Innovation, R D, and their impact on a company

NY 986

Well-known Member
Interesting thoughts in the AC thread but some confusion, too. Does innovation always lead to increased market share hence "success." Case in point the MM UDLX. MM pioneered in the industry with an enclosed cab but that really did not impact MM's market share in tractors except maybe to a very very small degree. Deere did not pioneer the full Power Shift transmission but rather developed a highly reliable product and made sure it was offered in important horsepower sizes. Deere capitalized on PS far more than Ford did who pioneered that product and did eventually work out the bugs. Ford's largest successes were the N series tractors which offered one certain innovation in a three point hitch but lagged in terms of engine design (valve in block) and transmission (3 speed versus 5 with IH the industry leader). Ford introduced the 9N at 595 dollars which was considerably cheaper than a Farmall H in 1939. How many farmers were influenced by the innovation and how many were influenced by a rock bottom price for a tractor that would pull 2-14's in quite a few soils?
 
mite pll 2-14s but woulnt pull a skid of bales ever try to cultivate with the rear Ford cult on a contoured row.
 
I remember when the Ford Ns came out. We looked at them and laughed and made jokes about them being a "good garden tractor" many, many years before there was such a thing as a garden tractor. One farmer did buy one with a two bottom plow and he had to trade the two bottom plow for a one bottom. There is no way that little thing was ever going to pull two bottoms in red clay alfalfa sod. No way. We didn't even have John Deere Bs in our neighborhood. John Deere As, Gs, Farmall Hs and Ms, Allis Chalmers WCs and an occasional U. Case DCs, LAs, etc. That's all you would see. AC was the most innovative, I think. A manure spreader that unloads off the front? A bad joke at best. Mount a side delivery rake to the front of a tractor? (that one always left the driver in the dust) Round baler? That you had to stop each time a bale came out. (Which prompted the development of the WD, which was what the WC should have been in the first place) We didn't see any Ford tractors around until the 800 series came out. Then a few showed up. We tried an 871 and it did a credible job pulling 3-14s but that was with max tire fluid and wheel weights on all fours. Glad we didn't buy one though, with the aptly named "SOS" transmission. At that same time Farmall had brought out their 460s and 560s, AC the D17 and John Deere would not be far behind with the 3010s and 4010s. Ford 6000s were a disaster. Although the Super Major and 5000 that followed were some of the best tractors ever made. One of my favorites from that era was the Oliver Super 88.
 
Innovation and market sucess are not directly related IMHO. I may get lynched for this but John Deere was far from the most innovative but they are still in business. They and some fortunate timing and built some quality equipment with overall good business practices. Ford was very innovative along with Oliver and IH. Everyone made contributions, some more than others.
 
Unfortunately in this world it is the promoters who have success. Superior products just do not sell themselves. Inferior products that get promoted heavily will sell well and may be a market leader. Cheap helps but heavily hyped overpriced products also sell well.

I hate that it is true, I'm an engineer and wish that people would recognize quality but for the most part they just don't. Even in industrial equipment, which should be immune to market hype and promotion, somehow marketing savvy seems to win out over quality.

The earlier discussions on Allis Chalmers provide a lot of insight. They made some of the best electric motors ever, and at reasonable prices. IH Solar gas turbines were the top of the mark in quality and durability. Pacific pipeline pumps (they didn't make farm equipment) same story. A few customers will be loyal for quality but the majority will follow price (dictated by the accountants) or promotion.

It used to drive me crazy to try to specify equipment to eliminate the junk. It's very hard to do, and with some CFO stating "if it meets the specifications why shouldn't we buy the lesser price?" Belarus tractors would be a decent agricultural example.

How many farmers only buy one color of green equipment all the way down to tools and chainsaws? Not based on performance.
 
Interesting thing about the Ford select-o-speed and it's inventor. Ford started selling it before he said it was ready to go to market. There was some sort of falling out or he quit or got fired and then was hired by John Deere. Designer was correct as Ford's was not ready yet and had problems. But Deere had the utmost of success with it in the finalized form.
 
