecture that all theirs apps follow for a cohesive \u2018low code + code-first\u2019<\/em> solution design pattern with Microsoft Power Platform.<\/p>\n

    As a result, with the combination of a strong agile culture, code-first experience, and a drive to deliver results, the Strategy & BI team members have exceeded expectations and have helped changed the digital culture of the organization. This year, the team delivered several critical Power Apps solutions for the business \u2013 Store Observation, Return to Ready, and Client Connect. Utilizing APIs, Power Apps and Power BI, the team is working to scale their app and reporting strategy, utilizing the same data connections, reducing redundancy, and streamlining business processes.<\/p>\n

    The following sections will deep dive into two solutions and the supporting architecture.<\/p>\n

    Power Platform Solution – Return to Ready<\/strong><\/h3>\n

    Business scenario<\/strong><\/h4>\n

    For customer equipment rentals, it is business critical to ensure rental inventory is safe and ready to rent out as soon as possible. This process was called \u2018Return to Ready\u2019. To maximize revenue generation, it is important to minimize this turnaround time and have their fleet rented at maximum capacity. Once a machine is returned it must be inspected and serviced, and the rental contract closed to invoice the customer.<\/p>\n

    The Strategy & BI team was also tasked with measuring and tracking the time intervals from rental call to contract close, as this information was not captured in their ERP system.<\/p>\n

    Before Power Platform<\/strong><\/h4>\n

    For years the business had used a manual ticket workflow to manage the return to ready process.\u00a0 Each of the seventeen stores had a physical notebook at the front desk that was used to organize and prioritize the day. Drivers, service attendants, coordinators, and yard attendants all had to continuously check the notebook for their next priority. This posed several challenges:<\/p>\n