Deere takes a Giant Leap
Supply management moves to the fore in build-to-order transformation as John Deere wins the Purchasing Magazine 2001 Medal of Professional Excellence.
By Doug Smock -- Purchasing, 9/6/2001 2:00:00 AM
Deere & Co., the world-famous equipment manufacturer, was born in the industrial revolution, helped launch the agricultural revolution, and is now building a beachhead for the next manufacturing revolution: global build-to-order of new products introduced at a staccato pace.
It's no surprise that innovative use of suppliers is one of the primary tools being used by Deere on both a local and enterprise level to achieve its next round of ambitious goals. A four-year-old supplier development program pioneered at Deere's Horicon, Wis., operations is paying particular dividends as Deere introduces major breakthroughs in technology ranging from plastics to transmissions.
The transition to a new approach in manufacturing and purchasing has not always been as nimble as the leaping deer in the company's logo.
R. David Nelson was recruited four years ago from Honda of America Mfg. to bring the best of modern global supply practice to a company rooted in local heritage that was emerging from weak profit years and a decade that saw legendary competitors falter.
With the support of Deere's top leadership, Nelson established ambitious goals, recruited strong supply management leadership from inside and outside the company, married the best of his ideas with the best from the local plants and divisions, sacrificed where necessary, and planted his feet firmly when that was required. Some day when he decides to hang up his spurs he can look back at Deere and take great pride in several accomplishments, including improvements in cost management, strategic sourcing, supplier relationships, logistics and recruitment of a class of blue chippers into the Deere supply organization.
Most of all, Nelson's plan is a roadmap for energizing and upgrading the way a company buys. One of his chief implementers is Jonathan Stegner, whom he recruited from Honda.
Deere & Co.'s supply organization wins the 2001 Purchasing Magazine Medal of Professional Excellence, not only for Nelson's vision and strategy but also for the hard work of many predecessors, ranging from local supply managers such as Paul D. Ericksen at Horicon, Wis., to Wayne G. Droessler, who developed Deere's first-class program to recognize supplier achievements. The elite purchasing heritage at Deere goes back to now-retired Keith Williams, who did early work on the highly touted concept of activity-based costing.
The big story at Deere right now is the new corporate push and the leading role of the revamped supply organization.
"John Deere is on a very fast growth track," says Nelson. "Our stated goal is to double and double again. In the past two years, we've bought 27 companies, and that's on the upswing now. That brings both challenges and opportunities."
About 50% of Deere's sales come from agricultural equipment, with the remainder split between construction equipment and commercial and consumer equipment.
"Building to demand is the biggest focus for all of these businesses," says Nelson. "We began in construction equipment where it used to be normal to order big construction pieces six months in advance. Today we'll deliver any piece of big construction equipment in far less time. That puts a tremendous amount of importance on reducing leadtimes, particularly with our supply base. We're directing a lot of our supplier development engineers toward the activity of reducing cycle times."
Nelson's team brought on board 94 supplier development engineers, including four with Ph.D.s, as part of its roadmap at Deere. Their salaries are shared by the divisions and corporate.
Supplier development
The Worldwide Commercial & Consumer Equipment Division in Horicon, Wis., is one of the test beds for build-to-order and supplier development. Workers at the fabled Waterloo, Iowa, plant, which makes behemoth agricultural tractors, call Horicon "the toy factory."
The latest "toy" is a Spin-Steer Technology (SST) lawn and garden tractor, which employs a unique transmission that allows the vehicle to rotate in place as one rear wheel moves forward and the other goes backward. Unlike comparable vehicles that are steered with levers controlling separate drives, the Spin-Steer uses a steering wheel that is unique: it's made from three separate plastics in a three-barreled injection molding machine. The Spin-Steer's dramatic sweeping design also uses a one-piece injection molded hood.
The vehicle's fuel tank posed the biggest cycle time challenge for the build-to-order model. Typically, two tanks would be built for small vehicles—one for fuel and one for transmission fluid. Both are made from high-density polyethylene, one with a process called rotational molding and the other via blow molding. Rotational molding benefits from low tool costs but suffers from long cycle times—as long as 60 minutes per tank.
"Fuel tanks are a bottleneck on this project," comments Ericksen, manager of materials resources at the Horicon plant. "I would need a heck of a lot of rotational molding machines on call to meet the requirements of the flexible manufacturing system."
