Sustainable products and production in Lecce
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CNH’s first electric compact wheel loader starts production this month at its Lecce plant in Italy, where solar power and investment in more sustainable manufacturing processes are transforming operations
Lecce is also home to CNH’s largest photovoltaic power installation: its peak power production is about 3.3 MW, with around 7,300 solar panels produce almost 4,500 MWh of electricity each year
To reach its sustainability targets, CNH is evolving the products it makes and the way it makes them. Its plant in Lecce, southern Italy, demonstrates the Company’s commitment to both types of change. The first electric compact wheel loader will roll off the production line there in July 2024 and investments in the plant are reducing power, water and chemical use.
The 59.2 hectares site produces vehicles for CNH’s CASE Construction Equipment and New Holland Construction brands. More than 200 models roll off seven production lines, including a new one for the electric compact wheel loader. This is the first to use automated guided vehicles (AGVs) to move vehicles between stages of the manufacturing process.
Lecce is also home to CNH’s largest photovoltaic power installation: its peak power production is about 3.3 MW, with around 7,300 solar panels producing almost 4,500 MWh of electricity each year. “It supplies 34 percent of the plant’s electricity needs and reduces carbon dioxide emissions by more than 1,200 tons a year,” says Michele Piccinno, head of manufacturing and engineering at the plant. Excess electricity produced is sold to Italy’s national grid, so no energy is wasted.
CASE Construction Equipment's electric compact wheel loader.
New vehicle designs to support the energy transition
The electric compact wheel loader that is being built in Lecce, for both CASE and New Holland, joins CNH’s growing line-up of electric construction vehicles, alongside two sizes of mini excavators and a backhoe loader.
The switch to electric powertrains is to meet the rising demand for sustainable products to mitigate the effects of climate change and comply with rising international sustainability obligations. CNH aims to halve both Scope 1 emissions (produced by the Company’s operations) and Scope 2 emissions (arising from energy CNH buys to power its plants and offices) from 2018 levels by 2030.
Instead of simply modifying existing diesel vehicles to create an electric version, however, CNH is re-designing every aspect of its machines. The new electric compact wheel loader, which weighs 3.7 tons, is a brand-new model.
As well as emissions savings, the other advantages of electric-powered construction equipment are becoming clear to customers: they are quiet, produce much lower levels of vibration, and there are no emissions. This gives a better experience for operators and enables contractors to use them close to places such as hospitals and schools, or inside buildings and farms where there are noise and emissions restrictions.
Yet because EV (electric vehicle) technology for construction is so new, many customers still have natural concerns about the daily reality of working with the vehicles, explains Eric Zieser, who leads CNH’s portfolio of light construction equipment and is overseeing the electrification strategy.
“The most-asked question is about run time and the second-most asked question is about how to charge the machine,” he says.
Keeping the vehicle as light as possible is important to extend the battery’s run time, says Vito Martina, EV and electrification platform manager for CNH’s construction division globally. The compact wheel loader was “designed around weight,” using aerospace software to calculate possible weight savings at each stage of design development.
The arm for example, is not made of two solid steel plates but has cut-outs where the additional metal is not needed. The wheel loader’s hydraulic system is also electrically controlled, and only releases oil when it is demanded by the operator. The electric vehicle is six times more energy efficient than a diesel equivalent, CNH estimates, and owners will see a 90 percent cost saving overall because maintenance costs are much lower and charging the vehicle is cheaper than filling it up with diesel.
After charging, the compact wheel loader’s battery will last for between three and eight hours, depending on the weight of material it is moving. It comes with an on-board charger that can be connected at any public car-charging station and an adaptor to connect to any wall plug on site. The vehicle charges in an hour using an optional fast charger.
“The most effective way to allay worries about the performance of the new range of EVs is to let customers try them,” says Martina. CNH unveiled the pre-production version of the e-compact wheel loader for the first time at Conexpo in North America in March 2023, and then launched a production model at Germany’s Agritechnica trade fair in November that year. “Customers were immediately impressed by the low noise and the level of push it had,” he adds.
CNH's Lecce plant in Italy.
Lecce’s operations are also being made more sustainable and efficient by a new $1.2 million plasma cutting system, reducing waste material through its precision
A sustainable working environment
At the Lecce plant, staff have been trained in how to work safely with electrical vehicle parts, including batteries, motors and the vehicles’ high-voltage wire harnesses.
The final stage of production, the paint shop, has also been transformed by CNH’s $7.3 million investment in a new powder coating paint process. Now, almost 70 percent more vehicles can be painted each day, while powder coating eliminates the volatile organic compounds (VOCs) used in traditional paint to help it dry. The process uses no water. All vehicles made at Lecce are now painted with the powder coat process, meaning the factory uses 22 percent less water a year. Companywide, CNH aims to reduce water use in production by a third in 2024, compared with 2018.
Lecce’s operations are also being made more sustainable and efficient by a new $1.2 million plasma cutting system, reducing waste material through its precision.
In line with the UN’s Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) for decent work, CNH’s sustainability commitments include action to reduce injuries at its sites by 35 percent by 2024, compared with 2018. In Lecce, the Company has been testing an approach to improve ergonomics and reduce the risk of accidents or long-term strain.
The software tool assesses videos of employees carrying out their tasks at the plant’s workstations and assigns a code to each movement. The code is then ranked according to international scoring systems for the likelihood of work-related injury, including the Occupational Repetitive Actions (OCRA) metric and the lifting equation of the US National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH).
A work analysis team led by Bruno Iovino, head of work analysis at the Lecce plant, is cross-checking the tool’s results with a manual assessment. Within the first half of 2025, all workstations will have been assessed. The medium-term aim is to ensure all tasks score green on indices such as OCRA, rather than yellow or red, which indicate a risk of injury.
“Our expectation is that we will be able to reduce accidents, injuries and the long-term consequences of repetitive actions,” says Iovino. If the video assessment technology proves beneficial, its use may be extended to CNH’s other facilities.
Taken together, the changes at the Lecce plant demonstrate CNH’s holistic commitment to sustainability. The new electric construction vehicles are part of the transformation of the Company’s product range, while data-driven ergonomic improvements will create a safer working environment for employees, and solar power and the powder painting process reduce the factory’s impact on the environment.
CNH is a world-class equipment, technology and services company that sustainably advances the noble work of agriculture and construction workers.
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