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“Having a good team is the no. 1 thing you can do to be a top performer. The second thing is providing solutions. It’s all about solving problems for a customer.”

— Cody Light, Senior Manager of Sales - Americas, AGCO Fuse

Dealers, you asked and we listened. The 2022 Precision Farming Dealer Summit featured the event’s first-ever manufacturer panel discussion, a highly requested opportunity for dealers to get some facetime with OEMs.

Cody Light of AGCO Fuse, Jayme Paquin of Reichhardt Electronic Innovations and Jason Koning of Precision Planting shared their insight on the workings of the industry during the panel, with Russ Green of the Machinery Advisors Consortium as the moderator.

In today’s episode of the Precision Farming Dealer podcast, brought to you by Ag Express Electronics, we’re bringing you the full replay of the panel discussion. Listen in as the panelists field questions about their companies’ newest initiatives, outlook on autonomy and the approaches and tactics they see embraced by their top-performing dealers.

The Precision Farming Dealer podcast series is brought to you by Ag Express.

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Ag Express provides services and support for a wide variety of electronic and electro/mechanical devices. We can offer component level repair of an individual customers unit, or, remanufacture and rework hundreds of units for an OEM or an Electronic Manufacturer.  From though hole technology to high population fine pitch surface mount, from simple units to complex industrial units.

Ag Express is 100% employee-owned and celebrating over 30 years of "Providing Possibilities!"

Full Transcript

Michaela Paukner:

I'm Michaela Paukner, associate editor of Precision Farming Dealer. Welcome to the latest episode of the Precision Farming Dealer podcast. New episodes of this series are available wherever you get your podcasts. Be sure to subscribe to get an alert when upcoming episodes are released. Thanks to Ag Express Electronics for supporting this podcast series. Farmers, dealers, and those in ag know the importance of getting the most from their efforts. Technology has been a major game changer when it works. When it doesn't turn to Ag Express Electronics, who finds a way by specializing in the timely repair, support, sales, and engineering of ag technology. They provide component level repairs to save you time and money on costly replacements. They also offer wiring harnesses and other custom solutions to meet your needs. Ag Express is 100% employee owned and celebrating over 30 years of providing possibilities.

Michaela Paukner:

In today's episode of the Precision Farming Dealer podcast dealers, you asked and we listened. The 2022 Precision Farming Dealer Summit featured the event's first ever manufacturer panel discussion, a highly requested opportunity for dealers to get some face time with OEMs. Cody Light of AGCO Fuse, Jayme Paquin of Reichhardt Electronic Innovations, and Jason Koning of Precision Planting shared their insights on the workings of the industry during the panel. With Russ Green of the Machinery Advisors Consortium as the moderator. In today's episode, we're bringing you the full replay of the panel discussion. Listen in as the panelists field questions about their company's newest initiatives, outlook on autonomy, and the approaches and tactics they see embraced by their top performing dealers. Here's Russ Green to get us started.

Russ Green:

This is really an important session because you asked for it. In your past meetings, you said, "Hey, we'd like to hear from the OEMs. We'd like to have maybe a little bit of a tip behind the curtain, what could be going on in the future? Where's technology and automation going?" And all three of these would be very adept at that. Me personally, I live in Lexington, Kentucky. I've been in the industry since 1975 with four companies, three of them asked me back a second time. Today, I work with a group called the Machinery Advisory Consortium and dealer groups. We have seven dealer groups across the nation and we work with dealers of all brands, so that's my background. This is my first Precision Conference, thought it was time to learn more about what I was talking about, and it's been rewarding to this point. So to start out, why don't we start with Jayme, introduce yourself, what you do. Most of these people are known, and then we'll go into the three questions.

Jayme Paquin:

My name is Jayme Paquin with Reichhardt Electronic Innovations, glad to be a sponsor of this event for several years. And always look forward to meeting our dealers, a large percentage of the people here are dealers for the Reichhardt product. And so it's always a good time.

Cody Light:

My name is Cody Light. I'm the senior manager of sales for the Fuse Organization in the Americas for AGCO. Been with AGCO for eight years, in a variety of different roles. The last five years, been in technology. Prior to AGCO, I worked for Trumbull Navigation corporately as a technical trainer and then a sales engineer. And started my career at an AGCO dealership in Ohio back in 2009. I've been doing it ever since.

