The world is getting used to driverless cars, but what about driverless combine harvesters? “They are perfectly possible,” says Lothar Kriszun. As the chief executive of German agricultural equipment company Claas, Mr Kriszun is an expert on the huge machines, of which his company is one of the world’s biggest producers.

He is standing in a sprawling factory in Harsewinkel, northern Germany, where most days 40 harvesters and related farm machines trundle off the production lines. Each can sell for up to €650,000 and are built from 50,000 parts — including about 30 sensors that measure everything from temperature to harvesting rates. These sensors, data communications and digital controls are crucial to self-driving harvesters becoming a reality.

Claas is among a raft of medium-sized, privately owned German manufacturers, known as the Mittelstand, grafting new technology on to manufacturing. Central to this is the internet of things — connecting smart products and machines via data networks — and the related concept of Industrie 4.0 — the digitisation of manufacturing technology, from design to after service.