Deere-Topcon machine control alliance

Deere construction and forestry equipment division has announced a strategic alliance with Topcon to sell, support, and factory-install Topcon's 3D-MC² grade control solutions on John Deere dozers and graders.

"The alliance with Topcon will allow our equipment owners to utilize a factory-installed grade control system that maximizes productivity, uptime and lowers daily operating costs on the worksite," said Domenic Ruccolo, senior vice president of sales and marketing at John Deere Construction & Forestry. "John Deere's approach to integrated grade control provides the customer with great flexibility. Topcon products will allow customers to experience faster delivery of their grade control-equipped machine, receive a factory-inspected system and benefit from an expanded level of customer support."

Despite the closer ties with Topcon, John Deere says it will maintains its open architecture approach, meaning machines will continue to work with any brand of grade control system, including Trimble and Leica.

"We are very pleased with this agreement which brings our leading grade control technology to John Deere Construction equipment on a broader scale," said Jamie Williamson, senior vice president and general manager of Topcon's Construction Business Unit. "We believe this alliance will provide John Deere and Topcon customers the utmost quality in grade control technology and productivity on the job. John Deere and Topcon will work together to add value to integrated grade control systems through advanced, highly-integrated features in the future."

Factory-installed options available for the Topcon system will include single or twin antenna versions, and six receiver options including multi-constellation global navigation satellite system (GNSS) that make us of the US GPS satellite navigation system, among others. The alliance will initially be rolled out in the US and Canada, with Latin America, Russia, China and Southeast Asia following.