Jason Koning:

Jason Koning, I work for Precision Planting as a region manager. I cover the state of Michigan and northwest Ohio. I want to thank you guys for attending and for bringing Precision Planting into this.

Russ Green:

The first question has to do with autonomy. First of all, what new autonomy is Precision Planting going to bring to the marketplace that you can speak about? And what's that going to mean for the dealers?

Jason Koning:

I think it's a good question. So when it comes to autonomy in general, I think a lot of people think about autonomy in terms of, "Hey, the tractor's driving itself." And in terms of autonomy, I think for the last several years as a company we've been moving toward just the possibility of autonomy with the planter. I mean, if I have the ability that I can put sensors on that planter and I can get some information from those sensors, that that planter can start to operate... I don't know if I want to say completely independently of an operator, because there's still some decisions, some key decisions that that operator has to make. But I think we've been kind of going down that road already when it comes to autonomy.

Jason Koning:

Ultimately, I look at autonomy, from our perspective, as it starts with the sensor. So the control is one thing, the sensors are another. And I think I look at what we've been doing as Precision Planting, is kind of like a sensor company. That everyone thinks about the control and everyone thinks the control's the hard part, from a lot of times when I've talked to our engineers, and I am no engineer whatsoever. But a lot of times when I've talked to our engineers, it's the sensor that appears to be the complicated part that takes a lot of time. And once they have the accuracy of that sensor, then the control starts to become something they have a lot more visibility in.

Jason Koning:

So in terms of future products, I can't say a whole lot about future products right now. But I can tell you that, at our annual winter conference coming up here in a couple weeks, we are going to announce the development of some new products that our engineering team has been working on. We use our winter conference every year to teach, to educate, and to also yes, kind of release some possibility of new products, as well. But for us, when we've looked at what we've done as a company, we've been mostly involved on the planter, right? Our engineering time has been spending a lot of time off of the planter, looking at other pieces of equipment on the farm and beyond, in terms of, "Hey, what are some things that we can add value to the customer from an agronomy perspective?" And we're look looking forward to seeing you there.

Cody Light:

Well, I think Jason, you hit a lot on some of the things I wanted to hit on. But I think ultimately, someone earlier today said the statement, and Kelly, I'll take it, "Perception is everything." I think it really boils down to, what do you consider as autonomous? Do you consider autonomous just driving a machine by itself? Or do you consider autonomy placing seeds in the right spot of the field, at the right time, at the right place? If you look at what we have done at AGCO, just recently, we announced two more kind of autonomous headland turning patterns that are kind of industry exclusive, of what we call a Y and a K turn. So if you look at automating the turn of a machine, a lot of companies can do automatic U-turns. But if you're in a certain part of a world where, you're not in the Midwest and you can't do a U-turn, you farm edge to edge, how do you make that work for you?

Cody Light:

Now, we kind of have industry exclusive, where you can have a three point mile to implement, backup, turn, and get to that next pass, fully automatic. So is that at autonomous? Or as autonomous really making decisions automatically in the field without an operator input? If you look at what AGCO's done in that spectrum, we have some projects that are public, that we can talk about. If you guys have ever heard of the Zava robot. Zava robots are, I say little, they would fit on this stage. They're very compact, but they still weigh about 500 pounds. And the concept there is having a fully autonomous robotic swarm that uses sensors in the field that dispatches these little robots to plant in the given moment when they need to, based on moisture, temperature, et cetera. So I think if we look at those two kind, of what I would say, fully one end to end spectrum, there's a lot of room in this autonomous area.

Cody Light:

So I really think it's based on what you perceive as autonomy. If we go to the agronomic side, I think we would all probably agree that PrecisionAg is not about technology, it's about solving problems, agronomic problems. And if we look at that, I think that's where those two pieces really fall into play. If we look at sprayers and we look at harvesters, it's probably a self-contained unit that we can really automate better than maybe a tractor in a planter combination today.

