How Connected Support is Advancing Machine Health in Agriculture

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Tony Kramer: Hi, I'm Tony Kramer, your host of the Agriculture Technology Podcast, and I'm sitting down with agriculture technology and equipment experts to help you enhance your operation for today, tomorrow, and into the future. In this episode, I talk with Jake Livingston and Derek Rigg about RDO Equipment and John Deere Connected Support. With that, let's dive into the show. As I said, I am joined by two guests today, Jake and Derek, both part of the RDO Equipment family here.

To get started, before we talk a little bit more about Connected Support, why don't each of you give a background on yourselves, tell our listeners a little bit about who you are, where you came from, and how you got to where you are today? Jake, why don't you start?

Jake Livingston: I'm Jake Livingston, Director of Connected Support here for RDO Equipment. I've been here for about 10 years. Prior to working for RDO, I came from a small family farm up by Minot, North Dakota. Really enjoy the agricultural scene, being a part of helping our customers. This is just a good natural transition after college to come to RDO.

Tony: Yes, absolutely. Welcome to the show. Derek, you're actually a return guest. We'll talk more about that episode in a little bit here, episode 103, talking expert alerts. Why don't you remind our listeners, Derek, who you are, and where you come from?

Derrick Rygg: Thanks, Tony. It's awesome to be back on the podcast. I'm Derek Rigg, Machine Health Manager here at RDO Equipment. Grew up on a small farm in the Maple, Portland area, and farmed while I was growing up there, and transitioned into machine health here at RDO Equipment. Like I said, been with RDO here for seven years now, all in the machine health space, and excited to talk Connected Support and Proactive Solutions today.

Tony: Absolutely. Again, thank you guys very much for coming in, sitting down with me. Derek, when you were on back in 2019, we talked about Connected Support, and we were talking about these mythical things of expert alerts, and all of that. Really, back then, that was the early days, the early stages of Connected Support, Connected Machines, all of that stuff. Why don't we take a few steps back? Let's remind our listeners, what is Connected Support? What is a Connected Machine? What does it all entail?

Jake: Connected Support really starts with the telematics connection to the machine. With that connection to the machine, we can support our customers in many different avenues. With the Connected Support Center, where we started with that was planned maintenance, because back in the day, all we had was hours and location. With hours and location, we know when the machine is due for service, and we know what services due for that machine.

We still support our customers with planned maintenance packages, but now we've really enhanced that service to be much more. We have a field of product specialists out in the field that work with our customers to help them understand what the technology can do for them. We have those same folks working with our internal people as well, to make sure they understand what's coming and also how to use that information to be supportive for our customers. Then we have Derek's team working with Machine Health that's really looking at all those proactive solutions.

Tony: You actually touched on something that I wanted to key in on and how much Connected Support has grown over the years. We go back to the beginning of Connected Support or you mentioned telematics. It starts with telematics having the connection or communication with those machines. Back in the day when that started early, what? 2011, 2012 on the ag side, we had hours and machine location. On the ag side, we had remote display access. That was really it when we talked Connected Machines, telematics, all that.

Now, fast forward into 2024, 2025, we have so much more to it and the teams that you had talked about. In terms of it starts with the telematics, what product lines are out there? What machines, equipment, can we get this stuff on? What are we working with in terms of Connected Machines today?

Jake: We're pretty fortunate, RDO. We have multiple options when it comes to telematics. Obviously, JDLink is a big one when it comes to the John Deere connection. Outside of JDLink, we have our Vermeer connections. We have connections through WETOS with our work in line of equipment. We have aftermarket telematics for machines that don't have telematics. Even batteryless device machines today, we can put a device on.

Tony: A little bit for everybody, no matter what your operation is, ag, construction or lawn care, snow removal, things like that, then we're even starting to get telematics into that realm as well. Very cool to hear that we really can see Connected Machines no matter what product line we're working with. Going back again, Jake, to what you were talking about. You mentioned a number of teams that we have here within RDO Equipment. Let's revisit who those teams are and what exactly they do with this Connected Support or these Connected Machines.