Supply Management Engineer Chad E. Jennings, who specializes in plastics, went to work studying opportunities for injection molding of the fuel tanks. Injection molding is a high pressure process requiring more expensive tooling, but offers much lower piece costs for large runs and lickety-split cycle times—seconds for small parts.
He turned to Kelch Corp., of Cedarburg, Wis., a 15-year Deere supplier and one of the companies cultivated by Ericksen when he established the supplier development program in 1996. Kelch, a division of Bemis Manufacturing, specializes in fuel containment systems and demonstrates the type of value engineering suppliers can introduce when purchasing opens the doors.
In the original concept, fuel and transmission fluid reservoirs were separate. Testing by Deere showed that high return fluid temperatures did not present a threat to the fuel tank if designed appropriately. "We supplied prototype fuel tanks for material testing with transmission oil at operating temperatures," comments Jeff Davis, business development manger at Kelch. The prototype tanks showed structural integrity, encouraging Kelch to pursue a unique design that allowed simultaneous molding of both tanks as a single part. An integrated fuel pickup with outlet at the tank top was also included, as were fluid level markings for sight readings similar to those first introduced on quart oil bottles.
"We designed a molding process that allowed for consolidating two reservoirs into one product (see box). We eliminated brackets and mounting-system assembly by making them integral to the tank and we eliminated a subsequent assembly operation by molding the fuel pickup into the reservoir," adds Davis.
The project required simultaneous multiple plane welding of two reservoir chambers, creating hermetic seals on and between both reservoirs.
The part uses a two-cavity tool, and despite its complexity, can be formed in about 80 seconds. Production is many times the rate of a single-cavity roto tool. Considering that the tanks are made simultaneously as one part, productivity is doubled again. Plus there are significant savings in secondary operations, allowing quick delivery of parts for build-to-demand schedules.
"We'll be producing two-thirds of Horicon's output in one third of the year," comments Ericksen, noting that the division's biggest customers are major retailers whose sales are seasonal. "I'm going through our purchased parts to identify all other bottlenecks such as rotational molding," comments Ericksen. "We have to move away from technologies that do not support our new approach."
The Spin-Steer's transmission presented an even bigger problem.
"All other ZTR's (zero-turning radius vehicles) use twin hydraulic transmissions or mechanical cone drives to move the vehicle," comments Robert Abend, vice president of Tuff Torq Corp. of Morristown, Tenn., which is part of Kanzaki Kokyukoki Mfg. Co., a Japanese company specializing in transmission technology. Deere was open to Tuff Torq exploring new technology so the SST could be dramatically different.
Especially for cutting lawns, Deere wanted a mower with conventional controls that could spin tightly at the end of a row, which is not possible in conventional lawn tractor products. "We decided to look at a drive system used in large-tracked vehicles and tanks but never before used on very small vehicles," says Abend. The differential drive systems allow one track to reverse while the other moves forward, creating a very tight pivot turn, while still allowing use of a conventional steering wheel for turning control and hand or foot controls for direction and speed control. "We did not know in the first six months of this project if differential steering could be applied to small, wheeled vehicles and still meet performance goals," says Abend. "So, until we could prove to Deere that a differential steering system was superior, we had to develop an alternate dual path hydrostatic system as the primary system, which cost our company extra resources."
Tuff Torq had more leadtime than other suppliers for its part of the project because the new transmission technology was the key to allowing the SST concept to be developed. Work began in May, 1997. Abend says the transaxle system greatly improves smoothness and accuracy in vehicle motion control.
"The solution was a differential steering transmission that incorporates a propel transmission and a steering transmission in the same case," says Barry Goebert, an advanced designer in Deere's lawn and garden products group. "The two transmissions work in unison to permit the rear wheels to rotate at different speeds and to counter-rotate, allowing this vehicle to perform a non-turf-damaging maneuver—a spin turn. The benefit is that the efficiency of this new transmission is the same on each side of the machine, thus making straight-line tracking (mowing in a straight line) much better."
Conventional steering demanded a steering wheel that screamed something different. "The marketing department asked what we could do that would make it clear right away to customers that this is a very different product," says Goebert. The team quickly ruled out ideas such as an odd-shaped steering wheel and began examining a two-color steering wheel with tactile feel. That combination, which requires a technology called coinjection molding, is widely used in such consumer products as men's razors. Because Deere was interested in using a lower-cost resin inside the steering wheel, it would require three-resin molding.