Cody Light:

If you look at AGCO, we have ideal harvest, which is automation of the sieves, the concave, the fan speed, et cetera, based on the crop input, based on sensors, like you talked about, which are kind of the foundational element of everything. So I think Russ, it really just goes to what do you want, and what do you need? But I would say, with Jason, from an OEM perspective, like AGCO as a global company, we really rely on dealers and customers' feedback to really tell us, what do you want? What do you need? It's our job to kind of decipher that, and then come up with the products to solve your problems. But I think that's where we can probably say for now, Russ.

Jayme Paquin:

Thank you, Jason and Cody. So perfect segue I think on that is, are you market driven? So the question as I have here is, outlook for autonomy, what does this mean for dealers? And this is a Precision Dealer network here that we have today. So ultimately, I think, the question we all have, and we're sitting on the edge of our seat is, to do autonomy is this multi-step process, that's taken years to build to get to that point. So I remember back seven years ago, the first summit that we sponsored, this similar question came up. What's the future? What's autonomy? That's seven years ago. How far have we come in seven years? We've actually come long ways, and there was a lot of work done prior to that. So Jason talked about, is the sensor input and all the different manufacturers that have different strengths. And there's no single OEM or single manufacturer right now that possesses the ability to put everything together, and that's why it's taken multiple full years to get as far as we are.

Jayme Paquin:

But initially, I think the question we all have, we're sitting on the edge of our seat is, when do we actually flip the switch? When are we going to really see that first, fully autonomous vehicle? We know it's possible, it's capable, but when is it going to be adapted? The market is going to dictate that, and there's multiple thought processes on that. Seven years ago the discussions were, "The first adopters are going to be corporate farms. They're going to have the infrastructure, they're going to have the assets and the ability to buy a fleet, and to be able to make this really happen." And then other discussions went on to be, "Well, where does the dealer fit into this? The dealer could potentially become a lease company. They may own the fleet, and they're going to lease the vehicles out based on per hour, per acre of usage." Think about the logistics of that if you're a principal dealer owner or decision maker. It's not impossible, but it's a new challenge.

Jayme Paquin:

And then I'm hoping that Mike [Cuftiling 00:11:21] will make it to this event. But I read a blog from Mike recently, and it was a perspective that I had not considered And I hope I'm not stealing his thunder, but I believe he said, "It's going to be the smaller farmers that are going to be the adopters." That, "They are not going to have the wherewithal to buy a large, expensive autonomous vehicle, and they're going to seek out a supplier that they can lease it from." So it's two ends of the spectrum, is it a large corporate farm? Is it a small farm? The answer remains to be seen, it's going to be market-driven.

Jayme Paquin:

From a personal opinion, to the dealers, I would advise to approach with caution. And we all have heard the term bleeding edge or leading edge, and it's picking up speed for sure. Reichhardt Electronic Innovations has had their eye on this topic for many years. We've been aligning ourselves with partners because again, no OEM can single-handedly accomplish this. But we've been aligning ourselves with partners and it's going to be a fun ride, but I don't know the answer. So it'll be interesting.

Russ Green:

All right, keep the mic. Keep the mic, Jayme. And we're going to transition. As OEMs after hours, of course... I can remember the line we would always use, "I'm from corporate, I'm here to help," right? And we would get together, and we would talk about, "If only our dealers would do X," and in this complex society, in this new society, we call it a second machine age. Dealing with data, dealing innovation, dealing with technology, what would be your advice to a dealer? So we have large corporation represented with AGCO, we have more specific regional corporations. Your advice to the dealer, if they want to arrange themselves to be a top performing dealer in this second machine age, what's that advice?

Jayme Paquin:

Yeah. Thank you, Russ. So the number one thing, and I preach this to my techs, to my team, and we're truly a team. We have to be a solutions provider to the person on the other end of that phone, whether it's in a urgent situation and during a planting process or a harvest scenario, how can we be a solutions provider? And if that means thinking outside the box, if that means collaborating with a competitor to get that solution, you do it. You just do it. And I like to say, what goes around, comes around. And when you help out that dealer, help out that customer, you're going to rise to the top.

Jayme Paquin:

And from a dealer's perspective, like in any business, rule with common sense, you have to listen to that customer. These are important, simple factors, but we have to be reminded of them. And when you come to conferences like this, I often say, you don't necessarily learn anything new, but you get reminded of what works. And it's good to have those reminders. And number three, I would say you have to bring value to that customer. And how do you do that? Well, there's a number of ways to that. It's the relationship, it's training, it's support, and it's planning with them, and growing with them.

