Duluth-based AGCO Corp. has tractor factories all over the world, from Europe to China and Mexico to Brazil, and many places in between.
But it doesn’t have a manufacturing presence in a state that made its German leader feel welcome enough to establish a headquarters here — at least not yet.
Martin Richenhagen, the company’s 65-year-old chairman and chief executive, said he hasn’t given up on achieving that dream before retirement.
The idea didn’t come from former Gov. Sonny Perdue, who is now in hearings to determine whether he will be confirmed as the next U.S. secretary of agriculture. But Mr. Perdue did water the seed already planted in Mr. Richenhagen’s mind.
Early in Mr. Richenhagen’s time in Georgia, Mr. Perdue invited him on a quail hunt. When he demurred for lack of a hunting license, the governor gave him a lesson on how to get things done in the South.
“He called me and he said, ‘Son, in Georgia we have men and sissies. Men hunt; sissies don’t.’”
Mr. Richenhagen got some laughs when he shared that tidbit at the end of a keynote speech at the Gwinnett Chamber of Commerce’s Movers and Makers awards breakfast, an annual celebration of manufacturers and supply chain that drew 300 people in its sixth year.
Gwinnett itself and Georgia as a whole have a leg up on economic development, he said, just because they make people feel at home.
“It’s a special mentality and culture we have. People here are friendly, they’re open, they like to communicate,” he said, contrasting it with when the feeling he has upon returning to Europe. “It’s a service desert, and I think here in the South we are completely different.
In his speech, Mr. Richenhagen outlined AGCO’s growing orientation toward “precision farming,” using technology to help farmers feed the world.
Data collected by the tractor and other connected hardware filters into AGCO’s FUSE software platform, enabling more intelligent decisions on planting and harvesting. On the factory floor, the company is using Google Glass, the connected lenses that failed to take off in the consumer space, for quality checks and diagnostics. Soon, “lifestyle farmers” — those who just want to have fun with a tractor — will be able to buy one on Amazon.com that will be delivered to their doorstep within days.
This is all an effort to prepare for a world that will likely need to double food production through mechanization as the population approaches 10 billion by 2050, Mr. Richenhagen said. In Africa, 1 billion people will turn into 2 billion by 2040 — one reason that AGCO has put in a “future farm” in Zambia to teach the continent’s largely subsistence growers about modern farming.
The company is also planning a conference allowing U.S.-based ag-tech startups to pitch their products to AGCO.
These lessons and best practices were well-received in an audience containing many manufacturing firms, a good portion of which happened to be subsidiaries of foreign companies. That’s not exactly surprising in Gwinnett, which is home to more than 600 international firms.
The three manufacturing winners for 2017 included:
- Small Manufacturer of the Year Winner (1-99 employees): KRAIBURG TPE (Germany)
- Medium Manufacturer of the Year Winner (100-199 employees): Rehrig Pacific Company
- Large Manufacturer of the Year Winner (200+ employees): OFS (Japan)
The two supply chain winners for 2017 included:
- Supply Chain Pioneer of the Year Award Winner: PAI Industries, Inc. (American company owned by Iranian immigrants)
- Corporate Citizen Award Winner: NIDEC ELESYS AMERICAS (Japan)
The MVP, Most Valuable Provider to the manufacturing and supply chain industries, this year went to Burgess Manufacturing.
Honorable mentions in included, from small to large manufacturer: MurrElektronik (Germany) Habasit (Switzerland) and Viasat.
Mr. Richenhagen, while mostly positive, did point out areas for improvement. Gwinnett could use some better restaurants, more east-west roads to improve traffic, and maybe a fast-train to the Atlanta airport. That last one might be tough for a county that has resisted Marta expansion.
Learn more about the awards and the Partnership Gwinnett here.
