The three months between January and March, that are the heart of ‘golden’ harvest, are upon us and Landpower and CLAAS Harvest Centre are pleased to welcome two optimisation specialists from Germany to support CLAAS Combine customers in the cab of their machine.  The key to the program is having specialist resources working with the customer in their own machine, harvesting their crop, providing education and assistance to get peak operational performance from the advanced features of their combine.  

“Our goal is to support our customers to be successful, which means not only selling them world-leading products but providing them with support and training to get the full benefit of this purchase, including early preparation with parts and service that maximises their harvest up-time,” says Richard Wilson, Chief Executive. 

“When we sell a machine to a customer, the relationship does not end at the point of sale.  For our teams, this is just the beginning of a through-life relationship where our focus is on the value the machine adds to our customer’s business”.   

The optimisation specialists spend nine months of the year travelling the world carrying out optimisations. They are exposed to a wide variety of crops and conditions, which helps build their knowledge and address the specific needs of CLAAS Combine customers. In turn, the optimisation drivers identify local farmers’ needs and practices, which are provided back to CLAAS in a two-way feedback loop, ensuring ongoing product research and development.  

“If a customer in New Zealand is having challenges with their machine in a specific crop, chances are that the specialists have encountered this scenario before and can apply those learnings to the New Zealand customer”. 

For arable farmers, harvest is the culmination of the years’ hard work. It’s a critical make-or-break time for our customers, and they need their machines to perform at their best.   

“Combine harvesters are machines that are not driven all year round, and it’s understandable that both the machine and its operators can be a little rusty”, he says. 

The optimisation specialists work with the customer to understand what is important to their business. Whether that is throughput, quality of their grain, understanding grain losses, exploring crop types, or how to utilise the advanced features of their machine.   

”The technology CLAAS has released in their combine harvesters is particularly valuable for farmers in this part of the world, and by seeing it in action here, we can really push the technology to its limits and help farmers get more out of their combines and more out of their crops in a day”,  says Jelle Jensema, Agri Experts CLAAS Optimisation Specialist. 

Agri Experts optimisation drivers Jelle Jensema and Sebastian Erkel, both from Germany, have completed optimisations in Romania, Bulgaria, Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia, Germany, Canada, Australia and New Zealand.   

During their three months in New Zealand, the drivers will also demonstrate the CLAAS LEXION 8800 Combine Harvester. Customers can witness firsthand the unparalleled performance and value that the LEXION series delivers on their own farm.