Technology Innovation with Guest Adam Gilbertson

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Tony: Hi, I'm Tony Kramer, and I'm sitting down with agriculture, technology, and equipment experts to help you enhance your operation for today, tomorrow, and the future. The agriculture industry has radically transformed over the past 50 years. Advances in machinery have expanded the scale, speed, and productivity of farm equipment leading to more efficient cultivation of the land.

Now, agriculture, in its early days of yet another revolution. Data, connectivity, analytics, connected sensors, and other emerging technologies to help reduce yield loss and improve efficiencies. Artios Ag-Tech podcast invites Adam Gilbertson, the Senior Vice President of Field Technology and Innovation to discuss the similarities and differences in trends for Ag and construction technology and identify what growers and construction professionals need to do now to be ready for the future and how we build and grow our world.

Welcome to the show, Adam. It's great to finally sit down with you and have this conversation. Getting started, I just want to hear a little bit about you and your background and how you got to where you are today.

Adam: Hey, Tony. Thanks. It's really great to be here with you today and I appreciate the time and the opportunity to visit with you about technology in a number of different spaces. I've been at this at RDO now, it'll be 20 years in August for me. I actually started in Ag sales way back when in our Fargo, North Dakota store, which doesn't exist anymore. I had an opportunity early to work in agriculture back in 2003, 2004. Let me tell you, the world's changed a bit since that time.

As we look at the world and we look at where both of these industries have gone, for me it's been a passion ever since I came to the company. It started for me, I kind of will tell you, my roots with technology started in the military. I was in Iraq from 2005 to 2007, took a little break from RDO at that period of time, an my infantry company was one of the first infantry units in the combat zone to use drone technology.

Obviously, the special forces were a little earlier than we were, but having the opportunity to use that technology and understand how it changed the game on our situational awareness, on how we could see the world differently than I would've been able to. Just looking from the ground changed my perspective about how we take some of these new solutions, new technologies, and incorporate them into the work we do every day.

Really since that time, I've had the opportunity in our construction business to launch our, what we call RDO integrated controls. That group started in 2009 in the company in Billings, Montana. To take you back to that time and think about it a little, 2005, 2006 time period, Caterpillar and Trimble announced a joint venture. That was pretty significant for the industry at that point in time and we knew we needed to do something in technology. The reason we knew is because we saw what happened in agriculture.

Late 1990s, early 2000s, RTK comes on online. We're starting to be able to precisely know where the tractor is in the field, and we saw how important that was in agriculture. Fast forward to 2007, 2008, 2009 and we start realizing we've got to have this solution for our contractors, Caterpillar makes their announcement. We go through a couple of year process of really trying to understand where the world was, what made the most sense, and what partners were moving in that field. In March of 2009, we announced that we'd become a Topcon dealer in Montana and Wyoming.

I tell you that the thing that changed the most, and when I realized that it was going to be really important for my business in Montana, and a larger thought of it being more important strategically for the company, was that our conversations changed. When you start talking about technology with a builder or a grower, you're not any longer just talking about a machine, its horsepower, how many gallons an hour it burns. You're starting to be involved in the actual production of the machine, production of the field, production of the project.

When they come online and bring a new technology into their world, they're changing things. Often, practices that have been in place for 50, 100 years, now all of a sudden we're going to do them differently.

That partnership became so important with the customer and that level of trust that you're there with them every day trying to walk through how the technology worked in the field. Understanding that an incremental change here could mean significant savings or speed improvements on the back end, but it changed where the work got done. You had to do the planning, you had to do the preparation right, in order to make sure the result at the end was what you wanted it to be.

When we saw that early with those relationships, and realized that we needed to invest in that as an organization and be able to scale that to a place where we could be that local support in a number of different communities. Because as you know, you're only as good at the technology as you can be at the field that it's in. You can have all the expertise in the world 300 miles away but if you can't fix the problem where it is, we've failed.

Tony: That's really cool to hear you talk about the start of audio-integrated controls. At that time, John Deere was coming out with their own integrated solution on the Ag side with all the Star Fire, the Green Star solutions, all of that type of stuff. It's really neat to hear the connection of RDOs integrated controls and what that team and that department had to offer along with what the ag side was doing.

It's really neat to hear that and it brings me to my next question. That where we are today, you go back to the early 2000s and everything was, it was, what I would call on the ag side, universal. It was a universal addition, an add-on to the machine and equipment that were already out there. Now, we fast forward to today into the 2020s and we start talking integrated technology. Let's talk a little bit about that in regards to construction and ag. Just the level of integration and what percentage or what level of equipment is coming with integrated technologies across the board.