Jake: Sure. We started with planned maintenance back in the day, because like I said, hours in location is really what we need to make that work properly. Our customers are busy. They have other things that they've got to get done. Keeping track of their maintenances shouldn't have to be one of them. At RDO, we have package options available where this team helps build those packages and then supports them on the back end too.

When the services come due, we're able to engage with those customers to let them know and have the parts ready so we can roll a truck or they can bring their machine in. Whatever works best for them. After planned maintenance, we rolled into the telematics team. Really seeing that telematics really has a lot of technology behind it. It's really the backbone of what we do with Connected Support, like I said.

How are we going to engage with our customers upon this to help them understand what it means, how to use it, what platforms they've got to be in in order to see the information, and how to consume that information in a useful way to make their business better. Our telematics specialists are those folks. Their everyday job is working with our customers, working with our internal people to let them know what's upcoming, what they have in front of them, how to use that information to make their business more successful. Then, of course, Derek's team with machine health monitoring. It's something we started about 2016, 2017.

Back in the day, we didn't really have a whole lot of alerts to play with, but we wanted to support our customers from a proactive standpoint. We figured it would be a great way for us to really drive engagement with our customers and help them understand what it is we're about at RDO.

Tony: That brings me into my next question. Perfect segue there. Back to you, Derek, back in 2019, we had you on, we were talking expert alerts and we were talking before hitting the record button here. We believe expert alerts rolled out in roughly 2017 timeframe.

Derrick: Yes. 2017 is really when we started going with expert alerts and proactive solutions for our customers. I can give you a background on machine health here at RDO and what it is that we do with those proactive solutions.

Tony: Yes, absolutely. Tell us a little bit about what you and your team does and then diving into those expert alerts, the proactive type solutions. Over the years we've been doing the expert alerts and even the PM team, preventative maintenance team. I know there's a lot of success stories here that we want to share. Tell us a little bit more about the machine health team first.

Derrick: For sure. When it comes to machine health at RDO, we really strive to be a leader in proactive solutions. We have a large team of six. We monitor roughly 50,000 Connected Machines that we have here at RDO. Average about 8,000 to 10,000 fault codes that come in today to our triage tool that we use here at RDO. That focuses around targeting those machines within our serviceable area. Last year we sent out about 12,000 proactive solutions to the field and our customers, which is awesome.

That continues to grow every year, which is nice to see, and eliminates as much downtime as possible for our customers with those. Then just one other key stat that is pretty cool to share what the team does is over the last 12 months, we've saved roughly over 200 engines here at RDO.

Tony: That right there, hold on to that one because some of those stories or the stats there with what we've done in terms of proactive support really hits home, having Connected Machines and really investing in this type of support. Why don't you, before we dive into that, give us a little refresher on what is an expert alert or what is a proactive solution that you're talking about? Is this something that the customer gets a warning in the display or what constitutes an expert alert?

Derrick: Without having a connected machine, we are not able to monitor those pieces or receive expert alerts on those pieces of equipment. An expert alert is a proactive solution where we partner with John Deere and we're able to monitor the data, the temperatures, pressures, and fault codes that come off the equipment. Previously, in our last episode, which was several years ago, mainly all expert alerts were focused around fault codes that trigger on the monitor. If you ask me today, about 50% of them don't even have fault codes on the monitor and we can see those temps and pressures for those connected pieces.

Tony: That being said, there may be nothing the operator or owner sees or hears or anything like that, but we're getting machine data in the background that over time is telling us, "Hey, if this continues on, you may have issue X."

Derrick: Yes, I'll have a good win coming up with the engine that we saved in proactive solutions, but really partnering with the customer where they're sharing that information, we can help provide them to just-- Those windows are short, even in the ag side, and we want to make sure that we eliminate as much downtime as possible. If we can save an engine from failing, we love to do that every single day.

Tony: Whether it be the ag side or the construction side, there is opportunity here to be proactive in the support, in those solutions, things like that. How hard is it to explain to a customer that they're not seeing a diagnostic trouble code? Nothing is going wrong, but we have the data on the backside to say, "This has been going on with your machine, we really recommend you do this." What are those conversations look like? How difficult is that sometimes?

