Combines Agco How old are your engineersIJ

This is one reason Japanese car and motorcycle companies are so successful, attention to detail.

ROM Great job of describing an important and often overlooked part of designing equipment (expensive equipment). Does anyone know if AGCO utilizes any farmer panel for evaluating designs, especially ergonomicallyIJ Gamaman

this IS an important issue at Gleaner_Hesston - most of the engineers do wear bifocals_trifocals_quad whatever. The problem is simple, if you build it big enough for me to see, you couldn't put but 4 warning or readable items in front and still be able to see. To address that there is a readable panel on the RH side that is programable as to what you would like to see and with a button you can rotate the readouts. This is below head tilt back level. There have been many attmpts at 'heads-up' displays shown on the window much as fighters planes have. The first engineer who fighures out how to have ones cake and eat it too will not be working in the farm implement field very long. I saw a program on the learning channel where a scientist had implanted a chip in his arm that could make an artificial hand work , he was willing to have a chip implanted in his brain to communicate with his computer. Now lets take this a step deeper. Say you buy a combine from us then we could implant a chip in your nogin and you would 'know' everything the combine is doing. But this could be problematic, some company like Deere could do this and implant a chip for their combine, then unknowingly to you also program it to make you want to eat off Deere plates, wear Deere clothing, run all Deere sing "work'd 12 hours on a jd tractor" think "nothing runs like a d..." and trade everytime a new model comes out,,,,, wait a minute, do you think they already have,,,, no,,, but then I can't see any stictches or scars because the jd caps are pulled down so tight ,,,,,,,do,do di do (sung to the tune of twilight zone)

Good post! No, it is a great post! To put it bluntly, I dont buy new equipment because it is overly complex and I cant read much or the computerized displays without a magnifying glass and frequently a flashlight. And I dont normally wear glasses. My newest piece of equipment around here is a Ford Excursion that I truly like except for one itemI cant understand the universal symbols and I cant read the fine print on the dash. The radio is fabulous if I set it before I start driving. Otherwise, I cant read the tiny print on myriad buttons. I bought it 2 years ago and have put less than 2000 miles on it because of the above mentioned complaints. My bride wont drive it for the same reason. The Wall Street Journal had an article within the past couple of weeks on this very issue. If I remember correctly, lexus will have a new dash that everyone can read easily and other car makers are following suit. That means farm equipment makers will get onboard sometime in the future.

tbran, there is a simple solution to countering JD. Just buy a controlling interest in JD, get a few seats on the board and move that JD change it's colours from egg and lettuce, ie. green and gold to nipple pink and powder blue. They would probably never sell another combine or tractor, jingles, caps and plates not withstanding. Amazing what a good colour scheme can do regardless of what is underneath! Cheers

My Dad has the same problem and it really bugs him. I can't post what he does say about some of these new displays.

It's not a personal_engineer matter, it is an industry standard (i.e., the same reason why the auto industry uses symbols and icons vs. wording to describe a fault or action - symbols and icons are smaller, therefore more can fit within a given space caused by better technology). ASABE, AEA, etc. control the parameters for such matters. Are we all going to boycott the purchase of new machinery as a resultIJ No. And current and future RandD arent going to be developing for an industry whose avg. age is in its 50's either.

like when you walk into the JD dealer and there are about a million John Deere emblems everywhere! Thats when I found out they where too full of themselfs. Now just the color green gives me a cramp and makes me sick.Oh yeah in Minnesota here a 6620 JD went for $35,000 John Deere is just so overrated its sick. Some people need to wake up!

Nobody is decrying the use of new technologies such as the electronic symbol and icon status and alarm systems. The new systems also have enormous flexibility in their designs which can, if used in a poorly thought out fashion, be a very serious problem for the users. All technologies have their good and bad points. Unfortunately, many designers and engineers often use these technologies, because they are there, in a design format and in a manner that is inappropiate and at times, downright unuseable for a good proportion of their customers. They simply do not think through how these technologies may have to be used by the customer. That is the thrust of my argument. I am very surprised by the comment on no further development for an aging work force. As of 2007, one half of the world's total population will live in the cities. This comment reflects the attitude of a majority, particularly in the western world, of those city dwellers, that agriculture is finished! Please tell me, just what in the bloody h-ll are you going to eat if that is the case! Or do you, as some of these city dwellers believe literally, that food is just created on the super market shelves. Enjoy your very cheap food while you can. There are a number of major think tanks around the world that are calling our current food surpluses a "food bubble". The world, for the first time in the human races history has been able to comfortably feed itself only over the last 100 years. longer term, say by late in the next decade, the think tanks are starting to get very nervous about the world's ability to continue to feed itself adaquately. There are a lot of very serious long term problems in the world's food production systems that are only now starting to show up. So, instead of swallowing an oft repeated mantra, before condemning the whole agricultural industry to it's deathbed and making statements that nobody is going to bother to develop new technologies for an aging industry, I would suggest that a little research be done first. Cheers.

I'm with you ROM and I'm only 50.That guy sounded young,arrogant and foolish.He may be so blessed to see the light someday.I don't think engineering is taught as it was many years ago.