Volvo Trucks has received Europe’s Quality Innovation of the Year Award for the second year running. The award was given for Volvo Trucks’ new transmission, the I-Shift Dual Clutch.
The 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 gear changes, 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.
“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.
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.