Cody Light:

I would echo a lot of what Jayme said. It really starts with you in the room, it starts with people, it starts with the resources. You know, you can have a great team, but TIM, it kind of resonated with me when you said you can have great person, but if he doesn't fit the team he brings everyone down. And I think having a good team is the number one thing you can do to be a top performer. But the second thing that I'll echo with Jayme, is providing solutions. I look out here as an AGCO person, I see Deere, I see Case, I see AGCO. At the end of the day, we're all trying to do the same thing, and it's all about solving problems for a customer. So if we look at it in that stance, like Jayme you said, if someone has a problem, you go above and beyond, you try to do what you can to solve someone's problem. And the reward's going to come back, maybe tenfold to you later down the road.

Cody Light:

That's one thing we take really seriously at AGCO. And we started a solution that we call PAL, which is Precision Ag Line. And that is 100% about interoperability in a consultive approach. So if you guys have seen that, we did some advertising in Precision Farming Dealer Summit. If you saw the advertisement, and we have a dealer here, I'll just call him out, Butler, that has done a phenomenal job with this. But at the end of the day, it's all about solving problems for a customer. And what we do is make sure that even if it's a Deere customer trying to work with they Fendt tractor that, even though they're using Deere technology, we as AGCO and the AGCO dealer are able to help solve their problems.

Cody Light:

So as an AGCO dealer, we are going to help them with John Deere technology, we are going to help them with Ag Leader, we are going to help them with Precision, with Trimble, with Case, whatever. You name it, anything under the sun, our team partnered the dealers, are going to solve the problem. Why do we do that? Because we believe in that interoperability mixed fleet solution, and let's face it at AGCO's the smallest OEM in the room, right? So if we want to grow with our dealers and our customers, in products we believe in, we need to solve those problems for those customers. So I think at the end of the day, it's really about solving problems and taking care of the customer.

Jason Koning:

I agree with a lot of what you guys said. When it comes to solving a problem, I look at my dealers as consultants. And I think that they really look at themselves the same way. None of them kind look at themselves as a dealership and as individuals and say, "Yeah, I'm a salesman." All of them are consultants that are helping define those solutions, and it may or may not come from a product that we always sell, right? It may come from, "Hey, let's change a little bit on how you think you're going to do things." So like a lot of what we do is, yes, equipment. But when I approach a customer, my goal is to number one, teach them, teach him something, right? So if I can teach a customer how to create a furrow, whether or not that's with our technology or whether that's with existing technology. Once he learns more about that and how to do those simple processes, things that he's been doing maybe for 40 years, that's where he can start to succeed.

Jason Koning:

And for us as a company, our dealers do the bulk majority of that. I don't think we would be anywhere close to the company that we are today without our dealer base, because the dealer base to us as our extension. They're the ones that are dealing with the customer, they're the boots on the ground, they're the real resource, and the real reason I think that we're here. In terms of what a dealer can do to be top performing, I think in general, when it comes to PrecisionAg, a lot of little intangibles that dealers can have. Number one is I can think of, I want dealers to be able to adapt, adapt to change, right? Change within PrecisionAg has happened so fast over the last 5, 10, 20 years, right? There's going to be continual change that's going to keep happening, and so I would look to my dealers to be able to adapt, I'd look to my dealers to continue to be consultants. And I think I would look at my dealers to just be willing to educate customers, and be willing to grow with them.

Russ Green:

Frequently, we at MAC get invited to write articles for Farm Equipment, and to this topic about dealer performance. One of them that comes to mind, don't ignore the simple things. And we all talk about leadership and team work. And if you have a pencil, write down the word team, T-E-A-M. And I'll make it as simple as this. If in your dealership you follow a team spirit, and T means trust. And that trust has to be mutual, you've got to trust your customer, they trust you. You've got to trust your OEM, there's got to be a mutual trust and agreement. If you're out of trust, there's probably going to be a fracture in your performance.