If you want to read about innovation I highly recommend 50 years on Disruptive Innovation by Jon Kinzenbaw. Great story about the Kinzie company!
 
That is a good question. How many farmers bought a JD A in the mid 30s because it had a foot operated hydraulic power lift. No more manually lifting. How many guys bought an Oliver in the late 40s to get the live PTO for combining. How many guys bought a Case 500 diesel just so they didn't have to fool with pony motors or gas start diesels. Or did it even matter and guys just bought what was available from their nearest dealer no matter what color.
 
INNOVATION (at least in the case of farm tractors) is meaningless unless the final product has the GUTS to stay in one piece and stay in the field.

What KILLED AC in my area of the prairie was that they could not stand up to day-in-and-day-out heavy tillage use.

Every XT-190, 7060, 7080, etc. sold around here that I know of "ventilated" the engine or had tranny trouble. Repeatably, til they went down the road. The dealership didn't survive, either.

I personally know a couple of guys that were almost driven to bankruptcy paying shop bills.

I don't know of a single AC left around here 'cept for a few antiques.
 
The last years IH was independent they were very innovative, they finally came out with their power shift transmission that coupled to their superior engines made their tractor as good or better than any on the market, their combines, their air planters - but innovation couldn't overcome mismanagement or their antiquated assembly plants. A lot of their products from that era remained in production for two decades with minimal upgrades.
 
Unless I missed something full range powershift did not happen until the Magnum tractors after the merger. Anything else never got past being tested which means it never went into production.
 
Many bought a JD 720 diesel just because of the fuel economy ! They could pay for the tractor in short time with the money they saved on fuel.
 
There is something to being on the "bleeding edge." You are THE first, but learned a lot the hard and expensive way. Some of the more successful companies have been those that copied the good ideas early, or bought rights to said ideas. Examples with Deere- first hydraulics on trators (A in 1934), and ROPS (1966) but little else FIRST. Items such as power steering, live PTO, live hydraulics- not first, but earlier than many. Later ideas, like Roll o matic, the corn planter finger pickup, etc were purchased by Deere from their original inventor (usually farmers). The farmer did the R and D, and Deere marketed.

Deciding which idea to persue was also important- IH in the 50's had electrall- a very radical idea in the day, and one that is now resurfacing in corn planter technology. But how many were sold in the '50's??? It was a good idea, but one way ahead of it's time.
 
I hope you don't get lynched. John Deere is an old and well established company that wasn't a leader in innovation. What John Deere had and still has is good accounting, good product, and good marketing. I remember conversations in the 70's that JD lawn and garden line helped keep them afloat. That time was tough for several in the industry as we now know seeing MM, Oliver, AC, and even IH come to an end in a short 15 year span. MM and AC were definitely innovation leaders and some of what they struggled with now is common place.
If we look further back there are manufacturers that were innovative in the early years. The number of tractor manufacturers that were around in the teens to the 40's is staggering. Yet only a dozen or so survived through to the glory years of farming and most of those had acquired a struggling company with a good idea.

back to JD. I wonder how much money JD makes on clothing, toys, pillow slips?
 
Every company had their moment in the limelight. JD was the not the leader in innovation but neither was anybody else. Each left their mark on history.
 
(quoted from post at 15:30:40 04/28/16) Ford 6000s were a disaster.

I'd agree the early 6000s were a big problem but the later Commanders worked just fine. The SOS was in a word, awesome, unlike anything else at the time. We used one as our primary tillage tractor for many years until Dad retired and sold out the equipment in the early 70's.
 
I posted in an earlier thread that AC bought the rights to the All crop combine and the roto baler. IH bought the patents to the famous cylco planter. Most of the innovations from the main companies were bought from a farmer or smaller company. And I agree JD might not have been the first but most of the time they were not the last. Also, sometimes I have to look past the machine at some of the features too. I like to think JD made a big impact with the 55 combine. Was it the first modern self propelled combine on the market? No because IH, MH, and I think MM had one first. However, it was the first self propelled combine to have an inline design copied by everyone eventually, a variable speed propulsion drive, and retracting finger augers.
 
