Case Study: John Deere Welland Works cuts rotary cutter development time with MSC Software

John Deere Welland Works - Customer Case Study

John Deere Welland Works, an agricultural machinery manufacturer in Ontario, needed to speed up development of its rotary cutter systems and reduce the costly cycle of building and testing multiple physical prototypes. Working with MSC Software and using MSC.ADAMS, ADAMS/Durability, and FE-Fatigue, the team sought a better way to evaluate durability and fatigue early in the design process.

MSC Software helped John Deere build a virtual prototype of the cutter and bump-test fixture, combining multibody simulation, finite element analysis, and fatigue life prediction. The approach cut each design/test cycle from several months to just one or two weeks, reduced physical prototypes from three or four to as few as one, and lowered development time for the 20-foot cutter from about four years to two; the latest 15-foot cutter is on track to be completed in one year.

John Deere Welland Works

Terry Ewanochko

Product Engineer