Gearbox producer ZF notes importance of R&D investment
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ZF Friedrichshafen believes that spending on average more than 5 per cent of sales on research and development per year helps it to stay at the forefront of the auto-parts industry.
“In general we were able to invest quite heavily in R&D and ZF will continue to invest in R&D because we believe that as a technology leader, you need to be at the forefront, to set the trend,” Fredrik Staedtler, senior executive vice president of commercial vehicle technology, said yesterday.
To maintain its leadership in driveline and chassis technology, ZF Group poured 836 million euros (Bt36 billion) into R&D last year, when it made an operating profit of 756 million euros on sales of 16.8 billion euros.
The group has eight main development locations with 5,400 engineers in Germany, the Czech Republic, the United States and China, along with corporate R&D coordinates and support in Japan.
The group might open another development centre in the future but he did not specify the location.
However, huge spending on R&D can only be done with a large amount of cash, and the challenge is for companies to decide whether to be an innovation driver of the industry or to concentrate on creating volume for the company.
“We have to appreciate the fact that we work in an environment where volume is very critical, so we need to have innovation but at a very cost-competitive level, and this can only be generated by volume.
“The development in our transmission technology is based on a modular approach that gives us the opportunity to provide solutions in many areas in the EU and Asia and to generate from this volume base at an attractive cost position,” he said.
ZF’s newest products last year include the ZF innovation truck, a tractor-trailer prototype that can be manoeuvred into the desired position remotely via a tablet application, complete with a hybrid drive system.
The innovation truck is fitted with the ZF-TraXon automatic transmission system, which will be available in Asia in 2018.
Other products including the Ecosplit bus driveline, AVE 130 low-floor axle for electrically driven low-floor buses and a lightweight-optimised truck suspension system for rear twin axles will be showcased at the International Automobile Exhibition in Hanover, Germany, from September 25 to October 2.
