Cnh Industrial chooses Turin as its European headquarters and focuses heavily on Italy for research and development: of the 240 million euros a year that the group invests, 100 are directed to Modena, the largest European research center for tractors medium power. “We are in the heart of the moter valley where there are not only supercars, but also high-tech agricultural vehicles” says the president of the group, for the EMEA area, Carlo Alberto Sisto who then announces an “increase in the workforce in Italy, thanks also to new partnerships with schools and universities to attract talent ”and“ the construction of a new headquarters in Turin which will house our 1,200 employees ”. A building that will be ready by the end of 2023 with an investment of around 10 million euros.
During a meeting with the press, in the Piedmontese capital, the manager then took stock of the group’s strategy – ten brands, approximately 37,700 employees, turnover of 20 billion dollars, 42 plants worldwide with 30 research and development centers – also explaining how important Modena is, where the Dynamic Driving Simulator, a ‘virtual’ simulator for tractor tests, will be inaugurated in the autumn.
In the meantime, the manager does not hide the difficulties of the moment: «We struggle every day to find the materials necessary for the production of the machines. The demand for vehicles is very high, we have orders until the first quarter of next year, but the components are missing. To overcome the problem we are expanding the supply chain ».
The real challenge of Sisto, however, is entirely technological thanks also to the purchase – last year – of Raven: “We work for self-driving vehicles, but above all to be able to collect and analyze data in order to rationalize consumption”. Basically, the chips present on Cnh tractors allow us to analyze the quality and needs of the crop so as to understand how much water and how many fertilizers are needed: «If a plant does not need water, why waste it? We want to go from a rain irrigation to a scientific one, drop by drop ». A fundamental turning point, while drought threatens to desertify Italian agricultural land.
The group also works for clean vehicles: «The EU directive banning diesel cars does not concern us, but we want to be ready. We work with methane, gas and for electric vehicles. Starting with the smallest tractors ».
The Jesi plant remains a flagship, where more than a thousand people work and 20,000 tractors are produced per year, of which 70% is exported abroad and that of Lecce, where earth-moving machines are made (about 20,000 pieces per year) with over 650 employees which turns 50 this year. The latest reality is San Piero in Bagno (Forlì) where earth-moving machinery is produced, the result of the acquisition of Sampierana at the end of 2021, with 350 workers.
As for the war in Ukraine, Sisto stressed that it is “first of all a humanitarian emergency for which we immediately worked”, while on the production front there will be no impact on the 2022 accounts: “In Russia where we do business assembly – he explained – we stopped the production site on February 25th. at this time we do not even ship a bolt. There have been no layoffs, but our 200 employees are at home ». In Ukraine Cnh Industrial has resumed its activity for both the sowing season and for the harvest: “We are close to customers so that they can harvest the grain and to our employees”.