Claas narrows lines and expands capacity

When Claas began building its first mower/thresher/binder units in the late 1930s, it would have been hard to imagine that the progeny of these machines would be constructed inside a facility that has 54 acres under a roof.

It also would have been hard to imagine machines this big; the hopper doors wouldn’t have been able to open under the roof. In fact, the harvesters didn’t even have doors — or hoppers, for that matter.

The 110-year-old company has just updated its combine facility in Harsewinkel, Germany, much of which dated back to the early 1950s.

While most of the largest Lexion machines that North American farmers are familiar with hail from the Claas of America factory in Omaha, Nebraska, more than 50 percent of those machine’s 15,000 or so parts are assembled there, the company produces a wide range of machines in its European headquarters in Germany.