Lessons from Caterpillar Production Systems. Laurent Rannaz holds a DBA from Grenoble Ecole de Management. He joined Caterpillar France 28 years ago as project manager in charge of production line automation. Since then he has occupied various positions within the company. In 2011, he became Director of Operations. In September of 2015, he was chosen as the new Managing Director of Caterpillar France.