You are blurring the lines there. The transmission was the Syncro Tri Six. It was not a powershift. It might have turned into a powershift but only after the merger.
 
The odd to even(1-2,3-4,5-6) shifts are powershifts the even to odd shifts (2-3,4-5) you need to clutch. The 71-72-89 series Magnums are based on this transmission. Like I said their innovations went to be used for the next couple of decades.
 
The only IH powershift attempts that I heard of were a 12 speed that might have come into production about the time the 86 series tractors came out and a pre-Magnum that used a 466 IH engine with 88 series styling. I know things were not great for IH during the 1970's but not getting that into production baffles me a little. My understanding was the critical dimensions of this tractor were the same as an 86 series row crop so other than some internals nothing had to be redesigned.
 
Far as I know the only transmission you could get was the 8 or 16 speed depending on if it was TA equipped. I think the 12 speed you refer to was used in the 1566 and 1586 since they used a different transmission/rear end. Part of the reason why IH never did come out with a full powershift is back in the 60s they thought the hydro would be the answer to the successful powershift on the JD tractors.
 
I know all that. My cousin has a 5488. You said the 88 series used a powershift which a false. The operation of the Tri Six is similar to the JD quad range. They are partial powershift transmission. Neither the Tri Six or the powershift that showed up in the Magnums are innovative because those type of transmissions had been around for years before their introduction. You could say IH was the first with a successful partial powershift with the TA but they hung onto it way too long.
 
No, they did not have a 12 speed powershift on the market. I was trying to say they had some prototypes built that would have been a full powershift transmission having 12 speeds. I've seen drawings of the pre-Magnums but never anything on the 86 series powershift. Yes, the 1566 had a 12 speed but it was the traditional IH design with 3 speed combined with Hi-Lo and a TA. I just do not understand why the 12 speed PS never came out because the rest of the tractor was an 86 series so most components remained unchanged. All these manufacturers bought new releases of their competition so IH surely must have had some idea as to the cost of building a powershift. I was told by somebody who should know that IH considered the Hydro's too limited to suit a number of needs by the time the 56 series was winding down.
 
The JD 2 cylinders wouldn't be my first, second, or even third choice for an all around tractor to hay, seed, plow, any pto work, and any loader work. But were I live on the wheat plains in MT, the 2 cylinder diesels are tough to beat for heavy drawbar work, lugging ability, and fuel economy when raising small grains.
 
They did make the hydro all the way into the 88 series. Those are rare. I have a different cousin with a 1066 hydro. It has been a tough old tractor but the hydro is starting to slip. Problem with IH is they were just trying to do too much. Add in the strikes and other upheaval it was just a matter of time before they imploded. Instead of spending all that money on developing the 2+2s they should have refined their main lineup like using the powershift you mentioned.
 
As has oft been noted, you can always tell the pioneers: they are the ones laying dead with arrows in their backs.

Big Ag manufacturers like Deere know their customers and prefer to let the little innovators try out novel concepts before they enter the market. This is a tricky business: get on board with a new idea too quickly and you are viewed with contempt and suspicion by your verrry, verry conservative customers; get on board too late and you can lose market share to your (probably more agile) competition.
 
JD bought the patent rights to the overshot wooden hay stacker that my Grandpa invented sometime before 1918 when he moved to ND. My Dad's 1st cousin in Iowa patented the mechanism for a governor that JD bought; cousin received a royalty for many years on each of the JD 2-cylinder tractors that were built. That same cousin also designed something for the tracks for IH crawler tractors. He talked too much and didn't apply for a patent right away. A stranger came to his shop, claimed to be from IH and asked to see what he had designed. Stranger made notes, took pics and left. Cousin tried to apply for a patent after the stranger left, only to find that the stranger had already applied for the patent in his name.

Moral: If you are an inventor, keep your developments to yourself and apply for a patent as soon as you can meet the requirement - - after you have applied for the patent, THEN you can tell everyone about what you invented!
 