Russ Green:

The E is empathy, have empathy. Put yourself in the customer's shoes at that 12 o'clock at night when they're trying to get that last acre done so they can move from one field to another, and something's in their way. So there's an empathy that you to demonstrate within your group. A, alignment. Earlier today we talked about planning, they did a good job talking about what you do to plan your business. If you're not in alignment from top to bottom, then you're going to have walls between your departments. And we talked about that in our breakout about, are you a Precision department, or are you a Precision dealer? And I think the people in this room are moving to the point to where they become Precision dealer. Alignment of your work.

Russ Green:

And then lastly, motivation. And you can't be equally motivated every day. I was uber motivated when I got up this morning to go to work, knowing I was going to be in a different environment. And I had an internal motivation to be here, you have your motivation to be here. But if you're not motivating others in your teamwork, then you're not going to be a top performing dealer. So think about teamwork. Trust, empathy, alignment, and motivation, and take as pretty simple. And you think about that every day, regardless of where you're at in your organization. Am I in aligned with what the corporation's trying to do? We talk about missions and statements. You got to be aligned, and got to be motivated to work in a trust and empathetic way.

Michaela Paukner:

Before we hear from the panelists about new products in the pipeline, I'd like to take a moment to thank Ag Express Electronics for supporting this podcast series. Farmers, dealers, and those in ag know the importance of getting the most from their efforts. Technology has been a major game changer, when it works. When it doesn't turn to Ag Express Electronics, who finds a better way by specializing in the timely repair, support, sales, and engineering of ag technology. They provide component level repairs to save you time and money on costly replacements. They also offer wiring harnesses and other custom solutions to meet your needs. Ag Express is 100% employee owned, and celebrating over 30 years of providing possibilities. Now let's get back to our manufacturer panel discussion.

Russ Green:

And I know you had some limitations, but also you've got some products that are over the curb. What are the new products in the pipeline? And what does the dealer need to do to be prepared for that success of those new products? Could be little things, could be big things. So, Jason.

Jason Koning:

I would say ultimately as a company, when we start to look off the planter, our company has been moving in that direction for several years, we've had engineers that have been working on projects off the planter. And a lot of those guys don't have all the experience within agriculture specifically, but they may be people from other components in engineering that have been brought in, and sensors, I think are a big part of it. Right? So when we look at a new product, ultimately as a company, we kind of look at, we have some products that are maybe dumb products, and some products that are smart products. A dumb product would be hardware, right? It doesn't care what kind of electronics are hooked up to it, if any. And then there're smart products that are software based.

Jason Koning:

So as a company we've been working on both, right? There's some hardware products, there's some software products. Ultimately, I think everyone kind of looks at the software products, but the hardware is an important part of it, too. But in that pipeline, I would say that sensor is going to come first. That sensor has to be the technology that shows us what the problem is, that shines a flashlight on what that issue is. Okay? It's really hard for me to make a decision if don't have accurate information to help show me what management decisions I have to make. So all of the products I would say that are at least in our pipeline or other pipelines, and when it comes to let's say autonomy or not autonomy, it all kind of starts with that sensor. But it also evolves into, that operator has to make a decision.

Jason Koning:

I think people look at kind of autonomy still and they think, "Well, it's just going to be a snap of my fingers, and it just does everything it's supposed to do." It's going to eliminate time in the field, it's going to eliminate manpower. It's not going to eliminate that operator having to make important management decisions still. Okay? And I look at kind of the operator's role in the cab, like he's Tom Brady in the fourth quarter of the Super Bowl. Okay? He still has to make an audible, he's going to read the defense and make a change to what he's doing. And as a supplier of some technology, I think we have part of that responsibility to give him some tools that he can use, to be able to read that defense and make a decision in that fourth quarter in order to execute in the field properly. So new products, I mean, I wish I could say more and give a little more hint as to what we have, but I think that's what we have winter conference for right now.

Cody Light:

But I think a lot of it, like Jason said, is really sensor and a hardware based, and a lot of IoT. You look at some of the news recently with AGCO's acquisition of Appareo out of Fargo, North Dakota, you look at our acquisition of Precision Planting a few years back. That's enabling AGCO to create a lot more IoT products that are going to be in that digital space, that are going to make those recommendations, take the inputs from the sensors, make those recommendations and actionable insights, so those machines can make those autonomous decisions for you. I can talk about a little of the things that came out here recently.