Adam: I think, and our manufacturer partners will share with us, and certainly you can see it in the field. When a tractor is integrated so that it's no longer just added on for a set feature or maybe a set process, and you actually get the full function of the computer onboard the tractor or the thousand computers onboard the tractor depending on what you are doing, and have the ability to see that data, distill it down, analyze it quickly, and see the machine start to make decisions, it changes how effective that technology can be.

It's no longer added post-manufacturing but it is thought through and developed from the beginning of the machine about how we improve the production of that tractor. Or as Deere likes to say now, the production system that it's in. It was kind of, it wasn't a big announcement when they made it the shift to production systems but it was really significant to how they looked at the machine.

No longer just focusing on adding horsepower, reducing fuel consumption, figuring out how the uptime of the machine was functional, which is all really still important. Now, thinking about how do we turn productivity up more effectively, how can we get the crop in the field faster, get it maintained more effectively, get it out of the field at the end of the season? The same in construction, that ability to know that the machine is 10% more productive versus 5% more fuel efficient is a very different way to look at the business. As Deere's moved into that process, it's really made an impact on how they're looking more holistically at the work as opposed to just the machine.

Tony: Yes, absolutely. The integration and the connection between everything being purpose-built versus just adding on that secondary solution to something that's already out there. Now, the next question or next topic I want to talk about, the speed of change. We talk about late 1990s, early 2000s when all of this technology and construction in ag really started to take off. Then we fast forward within, gosh, Adam, I want to say just the last five years and how quick all of this technology has progressed. Let's talk about that a little bit on how it's changing so fast and how we can best prepare our customers to adopt or be prepared for the speed of change.

Adam: Yes. We hear a lot lately that the industry's never moved faster than it is right now. The reality is it will never be this slow again. So how do we reset our worldview to adoption, innovation and really getting the actual benefit from the technology? It's really a stairstep approach. You can't go from zero to 60 miles an hour in a day. You've got to really understand some of the basic fundamentals. Really make sure that early on, especially as your learning technology, that you're spending the time and the preparation because you're working with data, you're working with with a machine where the accuracy's got to be.

If the data going in at the beginning is bad or incomplete, you're going to have a problem as you try to execute the work you're doing. Really starting with that idea that, "I'm not going to grab every piece of technology right away, but I'm going to get really good at a couple of them and really understand how they impact my business and really put the time in to making sure they work the way I want them to before I go on to some of the bigger, better, more complex issues."

Then realizing, we don't often look at it this way, but the construction process and agriculture are really manufacturing in the field. While there are lots of variables that we're going to have to take into account, if we're focused on how do we drive productivity, how do we drive efficiency, how do we make sure the work is accurate and done right the first time. Look at it a little more like a manufacturing process than maybe we would a construction project or a field, that's when you start to capture the real savings of technology.

Because you're programming the machines, you're putting the thought process in to making sure that they get done as quickly as possible. The work really, at the end of the day, that's what this is all about. It's how do I drive up the productivity of the work I'm doing and reduce the waste?

Tony: Absolutely. I want to take some of those comments you said. Just recently I had the opportunity to go and speak to some students at a local college at a career fair. We talked about-- You made that comment about technology has never moved this fast and it's never going to move this slow again. Another quote that I like to use, that I believe came from John Deere Company was that they planned to release five times the technology to five times the number of customers five times as fast. Those five, five, fives.

I had a really interesting question come from one of the students because we were talking about releasing technology so fast. We go back to the speed of change but then we also talked about, you brought up at the end there that these technologies are being adopted or produced to make us more efficient, more productive. Because it's no surprise that tillable farmland or production farmland is decreasing every single day due to many different factors.

That's a whole another conversation for a different day. The question, back to the question that I thought was really interesting by one of the students was she asked, how are we going to bring this technology to five times the customers when there are farm operations are reducing? There's farms that are having estate auctions, they're not able to keep up, they're retiring, whatever it may be.

There's fewer farms and there's less farmland so how do we promote the adoption of technology to five times as many customers? It really got me thinking like, "She brings up a really good point." I thought about that for a minute. One of the things that I'm sure is seen across all the industries, but the number of customers today that still are not utilizing technology, that's something that is actually happening.

Let's talk a little bit about that. On how we can, even some of the most simple technology-- From an ag perspective, there's customers out there today that still aren't using auto track to automate their steering. How do we move forward promoting even the simplest of technologies?

