ZF Services – Sustainability and Efficiency in the Agriculture Industry

• 650 service partners worldwide ensure mobility

• Reliable spare parts supply throughout the entire vehicle life cycle

• Save money and resources with remanufacturing

Greater efficiency through using resources responsibly – that's what it's all about in the agriculture industry today As a reliable partner, ZF Services helps farmers keep their tractors and farm equipment operating as economically and efficiently as possible throughout their life cycles. To do so, its service specialists rely on the expertise of the entire ZF Group, which has been supplying components to the agriculture industry for more than 75 years. With remanufactured transmissions and other components, ZF Services is making a sustainable contribution to saving money and conserving resources.

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The agriculture industry has not been left unscathed by global change. With the world’s population growing, the demand for food is on the rise while the available acreage per capita is falling. For farmers, this means greater efficiency while simultaneously conserving resources so that precious farmland can be used for as long and as sustainably as possible. This places increased stress on agricultural machinery because, more and more frequently, it is being leased, which means the machines reach a high number of operating hours in a short period of time. Rapid availability of spare parts and cost-effective repair and service approaches are therefore major requirements for which ZF Services offers appropriate solutions.

There are 650 service partners available worldwide that offer efficient diagnostic options for powershifting and continuously variable technology. Service employees provide expert support on short notice by performing error diagnoses and also doing repairs directly on site. The central competence center for the worldwide servicing of complex products for agricultural machinery is located in Passau. In addition to a repair and remanufacturing workshop, there is also a logistics center with over 50 000 available spare parts and exchange units as well as a training, diagnostic, and documentation center.

If repair work is not possible, ZF Services also offers remanufactured transmissions as a cost-effective and ecologically sound alternative. Exchange units are quickly available and less expensive than a new transmission. In terms of quality, they are as good as a new volume production transmission. After all, as one of the leading manufacturers of original parts, ZF does have the necessary development, manufacturing, and process engineering expertise for remanufacturing. Close cooperation with Volume Production Development and Quality Assurance at ZF guarantees that the remanufactured parts comply with the latest technological standards: If the hardware or software of the original volume production product has undergone redevelopment in the meantime, these improvements will also be introduced in the remanufacturing process.

At the Passau location alone, 800 agricultural machine transmissions annually are given a second chance at life in accordance with industrial standards. As an example, each of the 1 275 individual parts of an ECCOM transmission are disassembled and inspected. Components in poor condition are recycled or replaced by new ones. Compared to a new transmission, remanufacturing saves between 50 and 90 percent on materials, and reduces the CO2 emissions by 90 percent compared to producing a new transmission. Aside from transmissions, ZF Services also offers remanufactured products for axle systems and clutches.

Helmut Ernst, Chairman of the Board of Directors of ZF Services, emphasizes: “ZF Services ensures that ZF’s innovative technology can be used in all agriculture sectors cost-effectively, efficiently, and for as long as possible. With our remanufacturing activities, especially, we are pursuing a sustainable approach that makes us the perfect partner for our customers in the agriculture industry.”