Stoneage Ramblings

By John R. Stone

Late in June we headed to Jackson. Not the Jackson that made a song famous, but Jackson, Minnesota.

I had never been there before but we had a good time and an interesting visit.

The reason for the trip was the summer meeting of the board of the Minnesota Newspaper Association. Past presidents of the association are invited to the summer meeting and most of us attend.

Over the nine or 10 years we serve on the board of the association a person gets to know a lot of people pretty well. Every other month board meetings are Thursday afternoons and Friday mornings and most board members do something together Thursday night, a dinner, a play or ballgame or something.

So each year we all look forward to getting together again.

Some of you may remember Chad Koenen who started at the Tribune back in 2004 right out of college. He is president of MNA this year and now owns papers in Henning, New York Mills and Frazee.

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Jackson is a little larger than Glenwood, 3,300 people. It has a good industrial base with AGCO, which employs about 1,000 people in several plants.

We toured the AGCO tractor assembly plant, there is also an AGCO applicator plant.

The tractor plant we toured makes large AGCO tractors for the US and large Fendt tracked tractors for export to Europe.

The production line we visited starts with the transmission, which is huge. Frame parts are actually bolted to the transmission. As the transmission moves along the line frame parts are added along with an engine, cab, fluids, wheels, front weights and more.

Along the line the tractor is tested periodically. After fluids are added (oil, hydraulic fluid etc) the tractor is tested for leaks. When the wiring is added that is tested. The testing is to avoid problem that, if discovered later, could require some of the tractor to be disassembled to be fixed.

Capacity on the line has been as high as 13 tractors per day but lately it has been running at three tractors per day. That can change as orders come in but right now the issue is getting all the parts there at the same time.

The whole assembly area is spotless.

Something I thought was interesting is that every week there is an hour or two dedicated to having workers get together and see if there is something that could be done to smooth out any production problems.

One problem solved through that process was hooking up wiring on the tractor cab once installed. Workers would get on ladders around the cab and do their work.

Then a worker suggested the tractor be lowered into the floor at that point in the assembly line so workers could work on the cab without ladders, which can also be a safety hazard. So that’s the way it is now done, and it is faster to boot.

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Jackson sits on hilly land and the Des Moines River runs through it. I was surprised that someone didn’t have a restaurant or bar adjacent to the river, which runs through the edge of downtown. Maybe it floods, which would be a good reason not to be too close to the river!

On the way down and back I was surprised to see that there was no corn over knee high and beans were barely out of the ground. Usually in southern Minnesota crops would be ahead of those around here. And it seemed that they had more rain this spring, too.            

Rain here and elsewhere recently has certainly given a boost to crops. Let’s hope it keeps up!