Yes, they did make Hydro's all the way to the 88 series but I was saying that the engineers felt the Hydro was limited by the time the 56 series was ending so effort was made into designing a powershift. Depending on who's story you listen to IH was tinkering with powershifts right after the JD 4020 came out. No doubt the Hydro was pushed to give IH a marketing exclusive during the 1960's. I don't know how much any of this would have mattered because the good financial condition of Deere coupled with its financial division meant Deere could swing deals on tractors where their competition could not. My understanding was Ford was horrendous in terms of financing during the 1970's and 1980's. IH no doubt had to be hamstrung on financing.
 
Innovation/R&D both have always had their hands tied by bean counters and marketing but on the other hand, sometimes marketing knows what consumers want or what a certain "fad" is before R&D does. Lots of companies believe in "reverse engineering" because it's usually less risky. It's expensive to to engineer based on farmer input because it naturally is going to change often but it is usually pretty risk free also. Lot of companies went under trying to tell consumers what they "should" buy. These days of a non-existent anti-trust department and hence pending monopolies have changed that also.
 
That is why your perception and my perception of AC vary. AC had quite a following with a number of popular dealers here. But how the tractors were used differed. Most AC's sold here went to small dairy farms where tillage was a minor activity for those farms. Most of them ran manure spreaders, cut hay, and made forage. AS noted most AC's were not user friendly especially for PTO work but most old timers told me that they could be bought considerably cheaper than a Farmall and that is what counted most. I suppose if their WD's were in the shop a lot then they would be singing a different tune. Dad's father had health issues during those years so he was willing to pay for something that was easy on the hands, arms, legs, etc. which is why he bought Farmall or Oliver.
 
(quoted from post at 13:32:26 04/28/16) That is why your perception and my perception of AC vary. AC had quite a following with a number of popular dealers here. But how the tractors were used differed. Most AC's sold here went to small dairy farms where tillage was a minor activity for those farms. Most of them ran manure spreaders, cut hay, and made forage. AS noted most AC's were not user friendly especially for PTO work but most old timers told me that they could be bought considerably cheaper than a Farmall and that is what counted most. I suppose if their WD's were in the shop a lot then they would be singing a different tune. Dad's father had health issues during those years so he was willing to pay for something that was easy on the hands, arms, legs, etc. which is why he bought Farmall or Oliver.

That was one thing I noticed around the country back in the 70's. Some areas had AC, MF, Case or Ford in abundance but in other areas it was IH or JD. It all boiled down to the dealer. Good dealer with parts on hand who provided good support sold tractors and implements. Dealers that didn't provide that support just didn't sell as much.

Now do I think innovations sold stuff? Sure to a certain point. But after WWII a lot of it was guys who grew up in the depression. Price point was key to a lot of them. They sold a ton of N series Fords because of the price. N with a one bottom was still faster than a horse!

RIck

Rick
 
I agree with your statement about John Deere. They lifted many of their "innovations" from the other manufacturers and presented them as their own. Their main strength was and is marketing. They wrote the book about marketing. Not knocking JD. I own quite a bit of their machinery.
 
I'm not saying they were a bad tractor. But a hand clutch on a tractor with a loader?? No thanks. Running PTO equipment with a 2 cylinder especially a big thumper like the 720 no thanks. I know a lot of guys used a 2 cylinder in those situations but it doesn't mean I would have too. Ideally I would take a big 2 cylinder diesel for tillage and a Farmall or Oliver for everything else.
 
No but he has to use the clutch when going from 2 to 3 therefore it is not a full powershift. Can you go from 1st to the last gear without using the clutch on a 5X88 series? IH themselves called the transmission a SYNCRO Tri Six. I emphasize the word "syncro." A syncro transmission is not a full powershift. The Tri Six was a more refined version of a transmission that JD had in production since the early 70s.
 
The man you are thinking about was Harold Brock. Chief engineer for Ford tractors. He oversaw many of the changes of the 9,2,and 8-N's. Harold was aganist the early sales of the SOS transimisson, however while he was gone Henry ford jr ordered it into production,( at a large cost when they failed). Brock was fired from Ford and went to work at Deere where he helped to develop JD's powershift. Ford's loss was JD's gain.
Brock interview
 
Raw innovation is often the territory of smaller manufacturers, the concept of developing something new and bringing it to market before the competition was they way many smaller businesses stayed viable against larger competitors. The downside is when their innovation doesn't work it often means the end of the company.