Cody Light:

Like I said earlier, some of the industry exclusive automatic headland turning, those are very unique features based on kind of where you are. But for those customers and dealers in the Southwest, in a vegetable area, in an orchard type of area, those automatic headland turns are something that are very crucial, and something that really gets overlooked. Because a lot of PrecisionAg I think we would all say is very focused in the Midwest. Midwest farming is a lot different than when you go to California, or you go to Arizona, or you even go down into Georgia, Alabama, Arkansas. So I think if you're from those areas, I think AGCO is really looking at some of those segments too, to really bring those feature sets to those other kind of niche markets.

Cody Light:

Outside of that, a lot of the technology that we're having is integrated from the brand. So with AGCO we have the Massey, Fendt, and Valtra series around the world that we're taking a lot more look from an integrated perspective, to give that customer the one stop shop from all of their platforms. But again, going back to Precision Planting and Appareo, we also see a need for those aftermarket and retrofit opportunities. So without saying a lot, I think 2022 from an AGCO perspective is going to be a very exciting year with Precision Planting, Appareo, and our integrated technologies. I think there's going to be a lot to look forward to later this year.

Jayme Paquin:

When I talk about new products with Reichhardt, our German colleagues, our parent company was awarded a silver medal for the Agrotechnica Awards for a partnership with HBC-radiomatic, which is an autonomous commercial lawn mowing system. So as I mentioned earlier, when we were talking about autonomy, aligning ourselves with those partners that have capabilities that we don't have, are key to our success. So that's something that's new, it's not going to be brought to the North American market for some time. I don't have a timeline on that. But for our North American division, it's always exciting to look at our parent company and see what they're coming with. And our goal is to let them solve all of the problems with it first, before we bring it to you.

Jayme Paquin:

And so when you look at what is needed for success, again, I have a relatively conservative approach to business. And I say, "Walk with caution." And I take it as my responsibility to vet those problems out so that when we bring a new product to you, as a dealer group, you have confidence in it being successful and being reliable. And that's one of the things we really hang our hat on, is the reliability of our product offerings. So when I think of AGCO specifically, they're introducing their new tractor lines with the FendtONE cab. And we're excited to have new platforms for those AGCO machines, which our AGCO dealers are well aware of.

Jayme Paquin:

And when I think of a new product that would be more applicable to some of our other dealers, our universal Green Fit solution, which allows John Deere AutoTrac to operate, is going to be available for the 4,000 series tractors, which are going to be interesting for the turf market. And we don't think about that market much, but that's an exciting opportunity for us. So those are some things, and I think I touched on what is needed for success, and it's to be strategic in your approach to the market. Just because something new comes out, doesn't mean you jump on the bandwagon. You have to identify the market that is looking for that, again, market driven. I have a question for the group. When is your market going to drive the fully autonomous vehicles?

Speaker 6:

If we had it right now, it's here, due to the limited manpower in our area.

Russ Green:

How would you use the autonomous tractor, the driverless tractor in your environment? Tell us where you're from and what your crop condition would be?

Speaker 6:

I'm from Ohio. A lot of larger grain farmers went to foreign countries to get manpower, but due to the COVID, they've been limited getting those people in, as well. So guys are having tractors sit, combines sit, and really affecting their production.

Jayme Paquin:

Essentially, you're saying, if you build it, they will come.

Speaker 6:

Yes.

Jayme Paquin:

And I'd read an article with the windshield time yesterday we had, my colleague and I, Josh, one of my tech specialists did most of the driving. And I read a comment that Elon Musk stated that... And I'm not up on the levels of anonymized cars, but I think he called it a level four, and he made the bold prediction that they'll be there, I think next year. And he's known for those bold predictions, of course. And the consumer market seems to lead, especially relative to pricing, it seems to lead us. That's when it's going to become affordable, if you will. So the cars, is the capability there yet? I don't know the answer to that. But what I'm hearing you say is, build it and they will come. But at what level, is that 20% of your customer base? And what level does it have to be at to be successful? Those are the challenging questions.

Speaker 7:

With supplier issues, how is that affecting research and development within your organizations, as far as getting stuff out for the future?