Adam: Yes, I think there's a couple of pieces, and it's a really good question. It really fantastic to think about, "Okay, how do we grab onto this as we move forward and make sure that we can bring everyone with?" Probably the most important thing is you've got to meet everyone where they're at. Understanding where the pain points are, what's causing them, the problem in the work, whatever it may be.

It could be different for everyone, there's a lot of variables there. Instead of trying to get to the end of fully integrated, fully autonomous, take your pick of however we're going to imagine what that is, it's really about that stair-step process of, "How do we go from where you are now and show where you can find savings, where you can create improvements, where you can turn that dial."

If you think back to the last 15 or 20 years, I think it's said right now the United States corn production is increasing 1% a year over the last 10 or 15 years. That's taken a number of variables into, but being able to accomplish that as, holistically, the number of acres are shrinking is driven in no small part by the technology advancements. Whether that be fertilizer technology, whether it be seed technology, whether it be machine technology, all of these things are working to create that growth if you will, even in a declining number. The other part becomes, I think the challenge where we partner with customers is how can we help make sure they're getting the most out of their investment.

How do they optimize the tractor? There's a lot of different functionality on every new machine coming out, and some people can immediately see the value of a certain feature and they use it, but what about the other three that it's not quite as clear cut, it's not quite as straightforward how I'm going to get the production or the productivity out of using that feature. I think that's the piece where we've already made the investment, it's there. The technology is in place, it's riding on the tractor throughout the entire process, how do we make sure we optimize that? How can we help a grower do that, or a builder as they're working on the project?

One of the interesting quotes that our partners over at John Deere like to talk about is early on when they released Cross Slope on the Motor Grader, which it's a really unique feature that allows you, the operator, to control variably one side of the cutting edge and lock the other side in at a cross slope. It's a really handy tool if you're trying to maintain a road.

County roads, put a nice 3% crown on the road and off you go. All you need to do is focus on one side of the road instead of worrying about where that blade is across the entire road.

John Deere, in about 2015, made that a standard feature on the GP Grader. Come 2020, we're starting to look at data in the tractors, and nationwide, they realized that less than 10% of the motor graders had actually turned the feature on to use. Very significant technology advantage, real big help to the operator. Adoption was very low. How do we show that information of, "Are you getting the most out of your tractor?"

More importantly, how can we help put that change plan into place? Because it requires the operator to do something a little different and they're very comfortable with what they're doing. They took a long time to learn the work that they were doing and now adding a new variable is a change that obviously just wasn't intuitive at the time. I think there's lots of those examples in agriculture and construction where the tech is available. It's there, it works, but how are we actually going to get it into the work to improve the process?

Tony: Yes, that's a really good point you bring up, and awesome statistics there. Well, depending on how you look at it, awesome, not awesome, but eye-opening statistics. The data that is coming off of the machines. A lot of that similar data we can get on the AG equipment through the operations center, on the amount of technology that's being used, and it brings up two really good points.

One of them, and you touched on it, is support. Making sure the customers on both the ag and construction side have the support. Whether it's RDO equipment dealerships or your local dealership, wherever you are in the world, being able to know and understand how to utilize the technology that's there. One of the ones that I really like to think about in this sense is we go back to the 70 Series combines.

When they came out with the Pro series transmission in those combines, John Deere released a technology called Harvest Smart. For basic terms, Harvest Smart, you were able to set some parameters and you throw the hydro handle all the way forward and the machine controls the speed of the machine based on throughput and engine drawdown and all of that type of stuff, but there were a lot of people that did not utilize the technology.

Either, one, it wasn't optimized properly, or two, they just didn't know that it was there, they didn't know that their machine was capable of it. Making sure that the customer, the end-user, has a line of support and they know and understand how to utilize the technology. Now, that brings me into my next question or my next talking point, is onboarding. Bringing on these technologies, some of the hurdles that we run into when talking with customers.

Now, I know there's certain things that I have in my head but I want to see your thoughts on what are some of the hurdles. What are some of the pain points or struggles that we deal with when it comes to promoting technology and or encouraging customers to adopt technology?

Adam: I always like to find maybe the most ardently opposed operator to the new technology and focus on how do we make sure they understand what opportunities or what this new method unlocks for them. Partly because if they're convinced it works and they're the ones that have been most actively vocal about it not being the right solution, I think it helps everybody in that process.

