For the second consecutive year Volvo Trucks has received Europe’s prestigious Quality Innovation of the Year Award. Volvo Trucks received the award for its new transmission, I-Shift Dual Clutch, whose main benefit is that it makes the driver’s job simpler and safer.
“I-Shift Dual Clutch represents a new-for-the-industry product innovation with strong improvements in parameters that influence drivers and transport companies as well as cargo owners and society in general,” says Matti Kaulio, Associate Professor Industrial Economics, KTH Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm and representative of the Swedish SIQ (Swedish Institute for Quality). Associate Professor Kaulio sits on the panel of experts that selected this year’s award-winner.
The Quality Innovation of the Year Award is backed not only by SIQ but also by quality institutes in several other European countries. The 2014 awards is presented by Hungary’s President János Áder at a ceremony in Budapest on January 19.
Innovations with customer benefits
“It is of course really great that our innovative capability is once again being rewarded in this way. We work systematically to develop new solutions with clear benefits for customers and drivers, and I-Shift Dual Clutch has enjoyed a reception way beyond our expectations. The fact that we have now also received the Quality Innovation of the Year Award is yet another confirmation that our focus is spot-on,” says Hayder Wokil, Quality Director at Volvo Trucks.
Volvo Trucks first in the world
In brief, I-Shift Dual Clutch is an automated manual gearbox with dual clutches. With this solution, the truck does not lose either speed or power during gearchanges, instead providing efficient and smooth progress on the road. This type of transmission was initially developed for high-performance sports cars and is used in the automobile industry. Volvo Trucks is the first company in the world to employ the technology in heavy vehicles.
In 2013 Volvo Trucks received the Quality Innovation of the Year Award for Volvo Dynamic Steering, a steering stabilisation system that has attracted considerable worldwide attention not least thanks to the film “The Epic Split” starring Jean-Claude Van Damme.
Facts Quality Innovation of the Year Award:
The Quality Innovation of the Year Award is presented every year to companies, organisations or individuals that have presented innovations with clear links to well thought-out methodology in their work and that are based on clearly identified customer needs.
The Quality Innovation of the Year Award, which was introduced in 2007 in Finland, is today backed by quality-promoting foundations in Sweden, Finland, Estonia, Latvia, the Czech Republic and Hungary. The aim is that the Award should be further developed to encompass additional countries.
The statement of the panel of experts on I-Shift Dual Clutch:
Volvo Trucks I-Shift Dual Clutch is an example of a product innovation where an existing solution, previously used in sports car, has been further developed and integrated with existing transmission technology used in trucks. The advantages of this product innovation are that it makes gearchanges possible without power interruption and the truck does not lose momentum during gearchanges. The product represents a new-for-the-industry product innovation with strong indications of improvements in product parameters such as driveability, smoother ride, gentle treatment of the cargo, more comfortable working environment, energy consumption and potentially also transport efficiency; parameters that simultaneously influence several of the product’s stakeholders such as the driver, transport company, cargo owner and society.
