For more than 70 years, Weasler Engineering has been a top global agricultural driveline solutions partner with manufacturing locations in North America, Europe, Mexico and South America.
Interview with Adam Davis, Product Line Director at Weasler Engineering.
Easy Engineering: What are the main areas of activity of the company?
Adam Davis: As a top global agricultural driveline solutions manufacturer, Weasler is strategically focused in three key product areas: drive shafts, constant velocity joints and torque limiters. We also maintain investments in new technology and innovation, ensuring customers receive a specific, industry-proven solution.
Our partners, made up of both original equipment manufacturers as well as Aftermarket, benefit from our vast expertise that comes with being a strategically focused driveline manufacturer and one of the most trusted brands in agriculture. Some key agricultural focus areas include Balers, Combines and Headers, Planters, Harvesters, and more.
We also focus on key values like expertise, innovation, reliability, quality and customer experience because we know a product is only as good as the people who support it. Maintaining and servicing our products is paramount to the positive history of the Weasler brand. This is why Weasler has a large number of distributor and reseller partners in the industry, ensuring global availability and serviceability.
E.E: What’s the news about new products/services?
A.D: Weasler launched the improved ratchet clutch in 2023. With the latest improvements, customers benefit from improved mechanical clutch mechanisms, which offer superior reliability while providing a significant, industry-leading reduction in break-in torque loss. These improvements have further enhanced Weasler’s reliability and durability, withstanding more than 1 million cycles without fracture, and extending clutch life durability even when exceeding 1000 slips. All of this offers less than 10% torque degradation over the clutch’s life expectancy.
E.E: What are the ranges of products/services?
A.D: Weasler is strategically focused in three key product areas: drive shafts, constant velocity joints and torque limiters. Drive shafts are paramount to agricultural production, transmitting rotational energy and power to various components of the combine or implement. To ensure high reliability and application performance, constant velocity joints, designed and manufactured solely by Weasler, are utilized to solve applications where varying angles of operation are required. To provide further safety and reliability of the connected mechanical system, Weasler offers a broad portfolio of torque-limiting devices to prevent over-torque, overload conditions which may negatively impact the driveline or a machine’s mechanical components.
E.E: What is the state of the market where you are currently active?
A.D: The agricultural market is sensitive not only to economical influence but also highly depends on factors such as weather conditions and seasonality. These external factors influence the mix of product investments made by end users, which range from new and aftermarket equipment. Farmer sentiment, borrowing cost and input-to-output price management will vary buying decisions, which means focus must remain on continuing to feed the world. For this reason, Weasler offers OEM solutions for new equipment while also offering aftermarket replacement components for existing equipment.
E.E: What can you tell us about market trends?
A.D: The current agricultural demand continues to grow as the global population increases. Changes in the input cost to the farms, globalized food supply and the increased cost of borrowing has slowed demand for new equipment. It is expected that growth will continue, with focus on larger farm operations, with heightened focus on efficiency and highly engineered solutions. The advent of artficial intelligence and smart devices will further enhance the agricultural market, which will drive equipment manufactures to shift to higher cost, higher efficiency agricultural equipment.
E.E: What are the most innovative products/services marketed?
A.D: We have developed and launched various unique solutions on OEM equipment for application needs. Weasler remains focused on developing newer, higher performing, improved reliability solutions for torque limiters, CV joints and drive shafts. Many new products currently in development focus on the strong heritage of these key tenants of innovation, reliability and sustainability. Weasler has a committed focus on driving solutions that feed the world all while providing higher levels of sustainability and reduced environmental impact.
E.E: What estimations do you have for the beginning of 2024?
A.D: In 2024, we expect to see mixed results as customers come off the past few years of high equipment investment. Coupled with rising input costs and lower commodity prices, this will result in less purchases of new equipment, and an increased focus on sustaining existing equipment until a more favorable outlook is established. During the better part of 2024, we expect to focus on supporting our aftermarket customers to ensure they have the equipment and reliability needed to sustain their operations in the coming year.
