Q&A: Cummins On-Freeway Execs on the Way forward for Truck Engines – Gear

After almost 4 many years on the firm, Amy Boerger, vp and normal supervisor of Cummins North American On-Freeway enterprise, is retiring. For 39 years, Boerger has been a fixture at Cummins, pioneering many developments within the trucking trade.

Beginning as an engineer, Boerger helped elevate Cummins’ repute as a number one firm in diesel engines, and later with different gasoline options to satisfy the environmentally cleaner and “greener” future coming on the trucking trade. She was additionally influential in opening doorways to new alternatives for ladies and distinguished herself as an efficient, profitable and high-profile chief in a subject the place males traditionally outnumbered girls.

Within the wake of her retirement announcement, HDT sat down with Boerger and her substitute, Jose Samperio, to speak about Cummins’ present and future on-highway enterprise and applied sciences.

Samperio will assume the function of government director and normal supervisor – North America On-Freeway upon Boerger’s retirement in March. He brings almost 20 years of Cummins expertise throughout engineering, service, technique and gross sales. His Cummins profession started on the Jamestown Engine Plant as a product engineer, a service engineer and in distribution service store operations. For the final two years he has been government director – gross sales for the On-Freeway Enterprise in North and South America.

The next interview is flippantly edited for readability and magnificence.

HDT: Congratulations on nearly 40 years at Cummins! You actually noticed a variety of adjustments throughout your tenure with the corporate.

Boerger: Sure. It’s been a outstanding transformation. After I began as an engineer at our L10 manufacturing plant, that was simply concerning the restrict of our product choices. We had no medium-duty engines. We performed nearly completely within the North American market. And since then, we’ve turn out to be a world firm. And the breadth and depth of our product line at this time is basically outstanding.

HDT: Cummins is present process an unimaginable transformation away from being purely a diesel engine producer to a extremely diversified automotive/truck provider. How a lot did truck makers’ “vertical integration” motion within the early 2000s affect and drive that call and energy?

Boerger: We had already begun to diversify earlier than the vertical integration development started. Trucking again then was a extremely cyclical market, and we didn’t need to depend on a singular, cyclical market to promote our engines and merchandise in. We knew change was coming — and it wasn’t simply governmental rules driving these adjustments. So we understood that to make Cummins develop and turn out to be stronger, we had been going to need to push into new areas and new markets, with new merchandise. One nice instance of that was our early dedication to pure gasoline engines. Our success there led us to consider broadening our product portfolio even additional. And that continues at this time. Jose, for instance, has developed a strategic crew at Cummins to work with gasoline suppliers about new clear powertrain choices and act as a mediator to speak to fleets about their present and future wants. So, that is an ongoing transformation and course of.

Samperio: On probably the most primary stage, an on-highway fleet buyer or an owner-operator is solely attempting to maneuver items from Level A to Level B, and we provide the ability that strikes these items. What we’re telling our prospects at this time is that it doesn’t essentially need to be diesel gasoline or an inner combustion engine that strikes these items. We see Cummins at this time as an organization that’s actually gasoline agnostic. And we consider that now we have different powertrain choices that as simply as dependable as diesel gasoline. It’s a tradition that goes again greater than 80 years at Cummins. We need to ship fashionable, cutting-edge expertise that strikes items as effectively and productively as attainable.

HDT: It’s fascinating that course of has led Cummins to turn out to be a brand new sort of Tier I automotive provider. It could possibly be argued that Cummins at this time is as a lot a “expertise firm” as it’s an automotive provider.

Boerger: I believe that Cummins at this time is certainly a stronger and extra succesful firm. Forging new partnerships and buying complementary corporations when it is sensible has been an enormous a part of that. We needed to determine to let a little bit little bit of our “secret sauce” engine formulation unfastened, for instance, in our partnership with Eaton to develop a completely built-in automated transmission that works seamlessly with our diesel engines. And now, with our acquisition of Meritor, we’re on an identical path, integrating their merchandise with our personal to ensure seamless efficiency for our prospects.

Samperio: This has actually been a steady journey for Cummins for a few years now. Assume again 20 years in the past when Cummins was bringing its first turbochargers to market. Not lengthy after that, we started to get into growing our personal gasoline techniques. And all of these items we do are as a result of they’re crucial for efficiency on the fleet stage. Eaton and Meritor are simply two latest examples of this philosophy. However the idea of efficiency and emission management has been a mainstay at Cummins for a really very long time.

Boerger: I believe that each one Cummins has gone by during the last 20 years has led us to develop an especially broad product portfolio that may meet each buyer want on the market at this time. There’s a variety of change coming to trucking, and we need to give our prospects choices that may allow them to do the work they should.

HDT: One instance: You made headlines final yr with the announcement that Cummins is exploring the opportunity of utilizing hydrogen as a gasoline in an in any other case standard inner combustion engine design. Are you able to discuss little about that expertise?

Boerger: With hydrogen, we see a possibility right here for fleets to maneuver right into a zero-emissions future in an setting they’re very acquainted with. And we had been early to hydrogen as a attainable future gasoline. Our funding in Hydrogenics is an instance of that imaginative and prescient. We realized early on you can make hydrogen from any variety of totally different sources. And we wanted to grasp that course of to be able to assist our prospects transition to hydrogen when the time got here.

Samperio: The great thing about an ICE powered by hydrogen is that we’re actually solely altering one factor at a time for our prospects — the gasoline they burn within the engine. Clearly, there are facets of their enterprise that change due to that one factor. The availability chain and infrastructure, for instance. However, general, the powertrain is similar to diesel ICEs. And we’ll be capable to manufacture hydrogen engines in the identical plant we construct the X15 diesel engine at this time. So it’s less complicated from each Cummins’ perspective and the purchasers’ perspective.

Moreover, our prospects don’t need to spend money on altering the layouts of their outlets and repair bays. And their technicians are very acquainted with ICE expertise. When it comes to dealing with, we consider hydrogen shall be similar to pure gasoline. So, once more, we consider hydrogen generally is a approach for fleets to maneuver to zero-emissions powertrains by altering just some issues about their operations, quite than every part.

Boerger: I believe the analogy is that hydrogen goes to be nearer to how we use pure gasoline at this time. We will burn it as both a liquid or gaseous gasoline. However we expect it’s extra seemingly it is going to burn in a gaseous kind, as compressed hydrogen. And we do assume the efficiency, when it comes to vary and energy and price of the gasoline, shall be about the identical as pure gasoline is at this time.

HDT: Amy, you talked about “choices” as a driving pressure behind Cummins’ analysis, improvement and product portfolio. Why do you’re feeling that’s so essential for Cummins’ future?

Boerger: We wish Cummins to be often known as a progressive, progressive firm. And we consider that’s essential given the a number of applied sciences being launched into trucking at this time.

Samperio: Completely different choices are essential once we speak to our fleet prospects. We encourage our prospects to not simply leap at a expertise that seems to be greatest for his or her wants. We need to change the dialog and attempt to perceive how they function and what they’re attempting to perform. As soon as we perceive these issues, it’s rather a lot simpler for Cummins to slender the choices down and actually fine-tune an answer that meets all of their wants.

Watch HDT Talks Trucking for extra on Cummins’ transformation: