FandMmag.com |

John Deere is a leader in providing advanced products and services for agriculture, forestry, construction, lawn and turf care, landscaping and irrigation. The company also provides financial services worldwide and manufactures and markets engines used in heavy equipment. Since it was founded in 1837, the company has extended its heritage of integrity, quality, commitment and innovation around the globe.

John Deere has been doing business in Russia for more than 100 years and has recently invested to expand operations, employment and sales in the Russian Federation. Today, Deere's dealer partners span the major agricultural and forestry regions. In total, Deere has a network of more than 70 sales locations across the country with employment in Russia at Deere and its independent dealerships approaching 2000 people.

Deere opened a forestry sales branch in Saint Petersburg in 2002; an agricultural sales branch in Moscow in 2003; a manufacturing facility for seeding equipment in Orenburg in 2005; and added construction equipment sales to the Moscow branch operations in 2009. The company also has announced its intention to develop an operations and training center in Kaluga. www.deere.com

DELCAM PLC (BIRMINGHAM, UK) . . .

the CADCAM developer has maintained its industry-leading levels of research and development expenditure during the first half of 2009, despite feeling the effects of the global economic downturn. The company invested over £4.7 million in R&D during the period, a small increase from the £4.5 million invested in the first half of 2008. This strategy is in marked contrast with some other suppliers in the CAM market, which have cut their investment in development as their sales have fallen.

Delcam also continues to invest in other areas of its business, including the opening of a new Professional Services Group and the addition of a large five-axis machine tool in its Tooling Services Division. Sales during the opening six months of 2009 were £16.1 million, less than 5 percent down from the £16.9 million achieved in the equivalent period last year. This reflects the very challenging market conditions that saw the company’s manufacturing customer base deferring its expenditure on software.

Within this total, recurring maintenance revenues, derived from software maintenance and support contracts, increased by 13 percent to £5.8 million compared with £5.1 million in the first half of 2008. This increase shows the value that customers put in the regular upgrades to the company’s software and the high quality of the technical support provided.

Despite the fall in sales and its continued high levels of R&D expenditure, the company has remained profitable. Pre-tax tax profit for the first six months of 2009 was £0.3 million, against £1.4 million in the first half of 2008. Net cash at the end of the period was a very healthy £5.8 million. This financial strength will leave the company well placed to take full advantage of any improvement in market conditions.

Commenting on the results, Delcam chairman Peter Miles said, "Reflecting the global financial and economic crisis, the trading environment in 2009 has been challenging and the impact of the downturn in the manufacturing sector has been even harder than we initially anticipated at the end of last year. With many companies postponing their investments in capital equipment, it is to be expected that the associated software sales should also be delayed. Given our strong financial position and high level of recurring income, we believe that the business is well placed to see out the near-term challenges. In particular, we are continuing to invest significantly in product development and marketing that provides us with an increasing commercial advantage and will help to support our ambitions to build our market share during the downturn."

The current global economic uncertainty makes it harder than usual to predict how well the company will perform in the second half and especially in the last quarter, which historically is their most important trading period in the year. However, Delcam anticipates an improvement in profitability in the second half of the year.

In related news, the company established a dedicated Healthcare Division to provide a greater focus on this increasingly important part of its business. The new Division will help companies across the medical, dental and associated industries to apply Delcam’s CADCAM expertise and experience in taking advantage of the latest design and manufacturing techniques. Commercial director Bart Simpson has been appointed as the head of the new Division.

"Companies in the healthcare industry face the same demands from their patients that our traditional engineering clients see from their customers for faster delivery of better and cheaper products," explained managing director Clive Martell. "Patients want to receive higher quality products and services, and they want to complete their treatment in the shortest-possible time. At the same time, healthcare companies are under pressure to provide this higher quality at lower cost and to increase their productivity to meet the growing demand. These requirements can only be met through the application of more advanced and more automated technology."

Delcam’s increased emphasis on the healthcare industry comes at a time when the sector is expanding rapidly and when it is much more receptive to computer-based technology. The aging population in industrialized countries and the growing affluence of the emerging economies mean that the healthcare industry is seeing global growth. Through its existing engineering business, the company is established in more than 80 countries worldwide and so can provide international support to larger healthcare providers and original equipment manufacturers.

Equally, Delcam’s focus on the toolmaking and subcontracting industries means that the company’s staff are used to dealing with smaller companies on a local level. All its offices, whether wholly-owned subsidiaries, joint ventures or independent resellers, are renowned for the high level of support they provide to all their customers.

The company is, of course, already active in many areas of the healthcare business. Its design, reverse engineering, machining and inspection software are used in a wide range of applications from the production of prostheses, through to the manufacture of surgical instruments and all types of medical packaging. This is especially true for the PartMaker machining system for turn-mill equipment and Swiss-type lathes. These machines are used extensively for the manufacture of medical and dental components, to the extent that around 70 percent of PartMaker sales already come from the healthcare industry.

In addition, Delcam has introduced several specific products for the healthcare market over the last two years. These include the DentCAD and DentMILL programs for the design and manufacture of dental restorations and the OrthoModel and OrthoMill software for the development of orthotics. The company also offers special versions of its CRISPIN range of footwear design and manufacturing software for the production of orthopedic footwear.

The common theme with all these products is that they take existing Delcam technology and add a dedicated interface that uses imagery and terminology from the healthcare sector. This makes the software easy to learn and quick to use for healthcare professionals, even those that are not familiar with using computer-based design and manufacturing. www.delcam.com