"After the initial shock wore off, we realized we had to design our own machine to meet the demands of Deere's marketing department," comments Gary Vande Berg, director of injection molding engineering at Bemis Manufacturing Co., Sheboygan Falls, Wis. Bemis moved up the supply chain to 28-year-plus partner Milacron Inc., the largest North American manufacturer of plastics machinery. Bemis and Milacron have a unique partnership to develop technology, particularly to advance the coinjection concept.
The result was a tri-barreled injection molding machine that offered a green/black color combination in a proprietary soft-touch blend of polypropylene and thermoplastic polyolefin. The inner core is structural foam. The tool that could mold three materials was designed and produced by another supply chain partner, Triangle Tool of Milwaukee.
In yet another spectacular project developed by Bemis, the SST features a windswept injection molded hood ordered by industrial design firm Henry Dreyfuss Associates, Woodridge, N.J. At first glance, it appeared the part could not be manufactured on a cost-effective basis. "But our goal," says President Peter Bemis, "is to deliver what the industrial designer wants. We try to figure out how to make his design reality."
Heavy-duty upfront engineering was conducted at GE Plastics' Polymer Processing and Development Center in Pittsfield, Mass., one of the most advanced plastics practical research centers in the world. "Going to GE for plastics is like going to the Mayo Clinic for health problems," comments Thomas R. Weber, vice president of sales at Bemis.
Material flow through the complex mold cavity was a major issue and GE explored seven iterations of the part. The final tool design uses three gates, all controlled with sequential valving, another advanced technology used in the project. The optimum location for one gate was right smack in the center of the hood-the most visible possible location. It made a great spot to put the leaping deer logo.
The tool was costly, but the new part combined so much functionality from an alternate design that the overall economics were very favorable. And the design worked.
"I could have put this project out for a reverse auction," comments supply leader Ericksen. "But you know something? I never would have gotten all the finite element and manufacturability analysis."
Bemis has been working with another Deere plant on a separate large-piece project that raises the bar even higher on breakthrough technology resulting from supplier collaboration. Details were not ready for public release at press time.
All told, Deere spent $7 million on supplier development engineering in 2000. "The hard dollar return on the program was $22 million," says Nelson. "There's also a big soft-dollar return on the program that's not even counted. That includes things like lower inventory and reduced floor space. But the most important benefit is the building of deep, loyal trust with suppliers."
Strategic sourcing
Supplier development was one of the key strategies Deere deployed when Nelson came on board. At the time, Deere bought from 14,000 active suppliers and there were more than 80,000 suppliers in the company's databases. That was partially an outgrowth of a massive, and not necessarily well planned, move to outsourcing in the 1980s in which each business unit was the master of its own destiny. The outcome was a fragmented, unwieldy supply base. Another outcome was worker rage: a bitter strike shut down the Horicon plant in the late 1980s.
Nelson recruited Stegner to come on board as director of supply management strategic sourcing to optimize the supply base.
Implementation of strategic sourcing is Nelson's number one goal at Deere. "Previously, we didn't have a firm process in place at Deere," says Nelson. "We went out and benchmarked companies with best practices in strategic sourcing, such as the program implemented by Gene Richter at IBM. (PUR; Sept. 16, 1999, p. 38). We took what we learned from them and leveled up. Now, we think we do this better than anybody."
A year after Nelson started, the company's executive council gave him a new mandate to cut costs of purchased goods and services 5% annually, yielding accumulated savings of $2.2 billion from 1999 through 2003. Purchased goods and services represent about 70% of the cost of manufactured goods at Deere. That ratcheted up the ante for the strategic sourcing initiative.
Led by Stegner, a team implemented a seven-phase strategic sourcing process: 1) development of business plan, 2) development of process plan, 3) data acquisition, 4) evaluation, 5) supplier reduction and development, 6) implementation and 7) performance measurement/continuous improvement.
Strategies were developed for four materials classifications: unique products, critical products, generics and commodities. These constitute 49 direct (or production) materials and 15 indirect (including MRO) materials. In 1999, the total Deere buy was $7.1 billion with direct representing 76% and indirect, 24%.
