I've got the book "Farmall, Eight Decades of Innovations". Big tall thing, lots of great picturs, but also lots of history and facts. Very disturbing how Sales, R&D, Engineering, and Management were so at odds with one another. By the end of the book you just kind of shake your head and still wonder why. One interesting fact was how once they realized they had problems with the 560 rear ends, they couldn't move fast enough to fix the problem. Kept sending faulty units out and paying to fix them out in the field, or worse, bringing them back to the factory to finally retrofit the replacements. Cost them a lot of money.
But they got over that hurdle and should've been ok. But it was one thing after another after another until they were in such bad shape they couldn't cope with the downturn in sales during the recession of the 80's.
Overall their failure seemed to be due to a lack of leadership. Too many guys with overlapping authority, and no one person that would stand up and say "this is what we need to do, and this is the direction we're going in". Even if that had been the wrong direction, (like the 3 point fiasco), they could've weathered the storm. Still makes me sad to ponder. The title to the book that tells it all is very apropriate. "Fall of an Empire, the Agony of International Harvestor". From the 3rd largerst corporation in the country to gone in less than a decade. No way not to lay the blame on management. They, like GM, made concessions to the union that tied their hands when they most needed to be flexible. Spent millions on idle men and idle factories, and wasted millions more on deadend ideas that by the time they were reading to roll out had already become close to obsolete.
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Today's Featured Article - The Cletrac General GG and the BF Avery A - A Bit of History - by Mike Ballash. This article is a summary of what I have gathered up from various sources on the Gletrac General GG and the B. F. Avery model A tractors. I am quite sure that most of it is accurate. The General GG was made by the Cleveland Tractor Company (Cletrac) of Cleveland, Ohio. Originally the company was called the Cleveland Motor Plow Company which began in 1912, then the Cleveland Tractor Company (1917) and finally Cletrac.
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