More medal success for MF 8600
SIMA Show Gold Medal for Massey Ferguson OptiRide Plus
The unique OptiRide Plus cab suspension system on Massey Ferguson’s outstanding MF 8600 Series has been awarded a Gold Medal in the French, SIMA 2009 Show Innovation Awards. According to the expert judges the system represents “a significant step forward in driver comfort.”
Massey Ferguson has now won five prestigious accolades in the past two months. This latest Gold Medal joins the MF 8690’s success in taking both the important ‘Tractor of the Year 2009’ and ‘Golden Tractor’ design awards at the EIMA Show in Bologna, Italy along with the MF 3655F receiving a finalist award in the specialist category. And, last month, the MF 7280 Centora combine harvester received a Silver Medal at the first AgroSalon exhibition in Moscow, Russia.
The OptiRide Plus suspension system is one of only three innovations out of 154 entries to receive the prestigious Gold Medal at SIMA. The Awards were judged by a panel of 15 experts from six different countries.
“This Gold Medal is the result of Massey Ferguson’s sustained investment in developing advanced designs,” says Laurent Pernin, MF General Marketing Manager Mid and High HP Tractors. “It also confirms Massey Ferguson’s position as the leader in advanced cab technology. Indeed, this award builds on the success of the MF 8600 Series’ forebears, which also won Medals at a previous SIMA show as well as at FIMA in Spain.”
The judges said the advanced OptiRide Plus dynamic suspension system, which is fitted as standard to all Excellence specification models in the MF 8600 Series, “represents a significant step forward in terms of driver comfort.”
The automatic, but also adjustable, system’s control unit, noted the judges, is linked to the tractor’s CAN-Bus system and uses this electronic information to automatically adjust the settings to control bounce, rolling and pitching. Operators can also set the system, via a rotary potentiometer in the cab, to suit the conditions and their individual requirements.
Key to the OptiRide Plus dynamic system, the judges added, is its four hydraulic dampers and accumulators that are attached to each corner of the cab. These are equipped with four levelling sensors – fitted to each of the hydraulic dampers. These provide information to the controller, which also receives information about, for example, forward speed, acceleration, and braking.
After processing this data the controller then adjusts each individual damper setting to provide up to 25% improvement in comfort, compared to the standard system.
This SIMA Gold Medal, along with other recent awards again confirms Massey Ferguson’s world-leading position as a manufacturer of advanced technology, says Declan Hayden, Vice President, Sales and Marketing for Europe Africa and the Middle East.
“This important award, which follows similar accolades from experts across Europe, is independent confirmation that Massey Ferguson is designing and building the state of the art tractor technology,” he adds.