Farm Tender

Ag Tech Sunday - Digital transformation is creating a manufacturing revolution - John Deere

By Tami Hedgren - John Deere

Our customers are looking for innovative solutions to be more productive and profitable. At John Deere, we’re innovating to meet their needs and revolutionize our industries.

This starts with creating what we call Smart Connected Factories, which use technology and data in manufacturing.

“The next manufacturing revolution is right in front of us,” said Tami Hedgren, manufacturing lead for tractors and combines. “We’re already collecting the data we need. Now, we need to pull it all together, so we can predict what’s going to happen next and make decisions on behalf of our customers that are based on that information.”

“The next manufacturing revolution is right in front of us.” - Tami Hedgren, manufacturing lead for tractors and combines

What does that look like?

Hedgren explained that John Deere is using digitalization to create more dynamic logistics and production planning, improve the visibility and accuracy of materials throughout our global supply chain and add the ability to customize real-time user instructions.

“From product designs to how we support our customers, the future holds exciting possibilities,” Hedgren said. “With Smart Connected Factories we will identify issues before they become problems and have solutions ready before they become disruptions. This will help make us more efficient and our customers more productive.”

Hedgren recently joined a panel discussion hosted by Bloomberg about how manufacturers are using digital transformation. On the topic of connectivity, Hedgren shared the following.

“We’ve been doing some testing with 5G … and we see the benefits,” Hedgren said during the discussion. “It’s real time data where you need it at the right time, and it’s a totally different viewpoint than Wi-fi.”

https://www.deere.com.au/en/index.html