Claas Fulfils 100 years of life

'Claas Occupies of his customers and never disappoints them'. This principle, that guided to the founder of the company, August Claas, keeps on being valid nowadays. But the small business that founded 100 years ago has turned into a company multinational with offices and delegations of sales in more than 100 countries. As it always has been the case, Claas is a company with a direct participation of the family, and like this shows it the fact that Helmut Claas was the president of the board of shareholders, his daughter Cathrina Claas-Mühlhäuser president of the board of directors, and that representing the others two proprietary families find Reinhold Claas and Günther Claas.

Thanks to the 'anudador' and to other pioneering developments like the system Pick-up, the first cosechadora European MDB or the picadora of forraje Jaguar carried to Claas to conquer the world of the technology of harvest. The question of 'What will harvest en el futuro, how and where?' It carries to the companies to work continuously in the development of the agricultural machinery. Nowadays, the company has 9.000 workers, and in 2012 had a turnover of 3,4 trillion euros.

August Claas, founder of the company, beside the historical cosechadora Senator.

In 1913, August Claas founded a company to manufacture agavilladoras of straw and inscribed it in the register of the administrative authority of Herzebrock. When his brothers Bernhard and Franz joined to the company in 1914 –afterwards also would do it Theo Claas, the more youngster of the four brothers–, the company adopted the name of 'Gebrüder Claas' (Brothers Claas).

In 1919, at the end of the First World War, bought an ancient quarry in Harsewinkel, where manufactured agavilladoras of straw, the same business that venian developing until then. The 'anudador', that was developed and patented in 1921 and was a mechanical device to realise perfect knots, turned into a fixed part of the machinery and facilitated the transition of a small business to an in series industrial production that carried to the company of success in success.

In the decade of 1920, the brothers expanded the business and began to manufacture also fertiliser spreaders and, later, the presses for straw. The professor Vormfelde, defender of the cosechadoras for the European conditions, convinced to the brothers Claas to develop a cosechadora that went adapted for the conditions of our continent. In 1932, the agricultural engineer of Bonn and his assistant, Walter Brenner, already found in full development of a prototype of cosechadora, first with a bar of leading cutting mounted around a tractor. However, his attempt to carry the prototypes to the market in collaboration with other manufacturers failed. It was then when August Claas decided to go in solitary: “Then we will do it by our account” After the first proofs with the bar of cut, began to work in Harsewinkel in the development of the first cosechadora dragged. In 1936, the first segadora-trilladora-agavilladora (MDB), dragged by a tractor, was guided through the fields of Zschernitz (Sajonia), a year afterwards would begin his production in series. Since, this cosechadora has been inseparablemente joined to the name of Claas and is this machine in particular, to which the company owe his size and international importance.

To the first segadora-trilladora-agavilladora (MDB), dragged by a tractor, has to him Claas his size and international importance.

Already before the First World War, August Claas had had one an agency of representation of agricultural machinery in the Dutch city of Zytphen, devoted on sale of the agavilladoras of straw. This relation of businesses with Claas restarted in 1920. The payments of repair of Germany to the neighbouring countries formed the base for future businesses of export with agavilladoras of straw, especially to France and Belgium. Also there was an increase of the foreign demand of the empacadora of straw manufactured from 1931 and the pick-up produced from 1933/34 –mainly of Europe, as well as Canada and New Zealand–.

Like procuradora, the wife of Augustus Claas, Paula, occupied of the foreign business of 'Brothers Claas' from 1930, when it joined formally to the company. The graduate in administration of companies knew to his future husband in the agricultural fair of Leipzig where worked like interpreter when it still was a student. It was also thanks to his excellent knowledge of the foreign tongues that Paula Claas played a key paper in a business increasingly internacionalizado. She commissioned to keep the contact with the foreign representatives and always accompanied to his husband to all the important international exhibitions.

The Second World War put end to the activity of export, but no to the spirit of innovation. Although the government decreed in 1943 that only could be manufactured armament, what meant that the production of cosechadoras had to be detained, the work continued in the installations of Claas. The cosechadora Super realised his first proofs around the farms of Sajonia and Westfalia in 1943. Thanks to an order of the established military commando British for a recolección urgent in the devastated west region of the Rin in the summer of 1946, the new machine began to produce in series. A cosechadora Super confiscated this same year by the British convinced to the Department of British Agriculture and drove to the export of a greater number of units in the following year. Several cientos of cosechadoras followed the same way in 1948/1949, until the company it established firmly in Great Britain.

With the cosechadora Super, Claas gave the first big jump to the international markets after the Second World War.

They did new sendings to France, Belgium and Holland. The assistance to many of the international agricultural fairs in Paris, Brussels or Great Britain turned into a corporate routine for Claas. In a principle, the machines sold through representatives of the mark and afterwards looked for the suitable distributors in the distinct countries. In a back stage, signed agreements with importing global and established a series of subsidiaries. At the beginning of the decade of 1950, Claas enjoyed of an excellent reputation all over the world. In 1952, the company and his products were present in around 30 countries, included the main markets of Europe, south America, parts of Africa and Middle East.