Cody Light:

I would say in general, I mean the research and development sector is not as much of a volume as what the commercial side of it is. So you're looking at fractions of a percent compared to what's really needed out there in the market. And I think a lot of the new products are ones that aren't yet out, but I think they're seeing some of the issues, just like what we're seeing in the commercial side too, of especially the semiconductor. We talk a lot about sensors, right? There's definitely a sensor shortage. But from an AGCO side, there hasn't been any let of the foot throttle, it's still 100% let's go forward. So I would say there's some, but I don't think it's what we're seeing in the commercial side of the business. Just purely from a volume standpoint.

Jason Koning:

As a company, we have an annual dealer meeting that we do, like the beginning of December. And one of the thing that they've kind of shared with us, and they shared with dealers at that time from a Precision Planting perspective, is that we do have a little bit of that maybe going on. From the sheer perspective of, if there's let's say a specific plastic that was in one of our components, suddenly is not available. Our R&D team is then having to spend a small amount of time changing to a different type of plastic, and doing maybe a small amount of work to making sure that plastic is still durable enough for the application that it needs. So as a team, I think we've grown our R&D large enough that we're able to absorb some of that impact. I don't think it's going to slow us down on the innovation completely, or even a lot. But I think there is definitely some there, because we're going to have to do some reworking of some products.

Russ Green:

I think one of the answers there has to do with the strength of your collaboration and your partnership between the supplier and the OEM, if you're open, and honest, and have a high degree of sharing of information. As you say, these are small runs of componentry and you have plans that are far enough out that you can look forward. Of course, if it's more of a commodity and the adaption of pieces that are more readily used in current production or current application, then that's a problem.

Russ Green:

But I think for the most part, I'm motivated by what I see by innovation. And I also am motivated regardless of the size of the company... Six months ago I wouldn't have said this, but there's not a invented-here attitude. The large corporations, if they see something that's on the market, or coming to the market, or being developed by smaller corporations, they're not afraid to go out and buy them and put them into their fleet. As evidence by what Cody says about the acquisitions have been made at AGCO, and Deere's made acquisitions, CNHI has been made acquisitions. So they're recognizing that not everything comes from our own basement.

Cody Light:

And I think there's a good spot for startups, still. I don't think the OEMs, AGCO included, are ever going to be able to take that space. There's always going to be startups. Perfect piece of Appareo, right? Appareo was a startup by an ex OEM employee, and now they got acquired by a global company. So I think you're going to see that constantly, same as with CNHI, with Dot, and Raven. So I think there's still a vast world out there of aftermarket retrofit first, and then the OEM is going to consolidate with those companies in the future.

Speaker 8:

Which product have you seen your greatest success in the past five years? And which product do you believe will continue to thrive in the next five years?

Cody Light:

I would say, maybe not up product specific, but maybe more of a category, would be rate and section control. I think a lot of us in this room probably look at that category as something that's been around for a very long time. But if you look at a maturity level in the industry, guidance is a lot higher than rate and section control. And I think the ability of ISOBUS coming into North America, more so than what it's ever been, has given us an opportunity between all types of dealers to solve problems for those customers. And I think we're seeing that trend.

Cody Light:

As an example, with some of the things that we do with our dealers, with that PAL service, we're able to see what types of questions are coming in. And obviously still today, the number one types of questions are all guidance related, how do I do this with my guidance? Or how do I do X? But what we're seeing a trend now starting to happen is ISOBUS related. And ISOBUS is really kind of bringing in that rate and section control interoperability piece. So I think in the last five years, ISOBUS in North America has grown tremendously. And I think it's going to continue to grow and evolve into the next phase of its life.

Jayme Paquin:

Thanks, Cody. So talking about the ISOBUS, that's something Mr. Reichhardt saw early on and he embraced it. And not everybody's a fan of it, but again, going back seven years coming to my first conference here, there was pros and cons of it. And at that time there was a lot more cons, but I can tell you today, and after spending more than 13 years in the industry, people are adapting to it out of, because they have to essentially because the implements require it. And it's been refined, and it's improved, and it's going to continue to improve. And as more people adopt to it, and the demand is there, it's going to get better. So I think that's a really positive thing.

