John Deere has completed an €80m investment in a new fully automatic paint shop at its tractor plant in Mannheim, Germany.

The newly commissioned automated paint shop is a major step for the tractor manufacturer towards a climate neutral facility.

Through the use of heat pumps and other thermal insulation and other technologies, it becomes John Deere’s first building to meet the KfW-40 efficiency standard.

As part of the new paint process, the chassis first pass through a seven-stage robotic cleaning and preparation phase. Thereafter, 10 robots work to prime and apply the final top coat. The facility can simultaneously process 100 chassis, each taking 2.7 minutes from start to finish.

The new paint shop provides further flexibility to produce even larger tractors, with chassis weighing up to eight tonnes.