I think my family farms up in the Red River Valley, and my dad spends a little time working on tractors, and I always tell the story, he wasn't a big technology guy but he got into a machine that did auto steer and that changed pretty quickly. It really frees up your ability to focus. It also, when you think about sitting in a machine all day and if your body is turned in a certain direction or if you're riding in a way to control the machine where you can now make that automated. It's a better ride for you personally, you get out of the machine and you're feeling a little better than you would've any other way.

I think those pieces of really helping stairstep that process in training. I'd tell you if you're a grower or a builder that is thinking about technology or has implemented it, it's really important that it has whoever is responsible at the business has the proper authority and decision-making to make the decisions about how we're going to support and resource it. I think coming out in a demo, showing in the conditions we want to show the machine, you've got a team there to make sure that it's going to work right. You've got the experts on the ground and it works fabulous, flawless most of the time. Then the next day when everybody's gone and somebody else is setting it up, you lose that luster pretty quickly if it's not done right.

How do you create the right both onboarding for the individuals. Then the other part of it is you're going to use a technology product in planting, you're going to go a year until you use it again. Really important that you dust off the cobwebs and go through that process again. Much like starting a new football season, you got to do the fundamentals first. Having the team run through the scenarios, going through and making sure that everything works, it's functional, that it's taken care of so that when it comes game time, you're ready to go and not waiting until the night before if you will, to make that happen.

There's a process there, there's some management, there's some planning, some effort that's got to happen. If that's not built into the work, you'll run into a lot of problems. I think that's my best advice. We like to get excited when we sell technology, and it's great, it does some really incredible things. I'm a believer that after we get to yes, I think it's really important before we deliver and sell the product to have a really honest, candid conversation about, "This can go really smoothly or this can go really poorly."

It really is all going to depend on the organization, the structure, the planning of how the machine comes to the field, how the team prepares it, how the leadership and thought process of how it's going to work is done. If you're not ready for that, then it's okay, but let's be honest about it because it's not going to work perfectly if we don't do the work we need to do.

Tony: Yes, absolutely. You talk about, or everything you talked about there brings me back again to the points we brought up about support. Making sure the end user fully understands the technology, they fully understand what it's meant for. All of this technology, no matter what industry you're in, the technology is built and designed to make us more productive, more efficient. To be able to do something better in the process that we're doing.

In a recent episode in the podcast, I made comments about farming hasn't changed since the beginning of time. You put a seed in the ground, you care for it, you harvest it. That in a nutshell is farming, but what we've done with all of this technology is we've made the processes that we have to do in farming, we've made it more efficient, more productive, more seamless, more simple, things like that.

I would imagine there's a lot of different things. When you talk about that slope control, that grade control on the motor grader, it's cool. You talk about a county gravel road, being able to put that perfect 3% crown on it and you're locked in on the one side. Making sure our operators know how to utilize that technology is what's going to continue to drive more and more technology forward.

The last thing I want to talk about, and you brought this up back again to that same motor grader scenario, data-driven decisions within the different industries. Today, in 2023, we've got lots of opportunity to collect data, to analyze data, but one of the key factors is then utilizing that data. What are some of the things that we can talk to growers and our listeners about when it comes to making those data-driven decisions?

Adam: Yes. I'd tell you that's, you mentioned it in the intro here, that's the next revolution in the industry and it's very much starting already. Much like, I'd probably want to take a step back and realize we didn't get from first RTK machine in the field to where we are today overnight. It's really important to recognize that AI 1.0 is probably not going to look like you want it to at AI 14.3. Those stair-step incremental innovations are going to have to happen. It's really about what data do I have? How can I create the decision point based in it?

Now, the fortunate thing, what we didn't have back then when we started in the GPS world, we've got the ability to analyze data at increasing speeds and sophistication and take multiple different sources and fuse them together to get an analysis that we never had before. It's exciting. It's a little scary. I'm not going to lie, but there's some opportunity there to really drive those innovations, and in different areas.

Some of it's going to be machine learning. The See and Spray technology is a great example where we're solving an economic problem, we're solving an environmental problem, and we're producing a better product at the end of the day with technology, and that's pretty neat. The ability to identify a weed, and only the weed, at a very incredible speed and then only spray that weed, it's got so many benefits to the agricultural world that it's incredible.

It's been the better part of a decade to get from the idea to the handful of machines that are in the field today. It's coming quick now. It feels really fast but there's a team that's been working on that for a long period of time to get it finally to the place where it's ready to be commercialized. Having that mindset of what are the big problems, and I think that's the question. What are the really big problems in the operation?

