Firstly, I would like to thank Massey Ferguson Spain staff (Enrique, Raúl, Verónica, Gema,...) for the fantastic trip that they organized for the days 15, 16 and 17 of February in order to can visit the Massey Ferguson plant in Beauvais (France). The organization and planning was extraordinary... We will remember the trip forever. Besides, we would like to thank the plant guide, he is a Spaniard who has been working there for a long time, more than 40 years and in the next months, he will come back his lovely Spain. Antonio, you explained the process in the best possible way.
The trip began on February 15th in the airport Adolfo Suárez Madrid-Barajas where the group was joined (Alberto and his father, Jose Enrique and his wife, Marcos, Baldomero, Jorge and his wife, Raúl and we "Twin's Farm") with the aim of traveling to París. All of us spent the night there, in Paris, where we spent the following day enjoying the fantastic tour around the "City of Love". We had time to go for a walk through its fantastic streets and visit the most important places of the city (Eiffel Tower, Louvre Museum, Notre Dame Cathedral, the Champs Elysées, Concord Square,... ). At midday, we had lunch in the famous restaurant Chartier. In the afternoon we had free time to visit each one whatever we preferred. After that, we travelled to Beauvais. It is a nice village, which is placed at a distance from Paris of 70km. There, the Massey Ferguson factories are located (Beauvais and Beauvais 2). To end the 16th of February, we had dinner in a fantastic restaurant in front of Beauvais Cathedral.
The 17th of February was the main journey; the day began early since at 8:00 we were at the Massey Ferguson factory where our guide (Antonio) was waiting for us to show the Spanish group every detail of Massey Ferguson factory and Gima factory. Both factories are located in 25he enclosure where about 2,300 employees work (350 engineers for R & D, design, testing ...).
The first place we visited was the robotized warehouse where they store all the pieces that they receive and then are supplied to the assembly line. All parts are marked with a traceability code.
After that, we visited Gima factory where the Dyna4 and Dyna6 gearboxes are manufactured, which are built by both the Massey Ferguson and Claas tractors. Gima is a company of Agco and Claas. The production is shared between them with a percentage of 70% for Massey Ferguson and 30% for Claas. It was really interesting to see how they make all the sprockets, axles... of the gearboxes. For the Massey Ferguson DynaVT models they use the Vario gearbox from Fendt. These arrive from Marktoberdorf (Germany). Around 20% of these gearboxes came back to Germany after the completion of their assembly in Beauvais.
The plant can manufacture up to 130 tractors per day (about 16,000 tractors per year). Currently, they are manufacturing about 53 tractors per day. We were surprised at the work environment because it was absolutely professional but relaxed. For years, the factory has had a Japanese working methodology, where the directors have a meeting at the beginning of the day with the aim of evaluating the work to be performed with the data from the previous days. Each director has another meeting later with his team.
Afterward, we visited the assembly line where all the Massey Ferguson tractors of high performance are assembled like the Valtra S series, some models of Challenger and Iseki brand. All tractors that are manufactured there are only available upon request. It works in only one shift from 7:30 to 16:45(with a stop of 45 minutes to have lunch and several breaks of 10 minutes in order to rest). This line never works in several shifts on the assembly line. If more production is required, more staff are hired. The assembly line is composed of different small workshops where the components are ready before being assembled on the tractor. It is very curious to see how from the casing of the gearbox the pieces are assembled and at the end you can contemplate the tractor 100% finished. We could sum up the order of assembly: gearbox and rear, clutch, engine, front axle, front lift, paint zone, exhaust system, cooling system, rear lift, cabin, fluids (oils, diesel, adblue, gas air conditioning ...), bonnet, wheels, user manual and test bench.
The factory receives around 6,000 visitors per year and in 2016 was awarded “Best Factory of the Year” which is a prestigious prize in France.
Finally, we visited the factory where the cabins are manufactured (Beauvais 2). You can see photos here of our previous trip to this plant in the event "Vision of the future 2014". In this place, which is located a few kilometers from the assembly line, there are working about 250 employees. It is a factory that took into account the experiences of the employees for its design... for example, it can be highlighted the idea of putting the roof of the cabin in the final steps so as having more working light inside. Apart from that, the chassis of the cabin and the glass come from Germany. In France they are finished and tested to check that everything works perfectly. The number of production cabins is the same as the number of tractors that are manufactured.
Without any doubt, it was a fantastic experience for any farmer or fun of agricultural machinery. THANK YOU!!.
Versión en español.
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