Comfort, convenience and "Wow"!

Guests at the new Visitor Center at Caterpillar^® Paving Products headquarters will find comfort, convenience—and some, “Wow!” too.

“We continue to invest and show that we are serious players with a long-term commitment to the paving business,” said Lieven Van Broekhoven, Worldwide Sales and Marketing Manager for Caterpillar Paving Products.

The visitor center, in the U.S. city of Maple Grove, Minn., makes an instant impact. Enormous photographs of paving jobsites greet visitors as they enter. A showroom, thousands of square feet in size, houses products from across the Cat^® Paving line. Floor-to-ceiling windows, meanwhile, rush in natural light.

As the guests continue their stay and conduct business—whether examining equipment, meeting with management, touring the factory or undergoing training—they increasingly will appreciate the center’s comforts and conveniences, too. They include:

• A lounge area, including big-screen television, exclusively for visitors
• Instant wireless internet access
• A stocked kitchen
• Designated, private areas to make phone calls or handle work projects
• An on-site demonstration area
• A machine training lab

Also housed at the headquarters is the Solutions & Learning Center, which gives visitors quick access to Caterpillar knowledge. “Training personnel are on-site, as are engineers, and questions can be quickly answered,” Van Broekhoven said. Proximity to the factory is another convenience. “Customers can see how the equipment is built, and then examine the machine more closely in the safety of the showroom,” he said.

Other global investments
Significant investments also are being made at other Caterpillar Paving Products facilities. The plant in Minerbio, Italy, has been modernized, and its production capacity increased. Similar improvements have been made at the Xuzhou, China, plant. Creating a visitor center in Europe is a likely future step. Look for the facility to provide comfort, convenience—and a little more. “We went for a, ‘Wow!’ factor when we built this facility,” Van Broekhoven said while at the new Visitor Center. “Those who have been here have confirmed we achieved it.”