Scania Annual Report 2011

RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT
41
Focus on knowledge
about customer
operations
Scania focuses on customer profitability, the foremost
yardstick for ensuring that it is developing
the right products and is supporting them with the
right services. This requires solid knowledge about
customer operations and the factors that determine
optimal vehicle use. Sustainable development also
governs Scania’s development work.
Scania invests about 4 percent of its sales in research and
development over an economic cycle. Scania has chosen
to develop and manufacture strategically and competitively
important components and systems in-house or in strategic
alliances with leading suppliers. About 60 percent of R&D
investments are related to engines and transmissions.
Possessing cutting-edge expertise in strategic areas is the
foundation for Scania’s role as a leading brand.
Co-location of resources for all product types generates
major synergies, as does being close to production facilities.
This is why research and development resources are concentrated
at the Scania Technical Centre in Södertälje, Sweden.
Also of strategic importance is in-house development of
electronic systems, which provides greater opportunities to
adapt vehicle properties according to users’ specific requirements.
Sustainable transport is a guiding principle for Scania’s
development work. This includes the least possible environmental
impact from pre-production engineering as well as
production, vehicle operation, maintenance and end-of-life
treatment of products.
Understanding customers and their operations
Scania constantly seeks to increase its knowledge of its customers’
operating conditions and working methods in order to offer
products with exactly the right properties and performance for
each customer and application.
Development engineers work more and more out in the field
in close contact with customers in order to increase Scania’s
knowledge of customer operations. For example, measurements
of the stresses on vehicles provide knowledge about improving
the dimensioning of components such as axles and gearboxes
in Scania products.
Customer clinics are another method of acquiring knowledge
about customers and their operations. Customers are invited to
participate in the design of new components and products.
Report of the directors Scania 2011