Collaboration seems to be the new modus operandi of international truck OEMs and it makes a huge amount of sense – economies of scale being just one of them. FleetWatch recently reported on the Mitsubishi Fuso/Hino merger, then on the Daimler/Volvo joint venture in the development of a new software-defined vehicle platform to establish a new industry standard. And now we hear of another one.
Traton Group, the commercial vehicle subsidiary of Volkswagen, is consolidating its global R&D operations to deliver faster, more focused innovation across its brands. From this month, July, engineers from Scania, MAN, International and Volkswagen Truck & Bus will operate within a single structure, effectively cutting duplication, reducing development costs and improving speed-to-market. The unified approach aims to strengthen customer focus while supporting each brand’s identity, using modular technologies tailored to a wide range of real-world fleet needs.
Approximately 9 000 employees from the R&D departments of Scania, MAN, International and Volkswagen Truck & Bus are now headed by Niklas Klingenberg, the Traton Executive Board member responsible for Research & Development in the group.
According to Klingenberg: “The R&D employees will be joining forces with around 3 000 colleagues in R&D teams at the Traton brands. As part of Brand Identity Development (BID), they ensure that work continues successfully on brand-specific innovations.
“The forthcoming closer cooperation in Research & Development will make us both quicker and more efficient, enabling us to develop more precisely targeted innovations and bring products to market earlier. This approach means we can avoid duplication of work and, at the same time, consistently tailor our product portfolio optimally to the needs of different customers across all our brands.
“Every single engineer and talent in our organisation is indispensable in ensuring the bright future of the Traton Group. Our success depends on their expertise.”
By repositioning Research & Development, the entire Group will capitalise on the Traton Modular System to a far greater extent than before, he adds. “The overall focus is on developing modular components that can be used by different brands, while the goal is for the same technology to serve various performance steps and thereby meet different customer requirements.
“Now that the cooperation between Group R&D and Brand Identity Development is evolving, it will accelerate the development of the Traton Modular System to deliver sustainable, efficient and connected transportation solutions to the market,” Klingenberg concludes.
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