Caterpillar CDRS
Two years redesigning the rental software Cat dealers run on, worldwide.
CDRS, Cat Dealer Rental Software, is the official tool every Caterpillar dealer uses to run rentals.
Rental drives the largest part of Caterpillar’s market. Over the years CDRS had grown through short-term fixes, without the chance to step back and plan for the long term. The brief was to redesign its user flows, functions and interfaces, following both Caterpillar’s expectations and its dealers’ requests: fleet management, maintenance, invoicing, logistics and CRM.
I led my UX/UI team at Mallet Studio inside a larger group with Caterpillar’s product owners and the Alias2K development team, for two years.
One contract, many paths
A contract can start from a list, the booking planner, the website or a work order, and it passes through internal and customer approvals before it binds. We mapped every state of the contract, then the path each persona takes through them.
Key decisions
- 01
Understand the whole machine first
A deep investigation of a very large software structure before touching a screen, so every later change had a place in the bigger picture. - 02
A master layout and a design system as the foundation
A new master layout consistent with Cat’s brand guidelines, with development rules and every component documented. It became the starting point of the redesign. - 03
Plan with the people who build it
A long-term plan written with Cat’s product owners and Alias2K, each area of the software analysed and scheduled in Scrum, with weekly calls and regular in-person retrospectives. - 04
The right task on the right device
Contract creation stays on desktop, where it belongs; mobile handles notifications, approvals and feedback.
Outcome
After months of weekly calls, presentations and feedback, CDRS 3.0 shipped. For Caterpillar’s marketing team we also produced the launch video that presents the new features, and a support site for every user.