How can we use the data that's available to us to analyze, to provide the decisions, to provide the opportunity to change the work? I think those are the things that we need to be thinking about in the coming years and certainly the growers and builders in the world that are working with us every day are hoping that, and that's where the direction that we're leading with it.

Tony: Yes, absolutely. You talk about the bringing the data in. In the past, never having the ability to analyze the data like we do today. Being able to make educated decisions based off of that data an like you mentioned, Adam, knowing and understanding, what is our problem? What do we need to change? What data can we utilize or what data can we analyze to find a solution to do what we need to do?

You talked about this didn't all just happen overnight. It's funny that you made the comment back earlier about you can't go zero to 60 right now, you got to make these incremental steps. With the conversation about the sprayer, the See and Spray sprayer that we're doing today. Back in the day, it was ground drive pumps, you were dealing with macro rates of inputs, all of that stuff to slowly moving to hydraulically driven pumps, to rate controllers, to pulse with modulation to what we have today of, "Hey, I only want to spray the weed when I see the weed."

It's very incremental. I think one of the key factors to adopting the technology, using data to make decisions on your operation. Adopting that technology, is making those incremental steps. Taking the time to adopt little by little so that when it does come time to analyze the data that we don't even know how to analyze yet, we are ready because we've made those small steps as we've gone on.

Adam: I think the other thing we're learning in this environment is data that we thought maybe was useless years ago that we still have all of a sudden becomes very relevant when it's in an algorithm and doing analysis. We've seen that in a few instances in the construction industry where we've been capturing this information for years, we had no really good way to look at it, but now we do. All of a sudden, all those historical pieces of information start to be useful again that maybe wouldn't have in any other way.

I think so, it's moving quick, and I don't want to say it, the incremental steps need to have an economic value. That's really important. You can't just, "Well, we're going to do this, but it's going to cost you more, and you're not going to see a production gain." You've got to have the economic answer, otherwise, we're not going to do it. You can't innovate at a cost that is more with no gain, that's really not how the game works. How do you take the incremental steps you need to take that set you up for the really big leap when it's ready, but along the way, they're improving the process?

Tony: Yes, absolutely. Now, as we wrap up here, Adam, I want to give you the opportunity to talk a little bit. You got the opportunity to attend two very cool shows here at the beginning of 2023. First one being the Consumer Electronics Show, the second one was the CONEXPO. Give us your review, your overarching consensus in attending those shows. What did you see? What were the conversations being had? How cool was it to be at those two shows?

Adam: Yes. Some amazing things happening in the world, and when the CES Show, the Consumer Electronics Show is really it's the, well, up until this year, was the largest show Vegas has every year. It got eclipsed by CONEXPO this year for the first time. Pretty big deal. That show has been where the Microsofts and the Amazons and the Googles have put their stamp.

The last few years, John Deere has been exhibiting there. The first time they brought a combine and everybody kind of cocked their head sideways and wondered what was going on. Then their message was really, "Hey, there's an incredible amount of technology in these legacy industries of agriculture and construction." This innovation in this revolution of technology is affecting them as well.

They went from that to, they released the See and Spray or that technology partnership the next year. Then this year, in January, they unveiled the autonomous tractor for the first time. I can't underscore the significance because normally that kind of a release is going to happen at some major World Ag Exposition or a big Iron if you will, and it happened at the Consumer Electronic Show in Las Vegas.

Deere's message to the industry, and really to the world, was that we're a technology company. This technology that is driving innovation in industry and construction in manufacturing and all these other spaces is really critical to what's going on in agriculture and construction. I will tell you, from my seat in the park, they were one of the stars of the show.

They held one of the key keynotes, the CEO of John Deere did a great job laying out the vision. Their chief technology officer was also presenting at that, and they really painted a picture of how important technology was to the future of our industries. On a macro level, what it can do to save cost and increase production, and do it in a way that is economically sustainable. It was received very well. Still a lot of surprised people looking at a 120-foot boom and an electric excavator, which was the first time they'd shown anywhere. It was a great show. Really good for the industry, great for young people that are thinking about a career in tech, knowing that ag and construction are real viable choices.

Then the second one was CONEXPO, and once every three years and this one had some unique significance because the world shut down, if you'll remember the last time CONEXPO happened. It was March of 2020 and we all went into the show on Sunday feeling like the world was overreacting to the pandemic and by Thursday, I mean, the show shut down a day early,and baseball seasons are canceled, basketball seasons are canceled, and we all go into kind of a pause in the world.

