Claas Balers Turn 30
Claas built its first variable chamber round baler - the Variant 100 - in 1996, so 2026 marks 30 years and the fifth generation of the Variant name, recently complemented by the new Cerex Series introduced in 2025.
As automatic milking appears to be growing in popularity around the Globe, DeLaval says it has being getting a very positive customer response to its VMS™ V300-series of automatic milking robots.
These two factors have led to the company making a substantial investment, allowing it to increase the production capacity of automatic milking systems by 50%.
Paul Löfgren, president and chief executive at DeLaval, says, “With this investment we will be able to meet growing customer demand and increase our production capacity while also shortening lead times.
“This will also ensure that we can keep our focus on continued product development and quality.”
With a development and operational timeframe to come on stream in 2024, the new facility for VMS production will be built with increased efficiency using optimised and automated manufacturing flows. Indeed, the company says the focus on VMS will be even higher in the Tumba factory; there are also plans in place to ensure inhouse supporting factories and the component supply chain will also be updated to meet the increased production targets.
Automatic milking is growing in popularity due to the need for higher productivity, as well as the increasing problem of recruiting experienced and reliable staff.
“The high demand we’ve seen for the VMS V300-series in recent years and the future expected demand allows us to make this investment,” says Löfgren.
“We have seen improvements and changes in milk production throughout our company´s more than 130 years of history, and the need to produce milk in a more sustainable way is increasingly important,” says Löfgren.
“This investment is a fantastic opportunity for us to continue to develop valuable solutions to improve milk production together with our customers – the farmers of the world.”
