DEERE & CO. ANNOUNCES $126.9 MILLION REDEVELOPMENT

The investment of $126.9 million in capital and expenses will take place over the next four years at John Deere's Westfield Avenue and Donald Street sites in Waterloo - which partner to manufacture farm tractors, the company's signature products.

"The result of these redevelopment efforts will be a tractor manufacturing operation that provides considerably faster response time to our customers and significantly increased value to our shareholders," said Mike Triplett, general manger of the Waterloo Works.  "We believe these investments represent a substantial commitment to Deere's Waterloo Operations, to our employees and their families, as well as the Waterloo community and the entire Cedar Valley area."

As part of the plan, flow manufacturing and new technology will be utilized at a redeveloped Westfield Avenue site, which began operation in 1918.  That site will relocate out of multi-story buildings into a single-story environment.

The redeveloped site will utilize four buildings instead of the current 10 and will require significantly less manufacturing space that the current layout.  This will improve efficiencies at John Deere's machining and drive train manufacturing operation that are located in the Westfield Avenue facility.

"While we are making these major physical changes to our facilities and dramatically updating our manufacturing technology, we will also be incorporating a state of the art manufacturing concept called lean manufacturing," Triplett said.  "This concept has proven highly successful in eliminating waste in many other industries including some of the leading automotive companies."

The larger share of the investment comes at the Westfield Avenue facility.  However, the company's new Donald Street site, which began in 1980, will also benefit by replacing fixed manufacturing structures with a flexible and responsive flow manufacturing environment, as well as automating the fabrication and welding of the operator station frame.

At Donald Street, employees perform final assembly on John Deere farm tractors that have been sold on six continents.  Changes in the Donald street operation will improve assembly methods for John Deere employees and help the company better respond to production schedules mandated by market demand.

This major redevelopment effort targets the Westfield Avenue and Donald Street locations.  The company said it would continue to invest in other Waterloo facilities including the Foundry, the Service Parts Operation, the Product Engineering center and the Engine Works.  

"As we told our employees this morning, this is truly the most exciting time to be working for John Deere and especially for John Deere in Waterloo," said Triplett.

Work on the redevelopment plan begins in 2001 and all phases should be completed by 2005.  

John Deere is the world's premier producer of agricultural equipment; a leading manufacturer of construction, forestry, commercial and consumer equipment; and a business leader in parts, engines, financial services and special technologies.

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