Month: March 2024

Case IH, New Holland, and CASE CE (all CNH brands), took the stage at Expoagro 2024 YPF, the mega-exhibition from March 5 to 8 in Buenos Aires, Argentina.

Known as ‘The National Capital of Agribusiness,’ Expoagro is one of the largest agro-industrial exhibitions in Latin America. Renowned companies in the sector show off their products, services and the latest in technology and connectivity. It is also a stage to explore new business opportunities, establish strategic alliances and contribute to the development and sustainable growth of the productive sector.

Case IH highlights included the Axial-Flow Series 150 and 250 combines, the Puma line of tractors, and the Patriot 300.

The Patriot 300 featured with a new NEF 6 engine manufactured in Argentina, which provides more power than the previous version, and a new hydraulic system. The equipment, designed for the Argentinian market, guarantees greater reliability, robustness, better behavior on uneven terrain, maintaining constant speed and high durability.

“The tests we carried out during 2023 with few units gave very positive results. Accompanying the demands of Argentine producers for greater technology and high performance, we continue to invest and bet on national production, so the model will be definitively manufactured at our plant in Ferreyra, Córdoba,” said Rodrigo Lanciotti, Marketing Manager.

New Holland showcased similar strengths in iron in displaying low, medium and high power tractors, the CR 7.90 Intellisense combine harvester and the Defensor SP3000 sprayer of national production.

With a focus on tech, New Holland also featured key highlights in the Digital Agriculture space, with the Intelligence Center, a support that allows New Holland’s specialized personnel to assist through digital tools both from the industrial plant and a dealership.

In addition, the Oculus and the augmented reality headset, offered real-time remote attention services to customers. The brand also presented products from Raven (a brand of CNH), a leader in automated aftermarket precision agriculture technology solutions, which will soon be available in Argentina.

“We are very happy to participate again in Expoagro, one of the most important fairs in our country. We invite all visitors to stop by our booth and discover the latest developments in technology and automation that we offer, as well as our various financing options for our products,” said Tomás Liceda, Commercial Director of New Holland Argentina.

Another novelty of the brand was the immersive 360° experience with which the Argentinian countryside was shown. The initiative aimed to raise awareness of the work behind the food produced by each farmer throughout the country.

Visitors to Expoagro also had the support of CNH Capital to choose the best financing conditions when acquiring New Holland machinery. With many years dedicated to the financing of Agriculture in Latin America, the institution will offer all its expertise to Argentine producers.

CASE, a CNH construction brand, was proud to take a stage beside its agricultural counterparts. Sharing a stand with Case IH, CASE highlighted the 580N and 570ST backhoe loader model, and the SR175B skid steer loader, the equipment most chosen by customers for tasks in construction and in the field.

“Since the 90’s we have participated in important fairs with the magnitude of Expoagro. This is a new opportunity to attract customers and be close to producers, who often use our machines for tasks related to the field. Today, thanks to the versatility and adaptability of our machines, we are also present in other activities such as mining and regional economies in the interior,” explained Mario Rizzi, CASE’s commercial manager for Latin America.

During the fair, the official distributors in the region, Grumaq and Álvarez Rental, offered personalized advice regarding the benefits, performance and operability of the equipment.

Visitors to Expoagro also had the support of CNH Capital to choose the best financing conditions when acquiring machinery. With many years dedicated to the financing of Agriculture in Latin America, the institution offered all its expertise to Argentinian producers.

Case IH, New Holland, and CASE’s presence at this year’s Expoagro is a testament to CNH’s commitment to sustainable products and innovation for a brighter future for farmers and construction workers in Argentina, and around the globe.

Schneider Electric

In Germany, where I live, there is a greater sense of fear when it comes to what the future holds. The industrious country continues to narrowly dodge a recession. The effects of the economic decline during the pandemic year of 2020 and the slowed production in the energy supply sector, given Europe’s past dependence on Russia for natural gas, have been felt here and in other parts of the world.

So, where energy comes from – how we generate it – is a very hot topic.

There also is this realization: if we want to ensure Germany and other countries remain industrious, then digitalization and optimizing automation processes are key.

Over the decades, the combination of efficient, software-centric automation and digitalization will result in true sustainability. Even small optimization steps in processes can enable companies to remain flexible – whatever economic shifts may occur.

