John Deere delivers the first 8000 Series forage harvester to customer Jurgen Herold after years of development. The machine underwent extensive testing to prove its reliability and performance in real farming conditions before hitting the market.
By March 2014, the limited production build of the first few machines had been completed. They were now ready to be delivered to a small group of customers for final evaluation. Judith Martin was one of the people responsible for making it all happen. The appealing part of this project was the fact that we're creating a completely new forage harvester series in Zweibkopen, which means we're not just developing some components, but a completely new machine generation. This of course, comes with its own challenges, but it's just great to see the individual parts combine to form a whole machine on the production line. To look around at the excited faces of one's colleagues who are looking at the machine with pride and saying, yeah, we did it. That was really a challenge. All of the preparations leading up to it and then to see the products at the end, that was very emotional. That almost brought tears to my eyes and was definitely the best moment of the project. It will be difficult to beat. The first customer to take delivery was Jurgen Herold, a contractor from Bayreuth, Bavaria, in the south of Germany. In 1994, I started a contracting business that I now run with four forage harvesters. For me, the machine needs to be reliable, tough and economic. That means fuel consumption, performance per tonne and diesel per tonne. That is very important for me and of course the price. I'm sure that our new 8000 series will @ least fulfil and exceed our customers expectations. Why am I so sure? First, in our product development process here at John Deere, we have steps to ensure that customer opinions are constantly taken into account for every part of of the process. Second, I think we have a highly motivated team here that worked on the project and that is really dedicated to producing high quality work and to deliver a high quality product to the customer. I chose the 8600i machine with 625 horsepower because I think that this machine can be used to its full capacity in my region. This year I'm going to use this machine for the first time in Green Rye at the end of April and then I'll try to cut 1,000 to 1,500 hectares of grass. The most important test will be in corn, with about 750 hectares. I'm definitely going to try to run the machine for 800 to 850 drum hours. I think Jurgen Herald is an excellent choice for our machine. I know him as an enthusiastic driver of forage harvesters, a man who really knows a great deal about forage harvesters, who will certainly take the machine to its limits. And that's what we need here, feedback from our customer who really pushes the machine. Plus he's very familiar with the competitor machines, so I think we'll get valuable feedback from him. I'm looking forward to his reaction. I'm looking forward to spending a lot of time working with this machine during the 2014 season and I'm excited to see how it performs in the field. You can find out what Jurgen thought when we visited him a few weeks later whilst chopping with the all new 8600. I.