This was the first one since then and they broke the record, 139,000 attended. It was the first time in North America where Deere was exhibiting wholly with the Falken acquisition in one space. That, for some of your viewers are listeners that may not know, John Deere bought the Falken Group in 2017 and really created for them a really good global network, but it also added road building and paving to their portfolio in a really significant and global way. This was the first show in North America where all of those solutions were in one spot, and I think it was 70,000 square feet of show space, which they did a fantastic job. There's some really exciting technology coming.

My takeaway from CONEXPO was that there was technology everywhere. Every single manufacturer had a solution, had a message, had a theme around where technology and innovation were going, which was not the case three years ago, and certainly not the case before that. That movement to this focus and strategic vision around where technology goes was evident in every booth and every display.

We're really fortunate, and we talk a lot about Deere, but we had Vermeer at that show with a pilot driver solution that is just fantastic in the solar world. We have our partners at Topcon who have always had an incredible booth, an incredible presence at the show, and this one is no different there. It was four or five people deep at every part of the station in the show and the booth is packed and a lot of great technology. We had our partners at Wingtra, our UAV manufacturer had exhibited for the first time at CONEXPO. Then our newest partner Teleo, which is a supervised autonomy solution. Where now you take the operator off the tractor, they're in a command station or almost a gaming environment running the machines.

At this show, you could run two machines. One was a Gater, but it was in Livermore, California, and the other was a skid steer at another site over in Pleasanton, California. You're running those machines, from the chair, at the show, and all you had to do was click a button and you switch machines. That ability to change the way it work or where the work gets done.

I did like to joke as I came home, I've got a 12-year-old and we spend a lot of time talking about how video games are not the key to a successful career. I left the show thinking, I'm going to have to adjust that a little because the technique of controlling a machine, it's not all that different from playing a video game. There's some new career opportunities that may unlock for the next generation. A new career that they never thought was possible.

A lot of exciting things at the show. The thing that I probably left feeling the best about was how engaged and interested all of our customers and builders and the team that we had sent to that show were in where the technology is headed. How does it fit my work and how do I invest in these type of things? This is my fifth time I've been to that show, which is a long time coming, every three years. It was my favorite one and certainly, I think the one that's going to be most impactful on the innovation of our industry out of all of them that I've been at.

Tony: Yes. Two things come to mind as you were giving those show recaps. One of them, you talk about your 12-year-old son and the future of gaming and how it's like, "Well, get outside and let's get our hands dirty and this and that." I recently saw a post on Twitter of, it was almost like a command center, a large computer screen, and this customer had a number of remote display access on their John Deere tractors all pulled up.

The first thing I thought about is all these young kids playing Farm Simulator. Really, Farm Simulator is almost a precursor to farming in the future. You're going to be able to use and operate. You talk about the Teleo solution, being able to remotely move machines that are states away. The show was in Las Vegas, those machines were in California. That's only one border away, but they could be further than that.

Adam: They certainly could.

Tony: There's a lot of things that come to mind as you talk about all that stuff. The other thing that came to mind when you were recapping CONEXPO, CONEXPO is more of a technology show than an iron show these days. All of it, and I shouldn't even just say CONEXPO, it's a lot of farm equipment shows or equipment industry, I shouldn't just say farm, but equipment industry trade shows are turning into more and more technology.

Adam: Yes. The machine is always going to be really important, but the question is how do I get the most out of it? The technology enables that. I think it is the natural evolution of the process. We're never going to get away from the machines being there. In fact, I don't know that I'd like that show, frankly, I like the iron. The important part is that this is how we are able to change the dynamic on production. It's how we're able to do more with less and the cost constraints we have in the country, both in agriculture and construction. It's exciting to see, very evidently the entire industry moving all at once.

Tony: Absolutely. Adam, I just want to say thank you for taking the time to come in, sit down, and chat with our listeners about just the big picture of technology, ag, construction, our business, and what we do with RDO Equipment Company. There's a lot to be said about technology today, there's a lot to be said about technology moving forward so I just want to thank you for taking the time to do this.

Adam: Yes. Glad to be here, Tony, thank you for the invitation.

Tony: Please take a moment to subscribe to the podcast if you haven't already. You can subscribe to the show on all the different podcasting apps that are out there. Also, make sure to follow RDO Equipment Company on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and catch all of our latest videos on YouTube. You can also follow me on Twitter @RDOTonyK.