Companies in the News: Case achieves bronze status in World Class Manufacturing program; Husqvarna announces smart summer campaign; RightPlantz.com hits 50,000 users

Jon Pardi (Photo: Case Construction Equipment)

The Case Construction Equipment manufacturing facility in Burlington, U.S., has achieved bronze status in the World Class Manufacturing (WCM) program.

The Burlington plant in Iowa manufactures tractor loaders, backhoes, rough-terrain forklifts and crawler dozers for the Case E brand, as well as headers for the Case IH and New Holland Agriculture brands and features a research and development center.

Occupying 1,000,000 square feet alongside the Mississippi River and employing some 600 people, the plant has been producing equipment since 1937. The facility also includes a test laboratory set in 400 acres of proving grounds located 10 miles north of the plant.

World Class Manufacturing is one of the global manufacturing industry’s highest standards for the integrated management of manufacturing plants and processes. It is a pillar-structured system based on continuous improvement, designed to eliminate waste and loss from the production process by identifying objectives such as zero injuries, zero defects, zero breakdowns and zero waste. To certify improvements, a system of periodic third-party audits evaluates all of the WCM pillars, forming an overall score for each plant that is the basis for three achievement levels: bronze, silver and gold.

In other Case news, the company is partnering with country music superstar Jon Pardi on a series of promotions throughout 2019 and 2020 focused on raising awareness for, and growing interest in, careers in the construction industry.

The first promotion includes an exclusive presale opportunity for Pardi’s headlining Heartache Medication Tour, kicking off Oct. 1 in Nashville, Tenn. Case will announce a series of related promotions and opportunities in the coming months.

“My dad taught me the value of hard work growing up, and we were surrounded by construction and agriculture throughout California — it’s those people and experiences that made me who I am, and it’s what resonates with our audiences,” said Pardi. “It’s an honor to work with Case to highlight great careers in these fields, and to help connect people with ways to learn more on tour this fall.”

Pardi and Case are offering those in the construction industry an exclusive presale on tickets for the Heartache Medication Tour here using the password CASEPARDI. Presale dates for the bulk of the tour will be from 10 a.m. to 10 p.m. (all times local) on May 30, with additional presale dates taking place June 6 (Seattle and San Diego) and June 20 (Phoenix).

Husqvarna announced its Smartest Summer Job campaign.

To showcase how easy it is to get a perfectly mowed lawn with Husqvarna’s Automower robotic lawn mower, Husqvarna will select two college students to serve as managers of chilling, a role in which they sit in a lawn chair at Zoo Miami and watch the robotic mower do all the work. As brand representatives, they will engage with passersby and on social media to share the key benefits of Automower.

“For Smartest Summer Job, we are looking for candidates who know how to work smarter, not harder,” said Michelle Sordi, senior director of marketing for Husqvarna North America. “Automower is already keeping more than 1.5 million lawns around the world perfectly mowed at all times, and we’re excited to show people exactly what it can do. We’re offering candidates the chance to become experts in robotics so they can share this message while they hang out with Automower.”

The managers of chilling will be responsible for supervising the Automower for 10 days, documenting its progress via their personal social media channels and Husqvarna’s social media channels. Smartest Summer Job will run from July 15 to July 24, which includes travel days to and from Zoo Miami. The job will also include extensive robotics training from the experts at Husqvarna.

RightPlantz.com — an online consumer gardening site and marketing site for green industry companies including landscape contractors, lawn care operators, tree services and garden centers launched in January 2018 — reported that it has surpassed 50,000 users.

“This milestone means that RightPlantz has been successful in improving the knowledge of 50,000 gardeners of all skill levels,” said Tara Allentuck, co-chief plant officer. “Hopefully, we have engaged many new gardeners and helped them get excited about a pastime that we are passionate about. 50,000 is a real nice number, but it is only a start of what we know RightPlantz can become.”

Besides the 50,000 users, RightPlantz.com has hit the following milestones since its launch:

• 82 green industry vendors have listed in the vendor directory;
• 1,382 plants in the plant finder;
• 139 blog posts written and available in the learning center; and
• 88 RightPlantz Tip Of The Week emails have been sent to mailing list.