Farm Equipment R D

Since the Sears-IH thread is about ready to fall off the first page I thought it would be good to start a related thread. The impression I get from that thread and other sources is during the 1960's and 1970's that nearly all ag equipment companies could only juggle so many balls at one time so to speak. Deere developed its New Generation of Power but had to skimp on the utility models at first. Deere also was working on a rotary combine design for the 55 combine platform but went away to do other projects. IH engineers laid the outline out for a powershift tractor presumably available by the early 1970's but IH management decided that the focus should be on developing a new combine which culminated with the Axial Flow in 1978. IH hay and forage got a serious face lift in the 1970's but it was fairly late. The power house IH dealers here such as Lamb and Webster plus Batavia Farm Equipment got NH because they could tell the IH blockman to pound salt because these dealers were very effective at moving tractors and other IH products. The smaller dealers who could move maybe a couple 766's and a 966 had to more or less take it or run the risk of losing the franchise.

Ok, so, something we all need to keep in mind. Consolidation happens in every industry, countries and technologies, across the board. There is constant attrition of the slower, less efficient, less successful ways and methods, to the more successful. Until even they get displaced. Once the failing companies or methods go by the way side, we can easily see their mistaken path. But look at the path many "trendy" and successful companies and products are on today, and ask, can you spot the failures right now? Not so easy is it? Enron, Blackberry, Kodak. Our recent past is littered with success stories. What happened? Well, here is the answer: the competition saw that success and improved upon it.it did not have to create the success from nothing, which is so much harder. You are talking about pioneers in the industry. But staying on the cutting edge over generations is almost impossible.

Two of my mother's uncles were engineers for Kodak from the 1960's through the 1980's. The engineers put management on notice many many times about new technologies that would push film aside and management would not listen. It could have been done early enough that the R & D would have barely been a blip on the bottom line to pursue digital technology. By the time management really stood up and noticed the R & D would have been a significant pull on the bottom line and Wall Street was watching every company and putting out profit warnings scaring investors if they bought a pack too many of pencils and note pads.



As said in the other thread IH's problems were obvious to those at Corporate as early as the early 1960's. A friend of my fathers said that any year that the ag division had a bad performance there was always one stock holder group that pushed very hard to get IH out of ag products or at least seriously reduce offerings to the most profitable lines.


It is only hindsight to us outsiders versus the people who were there for the front row seats.

Xerox invented the copy machine. Kodak pioneered the digital camera. Schwinn had front spring suspension in the '50's. They also made the Paramount, a racer as good as any in the world - no one, outside of professional racers, knew about it. These industry leaders, as well as Sears, Pennies, IH and any others I can recall, all failed due to smothering corporate inertia.

Kodak pioneered the digital camera but that camera was a long ways off from being commercially viable due to its price. There was still an incredible amount of work to do to make it attractive cost wise to the average consumer.

And Kodak cut its own throat by letting someone else do it.

True enough. That is the thing that makes a lot of retired or former employees so mad. There was so much time that went by from the first warnings until things collapsed that things should have never gone the way they did. No reason for Kodak not to have been a leader during the 1990's when digital and computers were really taking off.

As Mark Twain said Pioneering Don't Pay,lots of time R&D doesn't either for the ones that do it

The internal struggles occur in many businesses. Johnson Controls started out as a pioneer in pneumatic thermostats and HVAC controls, over the years they have gotten into being one of the largest manufacturers of lead acid batteries and automotive components. At one point in the early 2000's there was a move in the company to dump the HVAC controls part and become strictly an OEM automotive supplier when 2008 hit they were glad they didn't, ended up buying back into some of the HVAC areas they left 10-15 years earlier.