When it comes to plant, machinery or indeed vehicles, there are always a few manufacturers ahead of the rest. Experience, longevity and most importantly delivering a quality product all contribute to this factor.
Success can be gauged by the amount of sales made in any industry and companies’ reputations have been made or broken this way. The more successful manufacturers are driven to succeed and are always looking at ways of improving their product, while giving their customer the best service possible.
When it comes to potato equipment, there is one manufacturer that leads the way in this industry and that is Grimme Landmaschinenfabrik. For over eighty five years, the German based company has been building potato harvesters with the product range now including 1, 2, 3 and 4-row trailed harvesters as well as 2 or 4-row self-propelled harvesters, plus a full range of potato and vegetable equipment. The machines available can work in the many various conditions around the world and this is why Grimme has depots through out the world.
Even though, the company is manufacturing potato harvesters for eighty five years, the history of the company dates back over one hundred and fifty years ago in the small town of Damme, Lower Saxony, Germany. The business was started by the Grimme family and four generations later, Franz Grimme is now the managing director.
Grimme service over one hundred and twenty countries across the globe with as many as two thousand employees worldwide. They also own Spudnik, the potato technology manufacturer from the U.S, ASA-LIFT, Ricon, Internorm and Grimme Solutions.
This family run business also manufacture handling equipment for the potato industry with the likes of Receiving Hopper, conveyors, store loaders, web graders and box fillers available.
Grimme offers by far the widest range in beet technology also that includes 6-row defoliator, front topper or tractor trailed beet harvesters are available. The self-propelled product range has 20 or 30-ton bunker capacity, six-row Oppel wheels or 6,8 or 9-row walking shares in its portfolio.
There is also a wide range of vegetable technology and through their subsidiary ASA-LIFT, Grimme have developed efficient, gentle handling and ground protecting machines for the industry.
Grimme’s motto is to be always there for their customers and provide a competent service from trained and qualified personnel through their dealers and subsidiaries all across the world. This includes the branch in Ireland which is based in Doorogue, Ballyboughal, Co Dublin. There had been a Grimme dealer network here for over twenty years, but in 2012, Grimme Ireland was established and when the multi-national firm looked for someone to run this end of the business, they turned to Cecil Morgan who had many years’ experience in selling their product range to the Irish customers.
“We’re here for the past three years now and we have a good team. I have many years experience in selling Grimme products and I’m the Branch Manager and Sales Manager here. Brian Finnegan is our service manager, Colin Fox, Steven Rogers are in our service department, and they are fully trained on our Grimme products. Michael Hutcheson looks after the spare parts department, based in the office is Pat Kavanagh and Siobhan Fisher, all are valuable members of the Grimme Ireland team,” Cecil told this month’s edition of Irish Tractor & Agri.
Grimme Ireland services the 32 counties and with a wide range of products available, it is no surprise that they also have a comprehensive range of parts available.
“We have service vehicles on the road which are fully equipped and each holds specialist testing and diagnostic equipment as well as spare parts”.
“Our fully trained service personnel allow reduced diagnostic time for in season emergency breakdown repairs. We also offer customers pre season appraisals on their equipment at a discounted parts and labour prices in order for them to have their machines in top condition for the coming season. We would have in the region of €800,000 worth of genuine parts stocked at our headquarters all year round.”
The premises in Ballyboughal allow the branch to supply and service new and used Grimme machinery along with quality used machines from other manufacturers. The workshop and parts warehouse facilities support the aftersales team to maintain a service level which Irish customers should expect from the market leader.
Cecil revealed that sales depended a lot on the yield of potatoes produced in any given year.
“Last year, there was a very high yield given the excellent summer that we had and since we first opened the premises here in 2012, sales have improved annually.
“Potato growers are not afraid to invest in new equipment as they know that they need to have every advantage if they are going to be successful in this industry.”
Last year, the company attended the Balmoral Agri Show for the first time in Grimme’s history and this proved to be a great success. 2014 also saw the introduction of a new Destoner – the Grimme CS150XL, which has a 15% increase in capacity over the older model.
“We now offer an annual service package to our customers to go with all new machine purchases so operators can maintain their equipment in excellent condition.”
Grimme Ireland
Doorogue,
Ballyboughal,
Co Dublin.
Tel: 01 8433440
Sales : Cecil 086 3734260 – email [email protected]
Spares : Micheal – email [email protected]
Service : Brian 086 3734242 – email [email protected]
Taken from Irish Tractor & Agri magazine Vol 3 No 3, April 2015
