1. Could you tell us a bit more about your background and your role at Deer & Company?

Throughout my career, I was involved in Advanced Materials, Design, Analysis, and Testing. In my early career, worked heavily in bringing structural composites into Deere products and had more than 9 patents in this area.Also, developed a methodology for predicting fatigue lives for Plastics and composites, trade secret at Deere. Later on, lead team in Advanced Materials, Mechanics, and modeling and Simulation.

2. What specific challenges do you face as a heavy machinery manufacturer when it comes to lightweighting?

John Deere is an innovative company with processes to deal with most materials, manufacturing, PVV, and the rest of supply chain when it comes to lightweighting. Our industry, however, is different than Aerospace and automotive where the value of $/pound is easily calculated for value added in design.

3. What materials do you see offering high potential lightweighting solutions to the heavy industry players?

All materials have a place in design, the question is what is the value proposition and is the supply chain available for low/high volumes.

4. What new technologies/manufacturing solutions are you interested in?

Deployment of AL, Mg, and CFRP and all the joining methods.

5. You’ve attended events in the GALM series before, including Lightweight Vehicle Manufacturing conference in the past. This year you will be joining as a panelist. How have you benefited from the event in the past?

Definitely, it is always a benefit to collaborate and benchmark what other industries are doing in the same space. Also, the suppliers exhibits are very useful in idea generation.