Cadillac Casting runs a large, complex foundry operation with roughly 500 pieces of equipment across 280,000 square feet. Keeping that equipment running isn't optional: unplanned downtime in a foundry environment has immediate, costly consequences up and down the production line.
Challenge
Cadillac Casting had already invested in monitoring before Tractian. A network of sensors was in place, manual vibration routes were being run regularly, and outside vibration analysts were brought in to supplement the in-house team.
But the sensors only flagged issues after something had already gone wrong, the manual routes couldn't cover the full plant, and with a lean team managing a large and complex asset base, the gaps were constant. Ultimately, failures kept getting missed and unplanned downtime kept happening.
What the team needed was continuous visibility across every critical asset and alerts that could tell them something was wrong when the fault was still in its earliest stage.
Solution
Tractian replaced the patchwork of manual routes and reactive maintenance with continuous, automated monitoring across Cadillac Casting's critical assets. The platform surfaced developing issues early enough to act on, giving the maintenance team somewhere specific to focus.
More than the technology itself, what changed was how the team worked. Maintenance supervisors became active, daily users of the platform, using features like on-demand expert support to dig into findings and integrating Tractian into their workflows to identify and address issues remotely. Plant leadership was clear about what they were really after: not just catching failures, but reducing wasted maintenance hours and freeing the team up to focus on work that actually moved the needle.
Results & Impact
The case studies came quickly and consistently across the facility:
- Shortly after installation, the platform flagged bearing wear and rapidly declining lubrication on a 200 HP motor. The maintenance supervisor reviewed the data and made the call to swap the motor over the weekend, and when the teardown came back confirming a locked bearing rubbing on the shaft, it validated exactly what Tractian had surfaced. What could have become a catastrophic failure turned into a controlled weekend repair.
- A recurring bearing failure on one of the plant's elevators was caught early through continuous monitoring, giving the team the data they needed to bring the bearing supplier on-site and address the root cause rather than just replacing the part again.
- At go-live, a lubrication issue on a drag shakeout motor was flagged immediately. The supervisor greased it on the spot and watched the health status return to green.
What's Next
Cadillac Casting's reliability team is more focused than at any point before Tractian. The platform has given them a clear, continuous picture of asset health across the facility and the confidence to act on what it's showing them. The next step is continuing to expand that coverage and build on a program that is getting ahead of failures rather than reacting to them.
