Every two years, a contingent of New Holland dealers and customers from the Czech Republic travels to North America to visit places where various implements and tractors are produced.
On April 24, the group returned, and this time they visited the birthplace of the brand.
“We’ve been to North Dakota to see where T9 tractors are made, Wichita for skidsteers, and we had a lot of requests to come here,” said Ales Petr, marketing manager for New Holland Agriculture in the Czech Republic and Slovakia.
Thirty-nine dealers and customers made the trip from Eastern Europe for a two-day stint in New Holland, where they toured the plant, visited the company’s farm and toured the Messick’s dealership in Mount Joy.
The star attraction, Petr said, is the plant in New Holland, which makes all Case IH and New Holland Roll-Belt round balers, Discbines, manure spreaders and small square balers, as well as some rotary rake models.
It is the one of the few company facilities that manufactures components and assembles implements. Many of the plants elsewhere in North America are assembly-only.
“It’s nice to see the whole production. It really helps dealers, and customers, to see that process,” Petr said.
The visit, called a “dealer exchange,” also allowed New Holland employees from both countries to share insights about different customer demands for the global machinery market.
For example, Petr said New Holland Roll-Belt balers are the most popular round balers in the Czech Republic and Slovakia, which were merged as Czechoslovakia for much of the 20th century. New Holland forage harvesters are second to Claas in popularity, he added, and when it comes to high horsepower tractors, Case IH leads the way.
Though the New Holland plant produces Roll-Belt balers, the ones used in the Czech Republic and Slovakia are made in Plock, Poland.
Aimee Culbert, communications specialist for New Holland North America, said locating plants where demand for specific types of machinery is highest helps save on transportation costs.
“We typically manufacture where the largest global market is, and for hay tools that’s here in New Holland,” Culbert said. “But they have a large hay market in Europe, so that’s why we have a plant in Poland as well.”
The Czech visitors were also impressed with the size of the New Holland plant and corporate campus.
The facility encompasses 65 acres, and the plant has a workforce of 676 employees and more than 705,000 square feet of manufacturing space.
“This was amazing to see and very different from the plants where tractors are made,” said Leo Cermak, product manager for Agrotec, an importer of New Holland and Case IH equipment for the Czech Republic, Slovakia and Hungary. “It’s interesting to compare European production to North America. The difference is the production you have here is for smaller farms, and our market is for bigger machines.”
Source: lancasterfarming.com
Photo Credit: New Holland
Categories: North Dakota, Equipment & Machinery