According to a recent corporate news release, John Deere and Company is planning to invest approximately $28 million to expand upon the existing tractor testing laboratories of its Product Engineering Center in Cedar Falls, Iowa, paving the way for job retention of current employees.
The Iowa Economic Development Authority (IEDA) has approved the project for incentives to retain jobs in Iowa and the Cedar Falls City Council is expected to review the project on Tuesday, May 27. The expansion is expected to retain nearly 30 full-time positions at the engineering center, rather than the jobs being relocated to other tractor test facilities. The positions being retained are in the areas of engineering and product development.
Chris Myers, global director, tractor platform engineering, said in the release, "The expansion totals nearly 62,000 square feet of additional space and improvements to the existing engineering center's infrastructure. The project is needed to accommodate the continuing evolution to larger agricultural equipment."
This expansion joins a longer list of upgrades Deere has made to its factories. In February, John Deere completed a $150 million upgrade to the John Deere Foundry in Waterloo, Iowa, which further enabled the company to produce larger castings to meet the growth demand in the size of its tractors.
As agricultural machinery and technology develops in size and scale, John Deere and Company continues to invest in its factories and overall production. The additions to the Product Engineering Center in Cedar Falls further shows Deere’s commitment to job retention and providing quality products to its customers.