How should agriculture respond to economic, environmental and social issues? The process of digitisation combines all these aspects, and it’s happening right here and now, wherever you look. What does digitisation mean for farmers and contractors? How will digitisation change their environment and the way they do things in future? CLAAS has been researching these issues intensively, and gives some insights into its digital agenda.
Hardware remains our core business
“CLAAS hardware”, such as combine harvesters, forage harvesters and tractors, will still be pulling its weight on farms throughout the world for many years to come. These machines are the core business for CLAAS business, and play a key role in agricultural production. The key features of CLAAS machines will continue to improve, with the ongoing development of components and of automated systems in particular, for example the CEMOS AUTOMATIC combine harvester setting, the AUTOFILL camera-operated automatic optimised trailer filling system on the forage harvester or CLAAS Sequence Management on CLAAS tractors. There will be an increased focus in future on the process as a whole. Vehicles of different kinds will increasingly work together within a network, as is already happening with the Fleet View app, for example, which optimises transport logistics for combine harvesters and tractor-trailer units.
The digital transformation of agriculture and agricultural technology
High-performance communication architecture allows a wide range of data to be made available. This data, which can be made available at any time, in almost unlimited quantities and practically anywhere, will change the way things are done both for our customers and for the sector as a whole. In future, many farmers and contractors will be focused not only on the forage harvester or tractor itself, but also on the process in which it is involved. This focus on processes such as wheat orders or harvesting at customer level will be assisted by process-related systems, for example purchase capacity for crops, dealer service or the supply of replacement parts. Thomas Böck, CLAAS Group Manager of Systems and Technology, is confident that “farmers and contractors will rise to the ‘digital challenge’”. But this obviously depends on there being excellent network coverage: “What’s the point in having everything optimised for connectivity if there’s no network available? We’re seeing enormous differences in network availability, which will impact how our machines are used throughout the world.”
