John Deere Africa Middle East | From Factory to Farm | Interview with Bryan Earwood

We're having a chat now with Brian Herewood. He's the product manager. Focus on transmissions. I think to summarize everything is making sure that we know what options are available. More important, making sure when to use what. At the end of the day, it's money in the bank. Let's have a listen.

So, Brian, looking at transmissions, what should I consider when choosing different transmission options and what will be the best routes to follow when I need to choose a transmission for a 7 or an 8R tractor?

Yeah, the best place that I like to start when looking at transmission options that we have is just understanding the application that the tractor is going to be in. For example, if you have an 8R that's going to be primarily in tillage and tillage only, a great option for you is going to be our 16 speed power shift. It's the most economical way to put power to the ground. But if you start to do some more applications like planting or roading, that's when I would suggest starting to look at an E23 or an IVT transmission option.

Great. So an E23 transmission sounds like a beneficial transmission. So can we unpack a little bit about what's the benefits in having an E23 transmission versus a PowerShift transmission?

Yeah, for sure. So the E23 is a really efficient mechanical transmission. It's going to give you a few more gears than that 16 speed. So you're going to have more speed control compared to the 16 speed power shift, especially at those higher speed applications. And in addition to that, you're going to have efficiency manager on your E23. And what that allows you to do is you select the speed that you want to operate at in your field and the tractor selects the engine RPM that you should be at as well as the gear that you should be in to really optimize the power and a fuel economy for you without you having to do anything at all.

So, I mean, it sounds complicated. I mean, number one, is it, I mean, efficiency manager or is it, you know, good old John Deere style, almost press of a button type thing?

That's right. With one press of the button you can go into your auto Mode with the E23 and again, like I said, choose that speed that you want to run out. The tractor is going to do the rest for you.

I mean, at the end of the day, I mean, it's about what, saving money on fuel? I mean, that's what you're looking for.

That's right, yeah. I mean, compared to operators in the field that try to do it themselves, the E23 and the technology and the software behind that really shine there, give you a ton of fuel efficiency and power.

I mean, and it's not a thumb suck. I mean, you actually, you tested it that way, I mean, and had. And how did the whole process, where did it start? Where did the idea start? And again, how do you take it from idea through to the real deal?

Yeah, like we talked about, right? The 16 speeds, really economical way to put power to the ground. But you don't have as many gears as the E23, so you kind of wanted some more adjustability with the speed range.

And.

And then we also have the ivt, which is stepless transmissions. Right. So infinite number of options there. And so really we kind of brought those two technologies together and that's where we got the E23 from, bringing the best of both of those to the customer.

So looking at the E23, we hear all the benefits of the E23. So when deciding between the E23 and the EVT or the IVT transmission, what sets those two apart? And when will you decide to rather go with the IVT or EVT versus the E23 transmission?

Yeah, well, if we thought the E23 was great, right. The IVT is going to give you even more adjustability and customization within transmission options. And so some of that is your acceleration is even better with your IVT option than E23. And then you're also going to have that controlled speed all the way down to 0.05 kilometers per hour or 0.03 miles per hour in the field. So depending on the applications that you're doing, that can be really helpful for the operators in addition to that controlled speed in and outside of the field. And you're also going to have the option to go up to the Command Pro Control. And so the Command Pro Control allows you to customize buttons on there, Right. So you can choose different SCVs to actuate, you can choose different ITECH sequences, and you can control the speed of the tractor all within the palm of your hand. So you never have to take your hand off that. And so it allows the operator to spend their time looking at how the job is doing behind the tractor instead of focused on what kind of controls they're touching in the cabinet.

That sounds great. So there's endless options available on the different transmissions, but by the sounds of it, it sounds like the EVT has been something that we recently introduced to the market. Can you unpack a Little bit about the differences between the EVT and the IVT transmission.

Yeah, for starters, we never had an IVT option on the 410 horsepower models. And so the EVT is allowing us to have that, which is a big win for the customers. Operationally, though wise, the customer really isn't going to notice that much of a difference between the IVT and the evt. It's going to feel the same, it's going to have all the same benefits that we talked about before with the ivt. But in addition to that, there's some improved reliability. With EVT transmission, you're also going to have the option for outputting power up to 100kW off of the EVT transmission. Right now, there's only one option that we have approved for a Joskin trailer. But you know, some of our partners and John Deere are constantly looking at different ways that we can utilize that technology and bring and bring different offerings to the market for the customers.

So I think our customers need to know what the difference is between the different stages of transmissions and what the actual application is that they are going to apply that transmission to. So customers need to have a discussion with their dealers and making sure that they've got the right application with the right transmission on the right tractor, which will give them the best benefits and the best value out of that product when they go into the season.

We've got an interesting case study. I mean, obviously we can't name names, but tell us the story that where it went wrong. And I mean, obviously the opportunity that was realized at the end of the day.

So we've got customers in South Africa from different shapes and sizes. And the specific case study that we did was a customer that was actually doing vegetable farming and he was using the wrong application of transmission in that vegetable farming application. So he was using the PowerShift transmissions in the fields, where he used it predominantly for field work, where the powershift transmission is mainly used for ease of use and transporting mode and speed modes. We actually needed the benefit of the ivt. So moving over to the ivt, we had some sort of transport work to do as well, where they did not combine specifically with the EVT or the IVT and it didn't combine specifically with the PowerShift transmission as well. So the right application for that customer would have been to select the E23 transmission, where they had best of both worlds, where they could choose a lot more options in terms of speed, but also could bring that back down in terms of profitability. As well as productivity in the field on the IVT transmission.

So it's easy to get it wrong.

Yes, it is. It is easy. So, Brian, looking at everything we discussed today, I think the main question would be is where does John Deere make the decision in what we put into the market? Is that something that John Deere decides or is that based on feedback that we get back from the customers?

Yeah, so I think the latter there, what you said. Right. We're always looking to our customers for what options they want to have on their tractors. And we have three great ones. The 16 speed, great economical option, the E23, which gives you more speed control than 16 speed, kind of mixed with our IVT technology. And then you have the IVT option up top. Right. And then if you look forward into the future now with the EVT option, kind of the possibilities are endless there. Right. We're going to be able to unlock power on the tractor by using the EVT transmission. And it's just really exciting future as Deere. We want to make sure that we deliver it better than anyone else. And so we're going to continue to work with our customers, get feedback from them, and deliver a product that meets their expectations and their needs in the field.

Brilliant. Good. Thank you, Brian.

Thanks, Brian. Thank you.

I said it.