Derrick: It's usually a tough conversation right away, but we do have those customers which are awesome that have partnered with us and have seen expert alerts before. Like what you said, the first expert alert takes a little buy-in, but luckily as we talk about technology and the advancements, we're able to provide those graphs of those pressures and share with customers so they can see the visuals of what is happening with that engine in the oil pressure case and see the drop-off.

Maybe it's not low enough to trigger a fault code, but we can see the yellow area that needs caution or attention.

Tony: Oh, absolutely. We'll get into some of these success stories now. I think any customer out there that questions expert alerts or proactive solutions like this, you listen to some of these success stories that we at RDO have been a part of, and I think it will really open your eyes, change your mind towards benefiting from these proactive solutions. Go ahead and share some of these wins, these success stories that we've seen.

Derrick: Sure. I have a really good one here on a 8RD370 that triggered right around our Breckenridge location. What was interesting with that tractor is it triggered the low engine oil pressure expert alert, which before we even contact the customer or the field, we know that the oil pump's bad and we will need to change the crossover tube and the pickup tube. With that comes a little work.

We do need to pull the engine on the machine to get the pan off, but from there, get the pan off, replace those parts, and the success rate on that is very high that we will save the engine. In this case, it was a customer that had seen an expert alert before, bought in. We contacted the closest location, like I said, Breckenridge. The service department reached out to the customer, got that machine shut down or that tractor, and got it brought back into the store.

In this case, they got the engine pulled out and the pan pulled off of that tractor, and usually we can see a visual evidence where there's a hairline crack or the check ball in the oil pump's twisted just a little bit. In this case, there wasn't really any visual evidence, but we could see on the pressure trend and the graph where the oil pressure was falling off, and what took place, we dug into it a little bit more, and what we found is on the oil pump, there's the gear on there and the nut that holds that press gear on.

The nut actually backed off a little bit, and in the pressure chart, the data readings were going erratic, and you could see that the gear was just wiggling on there a little bit. Very awesome win, saved the engine on that machine, and pretty cool what we can do with data and how we can, like I said, save an engine on that machine.

Tony: Yes, absolutely. Like you said, I think one key factor there is the customer had already experienced or heard of an expert alert, so they were already bought in, and they believed in the proactive solution. Two is that there was no oil leak or visual issue with it, but to see that the internal components of the oil pump were causing the issue, and had we just left it go, it likely would have been failure of a complete engine.

Derrick: Yes, we would have had a catastrophic engine failure if we would have let it go for sure on that one.

Tony: Go ahead and share another one with us if you've got more.

Derrick: I'm going to switch over to the construction side a little bit. Like I said, we have a lot of expert alerts, a lot more than we had back in 2019, so there's a large population. We had an alert out of our Irving store on a 550K, and it was triggering knock sensor faults on that machine. This is where we partner with our employees and our customers, but we worked with the customer service advisor, the CSA out of Irving, and they reached out to the customer and got a service call scheduled on that machine.

When that technician arrived, a faulty knock sensor was found, just what we had expected before we went out there, being proactive. We have machine health prescriptions that were reviewed, and we send out on each of these alerts as well. Making sure that we review that before visiting the machine is, like I said, being proactive, and with that, we're able to show up with the correct parts in hand and eliminate any extra travel trips, and just get it all done in one trip, which is very important to the customer as well.

Tony: That's another huge piece there that you talk about in just the making sure we have what we need from the dealership standpoint, our technicians out in the field going out to fix those machines, being able to be prepared for whatever fix they're going out to versus a, "Hey, I'll go out. I'll diagnose it. Okay. Now I got to run back to the store." That could be 40, 60, 100 miles back to the nearest store. They hopefully have everything they need based on the proactive solutions that are provided to us.

Not only is it potentially going to save the customer's machine, but it's also saving time too, being able to go to the machine with everything needed.

Derrick: Definitely a great win saving that extra travel trip and any additional downtime that the customer had is always a big win in being proactive.

Tony: Got any more fun success stories you want to share?

