In Kinze News
Big Blue and Polly Children’s Book: Telling Our Story to the Next Generation of Farmers
What makes a company special isn’t just the products and services it offers. It’s the stories and company history. Stories about the vibrant, talented people who enrich the culture and embody the brand name. Stories about how certain product offerings were first innovated and later improved. Kinze is fortunate in that regard, for ours is a history with an abundance of great stories. We want to share as many of those stories as we can. The Kinze Innovation Center was created with that purpose in mind. From the early stages of its development, one of our primary goals was developing fun ways for younger audiences to experience and enjoy the Kinze story. So naturally, a series of children’s books seemed...
Kinze & Beck’s Hybrids Collaborate on Variable Hybrid Planting Project
A little while back, Beck’s Hybrids and Kinze began working together on a project exploring the benefits of variable hybrid planting. The collaboration brought together proven leaders in seeds (Beck’s) and row-crop planters (Kinze), as we endeavored to develop a system for planting multiple hybrids in a field. Kinze engineers customized a 16-row variable hybrid prototype planter for Beck’s to use in their 2013 field trials. For this we utilized a Kinze 3600 twin-row planter, converting half of the row units to plant one hybrid and the other row units to plant a second hybrid. Then we added custom electronics to turn the row units on and off automatically as the farmer goes through the field. The electronics proved to be the biggest...
Kinze Collaborates with Dotson Iron Castings on New 4000 Series Row Unit
When designing the new 4900 Series Planter, Kinze engineers wanted to create a stronger, durable, and cost effective row unit that would endure rugged field conditions, yet maintain precise seed placement. As a result several components on the row unit were designed with cast ductile iron to give reinforced strength to the overall row unit. For this Kinze turned to Dotson Iron Castings, a leading foundry that has facilitated steel fabrication to cast ductile iron conversions for Kinze several times over the years. The casting conversion replaced 30 stamped steel parts with six assembled ductile iron castings and reduced manufacturing assembly time by 10 percent. Dotson recently won the American Foundry Society’s 2013 Best-In-Class award for this Kinze Row Unit. This is a...
Kirkwood Students Tour Iowa Manufacturing Companies
Kirkwood Community College recently organized an initiative called “Advancing into the Future” that took over 500 students on a tour of 37 manufacturers in the Cedar Rapids/Iowa City Technology Corridor. The students were given a firsthand look at the various facilities while learning about different career opportunities available at the Iowa manufacturing companies. Kinze Manufacturing had the privilege of participating in the tour. Those in attendance explored one million square feet of manufacturing space at Kinze headquarters in Williamsburg and learned about some of the exciting career opportunities at Kinze. The initiative garnered some good local news coverage by the Williamsburg Journal Tribune. Read the full article, entitled "Kirkwood, Kinze promote manufacturing through tour," here. Photo and caption credit - Benjamin S. Evans of www.yourweeklypaper.com:...
In Kinze News
Welcome to the Kinze “Sparks of Innovation” Blog
Stories inspire us. Stories of success drive us to achieve great things of our own. Stories of perseverance encourage us to keep going – even despite formidable obstacles. Even stories of failure can inspire us by reminding us that success is never a given and we must always stay focused, hungry and humble. Stories abound here at Kinze. Like the story of my father – president and founder Jon Kinzenbaw – who as an ambitious young man with little money in his pocket opened a small welding shop here in the heartland, relying on his creative talents, know-how and work ethic to build a successful company from the ground up. Over the years so many talented and hard working people...
Calling all Innovators
At Kinze, we’re always on the lookout for the next big innovators. Could that be you? Let me ask you this: What motivates you professionally? Are you the type of person who does the job to get a pat on the shoulder? Or are you driven to create things that can make the world a better place? If you said that you want to make the world a better place, we have careers that you may want to explore. Our culture values employees and gives them a chance to help make the world a better place through the creation of innovative products that help feed people all around the world. This is an exciting time to be in agriculture manufacturing. There are...
Inside the Kinze Innovation Center
A few years ago the Kinzenbaw family and Kinze Leadership Team began exploring ways to really tell the Kinze story. Many exciting ideas surfaced – like books, videos and various digital productions – yet one challenge remained. With a company so rich in history, how could any ONE medium capture the story of Kinze in its entirety? To tell the history is one thing, but to experience the history was another. What we set out to do was create a full real-life experience that gave our customers and friends something tangible. Something that let them see, touch, hear and feel the energy and excitement behind Kinze innovation – present and past. Thus, the Kinze Innovation Center was born. Opened in 2013,...