Jayme Paquin:

But specifically and selfishly, one of the products that we have is our, and it ties right in, it's sensor guidance. Our row guidance system for combines on corn harvests, we actually have the product here. When you get ready to have a beverage, you can come over and visit and touch it and feel it. We've had great success with that for more than 10 years actually, and I see us continuing to have success with that as we adapt it to the new combines in the future. I don't see that going away.

Jason Koning:

The product that I think we've probably been the most successful with the last five years, I guess I'm still probably going to say the 20/20 monitor. And a lot of you guys have seen what we call the technology adaption curve. I think a lot of people look at technology as just being adapted by the early adopters, the guys that are at the forefront of everything new that changes. But the 20/20 has been out now for like 14 years, and we still see a massive amount of those guides that are the middle majority, kind of in the middle of that adaption curve. That still need a better monitor, a better way of... Some better sensors to help them make decisions, even without control, right?

Jason Koning:

Throw away the idea of Delta Force control and vDrive control, there's still so many customers out there that, from our perspective, don't have that simple load cell to tell them how much weight their gauge wheels are carrying, if any. They don't have the ability to see, am I planting every seed into moisture or not? They don't have the ability to understand and to help make decisions from that. And so I still think that once we're able to get that 20/20 into the guys cab, get some eyeballs on that planter, and really show him what's going on, and understanding the agronomic value of it, that's still where I think we see the most success in helping a customer.

Speaker 8:

With all the OEMs locking the can down, are we still going to have third party options?

Jason Koning:

In terms of third party specifically, there's still a lot of opportunity for customers that are using a 20/20 with software on the planter, that have yield sense in the combine. That they still have a lot of freedom to be able to utilize multiple different third party software platforms to analyze that data, to store that data. And from our perspective, I don't believe that's ever going to go away, to allow that customer to look at that information and analyze it in multiple different platforms.

Cody Light:

Let me.

Jason Koning:

Yeah.

Cody Light:

There's one thing I just thought about. So there are obviously, as you guys know, some lock downs on certain parameters within the machines. But one of the things that is coming, if you guys heard me mention TIM. So TIM, when you think about TIM, you typically think of a baler, maybe telling the tractor what to do. But there's also TIM guidance, if you guys know about that or not. So when you talk about locking the can down, actually what the industry is trying to do is go to more of a standardized steering protocol. So companies, like Jayme's over here with Reichhardt, don't have to reinvent the wheel of all of the different third party or OEM steering protocols. So there are some lockdowns, but at the same time, there's a lot of industry consolidation to try to standardize this into a more usable process. Which at the end of the day is going to lessen the cost of the customer.

Jayme Paquin:

The tractor implement management protocol is something that Reichhardt has been working on with OEMs. It's amazing how many years it takes for something to come to market, and we've been working on that protocol with the major OEMs going back more than five years ago. And I'm not saying anything, breaching anything here, any confidentiality, you can pretty much figure it out. But it's going to be important. And it's important for you to know that third parties have those relationships with the major OEMs so that we can bring those products to market.

Jayme Paquin:

And that's something I'm really proud of, those relationships don't happen overnight, they take years and years and years to build and maintain. And there's so many things that happen behind the scenes. The dealers, you're privy to see things that your end user, customers don't see. And you guys, it's not always painless, it takes a long time. But all ultimately as OEMs, we have to listen to the customer, whether that's the customer in the field, or whether it's the dealer tech. So just wanted to share the knowledge, that we have a good understanding of the TIM protocol, and we're proud of that, and we look forward to it.

Michaela Paukner:

Thanks to Cody Light, Jayme Paquin, Jason Koning, and Russ Green for today's conversation. Let me know what you thought about this episode by emailing me at mpaukner@wesitermedia.com, or calling me at 262-777-2441. If you're looking for more podcasts about Precision Farming, visit PrecisionFarmingDealer.com/podcast, or check out our episode library wherever you get your podcasts. Finally, many thanks to Ag Express Electronics for helping to make this podcast series possible. From all of us here at Precision Farming Dealer, I'm Michaela Paukner. Thanks for listening.

Intro Music: Squire Tuck - Rush to the Head

Interlude Music: Squire Tuck - Expressing One's Emotions in Public