Claas, a manufacturer of agricultural and harvest machinery, is one of the largest land machinery producers worldwide. For nearly 100 years, the family company has been developing intelligent solutions in agricultural engineering. Decades of research and experience build the solid basis for a product series which faces up to the continually rising needs of a growing world population and a growing shortage of resources, in order to optimise the harvest. The company Claas was founded in 1887 by Franz Claas Senior for the production of milk centrifuges. In 1913, his son, August Claas, an engine fitter, took over the small company in Clarholz in order to manufacture and repair hay balers. A year later, he traded with his brothers, Bernhard and Franz Claas Junior under the name ‘Gebrüder Claas’. The basis for the company development was made with the purchase of a hardstone site in Harsewinkel. The patent-registered ‘Knoter’ made the company famous in 1919. Ten years later, Karl Vormfelde initiated the development of the first European combine harvester, the combine-harvester-baler. Said combine harvester was presented in 1936 and went into production in 1937. The Claas Partnership (by limited shares) Ltd. is an international agricultural machinery concern situated in Harsewinkel, in east Westphalia. The company, founded in 1913, is the market and technological leader in harvest engineering and had an export share of 73.5 per cent in 2011. Claas is mainly active in the markets for harvest machinery; field choppers (world market leader) particularly combine harvesters (European market leader), mowers, (large) hay rakes, rotators and balers. More recently the company has been investing in other areas and since the take-over by Renault Agriculture in 2003 they have also been investing in tractors. Alongside their core business, they are also becoming more popular in the areas of manufacturing technology and industry procedure.