This 181-Year-Old Companys Secret To Success InnovationAnd A Culture That Supports It

This 181-Year-Old Companys Secret To Success InnovationAnd A Culture That Supports It This 181-Year-Old Companys Secret To Success? InnovationAnd A Culture That Supports ItTechnology is truly everywhere. And believe it or not, tractors (and all sorts of agricultural tools and processes) are no exception.Thats where the folks at John Deere come in.John Deere is the anthroponym in agricultural tech. From the first hand-operated steel plow to the self-directing machine behemoths that tackle farming today, John Deere has always made the best-in-class gear for farmers, landscapers, foresters, and more. And it doesnt stay that way by resting on its laurels. The world of agritech is far more complicated and exciting than you might ever have imagined.To get a better look at innovation within the company, we spoke to one of their innovation leaders, Julian Sanchez. Hes a career technologist and serial innovator who specializes in user experience and the digital space. Given his prior backgrou nd in medical device tech and aviation, John Deere might seem like a strange fit for himbut Julian thinks its what helps him succeed in his role.The Magic Test For Self-Driving TractorsYouve gotta look at it and say, WhoaJohn Deere sits right on the cusp of Old World and New World, Julian says. What I mean by that we are still a manufacturing company, we are still making big iron machines, youve got to get that right. But here we are trying to digitize agriculture, construction, forestry, and even lawn-care, he says.And most of those digital solutions that Julian is working on have to do with automation. Were in a business where automation is a key part of ur future, and in the journey toward that goal, we keep introducing subsystems that are automated. We are heavily focused on making koranvers we get the user experience and connectivity of those solutions right, Julian says.That means helping tractors, combines, and way, way more get better at recognizing the task of the farmer an d the function that they fill with less input from the operator. We should be able to tell that our customer is at the fields with a planter with a certain type of seed at a certain time of year. They shouldnt have to enter data every single time, Julian explains.And thats a goal that theyve made massive strides toward. But its not just interface tools that theyre working on. A lot of the space-age dreams of agritech have already been realized. Yes, were talking about machines that do manual labor largely without humans operating them.You know, tractors already drive themselves, Julian says. So weve already achieved that komponente of the sci-fi world. Theres even a combine that can pretty much adjust itself and attain an optimal setting in a lot of fields.To Julian and millions of John Deere customers, this stuff is truly incredible.I would say at least half of the work Im doing, it feels like magic. And thats kind of the measure I use to tell whether something is really innovation If the first time you see it, you just smile and think, This feels like magic he says.The Magic Happens All OverThis sort of innovation isnt restricted to one gruppe or one location, either.Innovation happens across the entire company. I used to work out of our schreibstube in Champaign, Illinois, where theres this Silicon Prairie of innovation. In the last three weeks, I moved to our technology center in Germany, Julian says.They make Deere machines all over the worldbecause thats where theyre used.We have a number of innovation centers around the world Several locations in the United States and across the globe, including the one that Im working out of now in Germany, and our San Francisco labs, he says. The last one, Julian tells us, is particularly exciting, as its work relates primarily to the Blue River group, an agritech firm John Deere recently acquired.There are a number of nodes of innovation, but the purpose of the San Francisco center is to give us access to the ideas a nd the talent in Silicon Valley. That lab has a special link to the Blue River group, which is an acquisition we made thinking about advancing our capabilities and our expertise levels in the areas of artificial intelligence, he says.Were certainly excited about some of the work that Blue River has in the pipeline. They had been working on a variety of systems to detect and spray weeds in a very precise manner, so thats still the core of the technology that theyre developing.Their landsee Spray technologythe project that Julian referred touses the exact kind of decision-making technology that John Deere hopes to utilize across the business in other automation efforts.The Right Culture To Back It All UpSo, from Silicon Valley to Silicon Prairie (and even to Germany), John Deeres people innovate all over. But how do they sustain this? The company culture doesnt leave anyone out of the loop. As Julian says, its a whole company effort, which makes the experience that much more meaningf ul.The fact that the company is going through this transformation really exposes everyone to it. So, its not just a small group of us working behind closed doors on some magical thing that gets revealed, he says.From a technical standpoint, that involves everyone. Even if youre an entry-level manufacturing engineer, youre going to have some interaction with the manufacturability of one of our vehicles that now needs to double or triple the number of sensors that go on it, he says.Innovation, Julian stresses, even impacts spaces beyond engineering.Innovation means the whole team working.If youre in the supply management space, youre going to deal with a whole new set of suppliersones weve never dealt with beforewho supply a whole new set of sensors for automotive. If youre in the finance group, youre going to have to figure out what the tax implications are of offering digital services, he explains.So, what makes John Deere different in tech?There are certainly other businesses that have already branded themselves technology companies. They may have a stronger brand as a tech company. But guess what? Youre going to go to some of those companies, and youre going to sit on the bench, Julian says.But if you come to John Deerebecause we are literally in the middle of that transformation and will be for a whileyou can be right in the game. Ive personally hired, through my organization, a few dozen people into John Deere. And I dont think that I have failed to deliver on that promise to any of the people that have come in.Pretty cool, right?Find your tech future at John Deere. Theyre hiring now on WayUp