Derrick: We had a 6175R out of Hermiston that was triggering a low oil pressure alert. This is our internal alerts with our triage tool. Just had the DTC on the monitor throwing low oil pressure codes. We reached out to the store right away and had the customer contact the operator on that machine. What they had found is there was a pinhole in the oil filter and the oil was pouring out of the filter. Definitely, we were quick on that one and quick enough to save the engine as well, but just another example of how being proactive and working together with Connected Machines is a huge success for customers and us at RDO.

Tony: Whether it's something that likely over time, the pinhole in the oil filter would have been caught because there would have been a mess on the side of the engine or whatever it may be, or something as non-visible as our oil pump, the nut that backed off within the internal components of the oil pump, big spectrum of what these proactive solutions can provide a fix to or whatever.

Jake, I want to bring this one back to you. Why should a customer focus on having Connected Machines, whether it's us at RDO or your local dealership in your area, partnering with the local John Deere dealers to really take advantage of Connected Support like this? What is it going to do for a customer, whether that be ag or construction or any of the industries we work in?

Jake: Tonny, I think this really hits home for me when I think back to my younger years on the farm. Back in the late '80s, early '90s, Massey Fergusons were a big deal. 750 and an 860 Massey, I think is what we had on the farm. I remember it was harvest season and I was only old enough to really see over the counter at the parts department at that time, but it was also when Massey was getting phased out at least around our area. We had a problem with our Massey during the middle of harvest.

All I could remember at the age of 10 was dad was really stressed out and it was hard to see how stressed out someone can be when you have the bottleneck something like a combine can put on an operation when it's down and you need to get the crop off. When we first got into expert alerts with John Deere, I was so excited because it gave us a way to partner with our customers in a way that really made a difference in the world. I think this is one of those things where if we can catch something before it fails, it really drives home to these small family farms, really drives home for me personally, in order to be able to drive 12,000 solutions a year.

I think right now we're on pace to do about 20,000 proactive solutions this year alone. I'm really excited for the opportunity and the drive it gives us to do better for our folks that are making the world a better place.

Tony: I really like what you said there. That's something that I guess I never thought about until you mentioned that. All three of us coming from farming families and having agriculture backgrounds, the level of stress, the anxiety that our customers can be ridden with, again, whether it's in agriculture or in construction, you have a down machine and it starts to take a toll on either your productivity or everything in general. If you get one combine and that combine goes down, you're shut down until that's fixed.

The level of stress and anxiety that can put on someone, I really like that, what it can change within an operation. I never really thought about that one.

Jake: Just trying to get rid of the unexpected and really get ahead of problems before they become bigger deals. Whether we're talking about planned maintenance, whether we're talking about helping our customers understand the data on the back end, the trends that it can provide, helping them to understand what their costs are going to be. There's just a lot of good things that come from having a connected machine.

Tony: If anybody wants to learn more about Connected Support, what we do at RDO or just telematics in general, where can they go? Who can they talk to learn more about this type of stuff and the equipment that they're running?

Jake: I'd have them go to our website. If you go to rdoequipment.com, there's a whole section in there about Connected Support. It gives our number as well, along with email address. However you want to get ahold of us, we'd be happy to help you.

Tony: I just want to thank you guys very much for taking the time to sit down and give our listeners a little refresh on Connected Support. 2019, it seems like forever ago. I thought it was time to bring you guys in, talk about Connected Support, give us some updates on these expert alerts because the entire horizon of Connected Support and what we can do with these machines, the data that gets collected, and how we can proactively support our customers, it's really changed for the better.

I appreciate you guys taking the time to chat about that.

Jake: Thank you.

Derrick: Thanks, Tony.

Tony: Please take a moment to subscribe to this podcast if you haven't already. You can subscribe to the show on the many different podcasting apps that we're streaming this out to such as Apple, YouTube, Spotify, as well as many others. While you're out there, drop us a review. We'd love to hear what you think about the show. Lastly, make sure to follow RDO Equipment Company on Facebook, Instagram, and X, and also catch our latest videos on YouTube. You can also follow me on X @RDOTonyK.