Working with divisional manufacturing leaders, Nelson developed a plan that leaves buying at the local level for major components used only at their locations. That's a total buy of $1.9 billion and covers such products as engine components, disc blades, fuel systems, mechanical assemblies, pistons and turbo chargers. Enterprise divisional teams were created to source molded plastics, castings, hydraulics, electronics and other products that constitute a $2.2 billion buy. Enterprise supply management teams were established to create strategic sourcing strategies for plastic resins, paint, decals, mill steel, belts, molded rubber hoses and hydraulic adapters. The total buy in that area is $1.1 billion annually. The Indirect Strategic Sourcing Team (ISST) was established to develop strategic sourcing of the indirect buy across 17 factories in 18 countries. Target buys totaling $1.8 billion were identified for temporary staffing, janitorial, filtration, fleet travel, information technology, recruiting, MRO, energy, printed material and coal. Another team was established to tackle the $600 million logistics buy. More than two years later the projects are still in various stages of implementation, with indirect well ahead of direct. Logistics is also making strong progress. All in all, progress is undoubtedly slower than Nelson and Stegner would have liked.
Each product and each team is a story.
One of the most interesting is one of the smallest, and in some eyes, least significant. It's the glove buy.
Deere spends $1.4 million each year on gloves for factory workers and uses at least 424 different types of gloves—the ISST team stopped counting at some point. Numerous types of gloves were used for the same functions, sometimes even within the same plant. Prices for the same gloves were all over the map based on who bought them. At a supply management directors' meeting, two tables were piled high with welding gloves, each with a tag showing price paid and user location. Much of the leg work was done by a student intern, Stacie Webster, who attended Western Illinois University.
The sourcing team established goals of increased safety and quality, price consistency, joint buys at the division and enterprise level, common part numbers, involvement of supplier expertise and savings of 35%—a whopping $490,000. For welding gloves, choices had to be made: shoulder versus side, synthetic fiber versus cotton, one piece versus two piece and domestic versus foreign. The team began meetings with safety directors and union representatives; end users were interviewed; presentations were made to safety committees.
As the plan was implemented, one senior factory worker barked, "No one from corporate supply will tell me what type of glove to use."
Nelson took the stack of gloves with price tags to a meeting of the Deere executive council in the company's steel-sheathed headquarters in a park-like setting in Moline, Ill. He told the division presidents and corporate management it was time to fish or cut bait. The company leaders didn't hesitate. They said get on with it, and the strategic sourcing plan inched a bit forward.
A 22-member team studied Deere's $70 million annual MRO spend across 40 units in North America. "We reduced the number of suppliers from 1675 to 20, and cut costs by 13%," says Stegner.
E-procurement initiatives
In April of last year, Deere decided to move its supply chain to an e-model by 2003. Significant efforts were made to boost supply issues information on a Web site, electronic communications were enhanced, sourcing of indirect through an Ariba platform began and a handful of sourcing programs moved to reverse auctions.
As with most companies, electronic data interchange (EDI) was already in widespread use at Deere. By last year, 90% of all orders involving 2,000 suppliers were handled through EDI. The bad news was that each unit had its own protocols. The chief purchasing officer before Nelson was a corporate coordinator who could function only as an adviser. One supplier had complained at an annual event: "It's like there are 14 different companies all operating under the Deere name."
The e-plan at Deere started with basic communications with suppliers, says Steven E. Frels, director of processes and systems in Supply Management. The plan was to migrate to Web-based transactions and ultimately to electronic production development collaboration with high-level supplier partners, such as those involved on the SST project. "Our strategic plan for a supplier-collaboration e-hub has received tremendous support from our leadership group," says Frels. Deere has moved more than 1,100 suppliers to Web-based communications, and plans to initiate electronic communications with all direct and indirect materials' suppliers within 12 months.
Deere went live last spring with an Ariba B2B Buyer program to purchase paper, office supplies and other nonproduction goods and services over the Internet. As with similar programs, one of the major goals is to stop maverick buying, reduce costs to process purchase orders and improve data about what Deere buys and what the products cost. Deere went live with 11 suppliers with a goal to include 50. Indirect Internet implementations in general suffer from poor Web capabilities among MRO suppliers. Even so, after only 12 weeks of the pilot program, Deere was moving $25 million worth of supplies through Ariba, and had a goal of $200 million by year end.