Claas Received his first request of Canada in 1952. The cosechadora Super had impressesed to the Canadian agriculturalists, since no only could cut, but it also could prensar the straw. The Super used in South Africa for the first time in 1954, and developed commercial relations also with Kenia, Zimbabwe and Sudan. In north Africa, Claas exported to Algeria, Morocco, Tunisia and Libya. The available countries more important in Middle East were Iraq, Iran, Syria and Saudi Arabia. The Australians also were persuaded by the merits of the cosechadora Super in an exhibition of agricultural machinery in Perth in 1952.

Helmut Claas, son of the founder of the company, had joined to the division of Technology (development and production) of the company in 1958. Together with his father, with the one who shared the passion by the technology, travelled to Sudamérica with the end to identify the potential of application of the machinery Claas in Uruguay, Argentina and Brazil, and to initiate businesses of export there.

The cosechadora for canes of sugar was one of the big milestones to go in in the tropical markets and sub-tropical.

A strategic point abroad was the plant of balers that went in in production in 1962 in the French city of Metz. Today –together with Claas Bad Saulgau in the German region of Suabia– follows oriented to the sector of machinery of harvest. Two companies, Bautz and Speiser, purchased by Claas in 1969, exert an important paper in the history of Claas Saulgau.

At the beginning of the decade of 1960, the production in Harsewinkel was working to full capacity, but there were other markets where was necessary to establish, like United States. Claas Treated initially to disembark there by means of the celebration of an agreement with Ford. In 1965, the division of tractors of the Ford Engine Company achieved the available rights of the cosechadoras Claas for all the North American market, including Mexico. However, the sales were so slow, that in 1969 Claas established his own company of sales, Claas of America (COA), in Columbus, Indiana. Later, Claas closed a joint-venture with the American company Caterpillar (CAT), with the end to increase and ensure the sales of cosechadoras on a long-term basis. In 1969 it placed the first stone of the factory of cosechadoras in North America and put in operation two years afterwards. In virtue of an agreement signed with Cuba, Claas developed a cosechadora for cane of sugar, specifically designed for the tropical countries and subtropicales. In 1972, it went in his production in series and few years later, the machines already were using all over the world.

Since the east block was totally isolated until 1990, Claas had very few opportunities to create relations of business there. Although it assisted to exhibitions in Moscow and Kiev –and this gave place to requests of machinery with ends of proof–, there were not orders of request.

In Hungary, Claas is the only western manufacturer in operation from 1969. Until the moment in that it arrived the fall of the Wall in 1989, already had sold around 5.000 cosechadoras. After the fall of the curtain of steel, the markets could open eastwards. In addition to the countries centroeuropeos like Poland, Hungary or Bulgaria, countries that before formed part of the Soviet Union also showed an interest in the products Claas. This carried to the designation of importing or general distributors of the distinct countries. It created a central warehouse of spare pieces in Moscow and, in 1997, Claas opened a plant in the Hungarian city of Törökszentmiklós, to the sudeste of Budapest.

In the decade of 1990, the Russian markets did increasingly important, although only it went by the competitive advantage in the world-wide production of grain. In 2005, Claas opened his own plant of cosechadoras in the city of Krasnodar, in the middle of the belt of the grain in Russia, turning into the first western manufacturer of agricultural technology that had his own plant of production in Russia.

Krasnodar Turned into the first plant of production of a western manufacturer of agricultural technology in Russia.

To finals of the decade of 1980, Claas developed a small machine for the harvest of the rice, the Crop Tiger, especially for the Asian market. From 1992, this cosechadora began to manufacture in Faridabad, near of the capital of the Indian, New Delhi, and envoy south of the Indian, Sri Lanka, South Korea and other countries of the sudeste Asian. Nowadays, these machines manufacture in the factory that Claas inaugurated in 2008 in the city of Chandigarh, north of the Indian.

With the Crop Tiger, Claas coquistó the Asian market in the decade of 1990.

At present, the machines Claas can find in the fields of all the world. In the last 100 years, the small business that established in Harsewinkel has happened to turn into a company multinational, present in all the markets of the world and that has his own plants of production and delegations of sales in crowd of countries. The relation of work between the family founder and his partners, that bases in the confidence, keeps on being an angular stone of the corporate culture. The adoption of an approach consolidated, the constant will to open new ways, the continuity and the internacionalidad mark nowadays the way of the German multinational. As in the past, the family Claas follows closely involved in the company.

Claas Is especially concerned for boosting the development of the next generation. Through the Foundation Claas, that established in 1999, the company is offering stimulus to scientific youngsters. The scholarship of Helmut Claas offers support to the people that study in the field of the engineering and the business gestión. On the base of the convicción that the talent does not recognise to time, the foundation caters to the primary schools and gardens of children with kits called of  discovery, that can use to realise simple scientific experiments and technicians. Besides, they have established centres of investigation of students in the German places of Bad Saulgau and Osnabrück.

Aerial sight of the central headquarters of Harsewinkel in 2004.

It has arrived to agreements with numerous national and international schools, since the collaboration with the science and the investigation offers important results for the technical development of the products Claas, for example in the field of alternative units or in relation with the use of the new technologies of the information for the crop of the floor. The paper of the investigation in the technologies of the future is increasingly important, and in view of the fast growth of the world-wide population, the advances in the agriculture and the agricultural engineering is, according to Claas, simply vital for the survival.