General Motors was a company that tried innovation in the twenties and it didn't work (read about the copper cooled Chevy), it almost put them out of business, they went years without serious innovation but instead watched the competition and learned from their innovations and often when it was time for them to bring out their version they had improved the product and had a better one than the competitors.Sometimes they didn't,(think Corvair or GM mini-vans). Some of you GM lovers out there will scream about these statements. Picture the innovations GM introduced to the market in the 60's and 70's, the Corvair (a copy of a VW they got wrong, didn't use the right gaskets so they leaked oil a lot), the aluminium V-8 (Oldsmobile & Buick) The Early Pontiac Tempest with the "rope" drive shaft and a transaxle in the back, the Oldsmobile Toronado, the Pontiac OHC six cylinder engine, the Chevy Vega with the sleeveless aluminium engine and their crowning achievement of the 1970's the Oldsmobile Diesel. I'm counting 2 for 7 and one of those was only a success after they sold it to the British and they tweaked it a bit. The most significant achievement they ever made was the automatic transmission with a fluid coupling/torque converter and you could argue that was really an improvement of the Ford Model "T" transmission and if Henry was at all interested in innovation Ford would of been their first, instead he focused on screwing up Edsel's life, not spending any money on product development, keeping the union at bay, promoting anti-Jewish sentiments, running a newspaper to promote his off the wall ideas, fighting with his stock holders until he was able to buy them out and in the end running the company to the verge of bankruptcy.

SO GM got very good at developing other people's ideas and actually had a process to identify, purchase and then using their capital and management resources significantly grow the company this is how they got such products as Detroit Diesel, Allison, Terex, EMD/Electro Motive Division and NAA (North American Aviation). This is a process not to dissimilar from John Deere's.

Large companies become risk adverse and are often afraid of breaking new ground, they get complacent and want to rest on their laurels, examples are International Harvester, Ford Motor Company (1920's), Sears & Roebuck, Colt firearms (revolvers, they had a patent so they didn't compete, once their patent was up others jumped in the market with cartridge loaded revolvers)

Sometimes necessity is the mother of innovation. I think the only reason that Chrysler is still kind of around is the Minivan, it was a concept they were first to market with and others had to play catch-up. Eventually GM and Ford both came out with Minivans, Chrysler upped the ante with dual sliding doors and stow 'n go seating. Ford was late to the game and I don't really think GM came anywhere close. We could even argue Chrysler's current position is a result of no new innovations since the minivan or the K car.

Sometimes businesses end up mismanaged and or innovation takes up to much of the company's budget, they don't have the money to innovate and they wither and die with no new products. Andre Citroen was a French automaker, he developed a radically innovative car called the Traction Avant, unfortunately in the process of developing the car he bankrupted the company and lost control of it, the new owners made a tidy sum selling Traction Avants.

Innovation is good for a company if they continue to get hits instead of flops, although some of it is knowing when to quit, some of it is knowing your market, what your customers want or need and being able to develop, produce and deliver products that satisfy the needs and wants of the customer at a price that they can afford.
 
No one has mentioned the one true innovation brought by both John Deere and GM - loaning you the money right at the dealer. The JD Finane Plan and GMAC sold more stuff than the engineering did.
 
Using that criteria no manufacturers produce a "real" powershift in 1981.


It was innovative in that is went on to be one of the better powershift transmissions for the next 20 years.
 
Very true. In fact GMAC was fine in 2008 while the taxpayers got stuck paying billions for "old" GMC.
 
The IH has 18 gears to power shift between and the JD only has 8 - is that really the comparison you want to make?
 
You can't shift between all 18 gears on the IH without using clutch. That is not a full power shift transmission. Do you understand that? JD 8 speed can be shifted between all gears withou clutching therefore it is a powershift transmission. Do you understand that?
 

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