As of May, Deere had completed nine reverse auctions with seven more in the works. Significant savings were reported in purchases of weldments, vehicle signs, asbestos abatement, forgings, forged steel tools, and corrugated packaging. Deere conducts the auctions through Pittsburgh-based FreeMarkets and recently signed a new agreement with the market maker. The auctions are managed by John D. Hudson who wants to move the bid-to-implementation time from 180 to 90 days.
Deere, however, does not view reverse auctions as a long-term core supply management tool. "As we continue to do more of the right things, the value of this tool will diminish," says Hudson. "For now, the auctions help us reduce the size of our supply base."
Deere is not best-in-class in e-procurement strategies. A careful, methodical approach in e-procurement, however, may be a wise approach, particularly for a mature organization moving cautiously to a more centralized sourcing and supply management approach. Frels says Deere has moved more than 1,100 of its key suppliers to Web-based communications, and hopes to have all direct and indirect materials suppliers communicating online within a year. Nelson recognizes that "one of the great benefits from technology in general is the ability to get all of the data together so that really intelligent decisions can be made with regard to all your spending. A lot of folks I know regard this as something of a landmark."
Nelson also recognizes the downside of the reverse auction approach, beyond the obvious breakdown of customer-supplier relationships.
There's a subtlety lost on many new buyers who are swept away by the apparent, immediate huge savings of the auction process. In the blur of online auctions, many incumbent suppliers are so determined to hold on to business they bid their competition into oblivion. Does their bid really make sense? Is it economically sustainable? Is there enough money in the equation to make needed process improvements?
"We had one auction on aluminum castings, and there was a supplier who considered the parts in the core of their business so they weren't going to lose the business with us," relates Nelson. "It was very obvious after just a minute that they were going to end up with a bid way below what we knew they would spend to make these parts."
"We had to immediately dispatch a couple of supplier development engineers over there to work with them for several months. Of course we didn't throw the supplier out for making a too-low bid; we just worked with them to get as low as we could and still have them make margins because we weren't about to do that to our supplier. Some interesting things come out of these auctions from time to time."
Another tool Deere uses to reduce its supply base and improve supplier performance is a supplier recognition program called Achieving Excellence. The program is more than 10 years old but was reemphasized starting in 1999 after Deere's supply base mushroomed anew, triggering growth in tactical purchasing functions. While sales and administrative overhead costs grew, sales dropped. So did profits.
Deere Supply management added Achieving Excellence to the arsenal of tools available to cultivate a trimmer, higher-quality supply base. At the same time it was a way of implementing overall goals for the supply group in addition to the 5% annual cost reduction. Those goals included 100% on-time delivery and 20% annual improvements in purchased part quality.
Achieving Excellence is a supplier evaluation program based on quality, delivery, wavelength, technical support and cost management. Issues in quality (number of rejects) and delivery (early, late or excess deliveries) are reported in parts per million.
"Wavelength includes attitude, responsiveness, follow-up on details—how well they do that sort of thing," says Nelson. "It's very subjective. Suppliers just hate it. But you can imagine the need for it because if you've got a supplier that's really lousy in this area, you have to get that communicated to the highest level."
JDCrop (John Deere Cost Reduction Opportunities Process) is a method for suppliers to submit suggestions to Deere. The program was modeled after the SCORE program developed by Thomas T. Stallkamp when he was the chief procurement officer at Chrysler.
Education and training
One of the Deere supply organization's finest accomplishments—past and present—is in the area of training and education for suppliers and employees.
"When I arrived at Deere, there was already this tremendous training organization in place," says Nelson. "It started when the State of Illinois asked us to start training suppliers in the early 1990s. The state had tried to train small-to-medium-sized suppliers and weren't able to attract a great deal of interest. They said if we turn it over to somebody like Deere, maybe they'll do a good job."
Illinois provided funding and the program is now replicated in Iowa and Wisconsin, where Deere is also a major employer. At times, Deere participates in industry consortia. That was a condition in Wisconsin, where the consortium includes a competitor.
Here's how it works: Deere may be instituting a quality program at a particular plant that requires certain skills in statistics or a specific quality approach. The state establishes the training at a convenient site with Deere managing the curriculum. It's suggested that specific supplier personnel and Deere purchasing personnel participate. The cost to the companies may be in the neighborhood of $50 to $260 per registrant. There are 105 current courses in Illinois alone, including Achieving Excellence, JDCrop, quick-response manufacturing, negotiating, and lean manufacturing.
