By Zach Spicer
Since opening in 1976, Cummins Seymour Engine Plant is where some of the company’s most powerful engines in the world have been produced.
Dean Gough, executive director of product and strategic marketing for the Americas region at Cummins Power Generation, said this location is more than just a plant.
It’s an engine plant that represents innovation. It’s a symbol of Cummins’ commitment to engineering excellence, sustainability and community impact.
Those elements are part of Cummins Power Generation’s launch of its latest product: A 17-liter engine platform generator set that produces up to 1 megawatt of power.
The S17 expands on the success of the acclaimed Centum Series generator sets, which were developed to produce a large power output within a compact footprint to meet the growing demands of power in urban environments where compact design and high performance are critical, according to a news release from Cummins.
The generator set is assembled at Cummins’ Fridley, Minnesota, facility, and the engine is made at the Seymour Engine Plant, so the S17 is an American-made product.
“It’s one more piece that we can add when we’re delivering peace of mind alongside all of the innovation that we have here,” Gough said during an event Sept. 18 at the Seymour Engine Plant.
The S17 has gone through more than 25,000 hours of testing and validation and is engineered to support a wide range of critical market segments, such as commercial properties, water and wastewater treatment plants and industrial, health care, government and data storage facilities.
“In many of these industries, space is a premium, so the S17, the compact design delivers more power, less space without compromise in performance,” said Gough, program owner of the S17 generator set.
“It’s unique, it’s powerful and it’s market leading,” he said. “And most important, it’s solving real customer problems, from reducing the total cost of ownership, lowering product costs and that complete custom ownership piece.”
Also speaking during the event were two technical leaders who played a pivotal role in bringing the S17 to life.
Emily Scheuerell leads the Cummins Power Generation Segment Engineering organization, and Ray Shute is director and Next Generation architect lead for Cummins Power Systems industrial markets.
Scheuerell said the Power Generation product line includes generator sets, automatic transfer switches, systems and switchgear, remote monitoring and new power technologies, like the newly launched battery energy storage system.
The S17 is now part of the company’s future of innovation, which is about solving the challenges customers face, Scheuerell said.
“As Cummins can promise with our brand, it always delivers the reliability, the affordability and sustainability that our customers need to get the job done,” she said.
Shute was the overall chief engineer for S17 engine product development, and he shared some of the work that the development team was able to deliver for customers and the industry.
“At the start of the project, we partnered the engine and genset development teams together to ensure we understood full use case and full needs of the end customer in the full total product, not just engine or alternator or gen set level,” he said.
“By doing that, we were able to really translate those critical customer needs to what the engine then needed to deliver to be able to enable them,” he said. “Things like dependability, low total cost of ownership, the small package size and weight, that’s the translation in what resulted in the product that you see today.”
The Engine Business team, corporate research and technology organization, Components Business and Holset turbocharger organization were among those involved in the project.
“Power without durability, dependability isn’t very valuable,” Shute said. “Dependability, durability, reliability, those are Cummins’ key initial commitments always whenever we endeavor for any product for our customer, and the same is true here. Because we developed a complete power system, we have extensive customer relationships and are looking forward to additional customer relationships that enable us to really understand how the product start to finish is utilized in the field over its decades of expected service life.”
Also during the event, the first customer of the S17, Gaylor Electric, was recognized. The Indianapolis-based company purchased three units for Nashville Youth Campus for Empowerment in Tennessee.
That project is focused on restorative justice, holistic care and community support for youth in Nashville.
“Thanks to Gaylor Electric for their business, and of course, for choosing Cummins,” Gough said. “We like it. It’s innovation, which is powering purpose.”
After the presentation, attendees had an opportunity to see the S17 up close and talk to subject matter experts. That was followed by lunch and tours of the Seymour Engine Plant.
For more on the S17, visit cummins.com/news/releases/2025/06/25/cummins-redefines-power-density-announcement-groundbreaking-17-liter.
Founded in 1919, Cummins is headquartered in Columbus and operates in 190 countries and territories around the globe with nearly 70,000 employees.