Optimization and digitalization will empower businesses to make an impact, while remaining financially stable.

Digitalization makes you competitive

Such topics took center stage during the Schneider Electric-sponsored 86th NAMUR General Meeting last November.

For those unfamiliar, NAMUR is a place where process industries can come together for two days to share their pains with vendors and find solutions. It’s a platform where collaboration is possible. End of the day, world progress is done through innovation and engineering. During the annual NAMUR meeting, more than 600 process engineers gathered with the intention of making the world a better place.

There was this consensus that optimization and digitalization can alleviate our energy fears. How are we going to do this? How will companies thrive? Remain competitive?

The answer, resoundingly, was by working together.

Open process automation allows companies to be multi-vendor. In turn, multi-vendor approaches, shaped around what you want to achieve – and not vice versa – enable co-innovation. Flexibility. The ability to accel and quickly adapt to market demands for continuous profitability.

It’s a mental shift that takes years, and it begins with thought leaders peppering their organizations with agents of change. I know this is achievable because Schneider Electric has accomplished this very feat.

Beginning in the 2000s with former CEO Jean-Pascal Tricoire, Schneider gradually became a new company that embraced open concepts. People no longer know us as the company selling a push button or a tiny piece of hardware. We represent a software-centric ideal across standardized platforms. By mobilizing our ecosystem for a more climate positive world, we estimate our solutions will have saved and avoided 100 metric tons of CO2 emissions per year by 2025. Another example of our role as impact makers is our new Schneider Electric building in France which is 100% electric and energy autonomous.

We can no longer be afraid of technology and instead focus on building an ecosystem.

And speaking strictly to vendors, there’s money to be made with normalized, interfacing parts and pieces. Companies are tired of being locked into a single vendor. It hinders progress. Through open comes swifter and more profitable optimization.

At the very heart of this optimization is one key factor: data.

Data is the core to progress

Data is everywhere. The question is: Are we able to quickly capture and process it for intelligent decision-making?

Technologies like AVEVA create a pathway for impactful analysis of data, from the shop floor to the top-level business analysts sitting in the CEO’s office. Getting relevant data, whether it be through a distributed control system architecture like EcoStruxure Foxboro DCS or remote operations through something like SCADAPack, leads to informed decisions. Digitalization allows innovation to thrive.

By decoupling hardware and software, the interfaces allow for safe and secure connectivity.

The big picture is that this builds an ecosystem of connectivity.

True circularity of plastics

OECD’s Global Plastic Outlook predicts that, due to economic growth, plastic use will triple between 2019 and 2060, going from 460 million tons to 1.3 billion tons per year. Schneider Electric currently uses 100 kilotons of plastic every year to produce our products. So, our goal is to replace 30% of the plastic with recycled or biowaste material by the end of 2025.

This is a worldwide trend. Companies are now on the hunt for plastic waste. This type of circularity is achievable, but it requires optimization and digitalization.

There are plastic-sorting facilities today that haven’t changed in the past 40 years. This makes it difficult to provide quality sorting that chemical companies would need today to make circularity possible. Fortunately, there are people working on the digitalization of circularity, specifically in the recycling industry.

Schneider is collaborating with companies to drive support for sorting facilities, logistics, and chemical companies to have a safe data exchange, and then build that into the greater supply chain.

Companies see the monetary benefit in circularity. I’m optimistic because support for this will be one of the key indicators if we’ll see an upturn in the German economy.

During one conference, BASF mentioned it secured plastic waste for the next six years. This puts pressure on the sorting facilities and logistics. Just like the cement industry, we’re moving towards a plastics industry that lives off the waste produced by humans.

Join us at ACHEMA

I invite you all to join us at the ACHEMA June 10-14 in Frankfurt. Many of these significant advances towards a climate positive world will be on display. These technologies and efficiencies can save businesses hundreds of millions of dollars. Partnerships with Schneider’s experts make this possible across all process industries – and that journey can be tackled in bite-size chunks.

In the next few years, monetization will not be enough to be competitive. Given the net zero climate requirements set by nations, industrial global trends are moving towards sustainability. In the future, sustainability is what will keep you in the loop. And at ACHEMA, I’ll be happy to discuss how we can enable it.