25th Feb 2012 – Go The Green & Gold

After a mix up in my itinerary, It looked like I might not get to visit the John Deere harvester factory. However thanks to the staff at the factory, they managed to squeeze me into another group. The JD harvester factory is truly amazing. It combines cutting edge technology with a large number of skilled staff. The factory employees passion, for the product they produced really impressed me. The facility is the most advanced of its type in the world and covers an area of 240 acres with the main production housed in a building covering 70 acres. The facility has an impeccable safety record and obviously rate quality of life for their staff highly. It was interesting to hear that most of the factory only runs on two shifts a 7am to 3pm shift and a 11pm to 7am shift so that the staff can always be home in the evenings with their families.

The highlight of my trip was when one of the staff discovered that we had recently purchased a John Deere S670 Combine. In the States when you buy a new combine John Deere brings its customers to the factory to be the first one to start their new harvester and in doing so receive a gold key. As this was not possible for me they presented me with the gold key & cap I would have received had I been able to be their on that date. Needless to say I was rather pumped

My Gold key & hat

Unfortunately no photography is allowed in the factory, so I had to include some other photos from Moline for you

John Deere World Headquaters

Entrance hall into John Deere World Headquaters

Autonomous tractor developed by Deere

Walking timber harvester developed by John Deere

Interestingly I discovered that the reason John Deere colours are green and gold is because of green growing crops and the yellow stubble of harvested crops.