The courses currently include a three-week full-time curriculum for supplier development engineers as well as a program for cost management, another best practice area at Deere.
Nelson's approach to training and recruitment is world-class.
"We have an unusual problem where we have an older work force, one-third of which will retire in the next five years. Another third retires in the next five-year period," says Nelson. "So in 10 years, 66% of the people who work in supply management will have retired."
Add that to the personnel, such as supplier development engineers, that the company has to recruit for its initiatives, and you need a major talent pool. Add that to the fact that Deere is recruiting personnel to locales such as Moline, Ill., and Waterloo, Iowa. They're great places to live, but not necessarily appealing to recent graduates not familiar with the virtues of small-town Midwestern life.
Whenever Deere's purchasing recruiters went out to screen the cream of the crop, "We would get beat out by people like IBM who rent out the whole local Pizza Hut," relates Nelson.
So Nelson set up an education program in which the supply management leadership team developed close relationships with 12 target schools, which included student internships at Deere and fellowships for faculty members. He also set up an on-site MBA program at Deere in conjunction with Arizona State University.
"We have a summer intern program where students come and are given very meaty projects to work on (such as Stacie Webster's analysis on gloves)," reports Nelson. "They go back home so proud because they show what they've accomplished. And every one of them has to make a formal presentation to me of what he or she did, including the money saved."
In 2000, Deere had about 80 student interns in the supply department. Eventually Deere plans to have 130 supply interns each year. The program cost $1.25 million in 2000 and savings of $15 million were directly attributed to the interns' work. "We give 85% of the kids job offers and 85% of them accept. They go on to work in some small town in Iowa where they had never been before they worked as an intern at Deere. It works out very well."
At the MBA level, recruiting is tougher. Deere offers jobs to about 85% of the student interns who graduate with MBA degrees, but only about 50% accept. "They get many more offers from companies because they are more marketable," says Nelson. Deere has relationships with supply management programs at Arizona State, Western Michigan, Tennessee, Iowa State, Michigan State, University of San Diego, Wisconsin, Bowling Green, North Carolina State, Western Illinois, Northern Iowa, North Carolina A&T, Western Ontario in Canada, Monterrey Tech in Mexico, and the University of Stuttgart in Germany. In this year's budget, there are 55 supply management scholarships budgeted at Deere. Deere is also offering about $160,000 a year as grants to professors in those schools to study supply management issues at Deere. Results are published in a casebook used as a teaching guide.
Nelson also established the three-year Supply Management Development Program, which allows recent graduates rotational job assignments, mentoring, career coaching and enrollment in an annual leadership development conference. The rotations include two divisions and units, and each enrollee is given a custom-tailored training plan.
Nelson also established the MBA program as a carrot to keep the top graduates happy. Most of the course work is done via the Internet using courses created and taught by professors at the Arizona State University Business School. Courses covered in the first year of the MBA program include managerial economics, quantitative analysis, accounting, finance, introduction to supply chain management, and an applied project. Second year-courses include designing supply chains, marketing, logistics, strategic cost management, e-business, and customer-supplier relationships. Thirty-five supply employees at Deere are enrolled in the program.
"All of these programs constitute a best practice that helps us get top notch students from top notch schools," says Nelson.
It all adds up to a Medal of Excellence winner.
"The substantially increased emphasis we have placed on supply management in recent years," says Deere Chairman Robert W. Lane, " has resulted in the recruitment and development of outstanding talent; the establishment of robust, effective processes; and the implementation of numerous enterprise-wide best practices."
In particular, Lane singles out as world-class supply activities the ASU Supply Management MBA program, the fully integrated global logistics network, integration of key suppliers into the order fulfillment process, and strategic sourcing.
Not surprisingly, Deere is actively studying next-step measures in supply. Its Executive Supply Management Council is in the midst of a comprehensive review of supply management practices and organization. The Executive Sponsor on the project is Nathan J. Jones, senior vice president and chief financial officer, and Nelson's boss.
Deere is a global enterprise on a fast-growth track. It's a survivor of the equipment manufacturing shakeout of the 1980s and has scars from reactions to that crisis. One thing is for sure as Deere steers into the 21st Century: Suppliers will help clear the path and supplier managers will be well prepared.
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