The network

The Commercial Vehicle Cluster was founded in the year 2005, owing to the high concentration of manufacturers and suppliers of the commercial vehicle industry (trucks, buses, agricultural machines, construction machines) in the south western Germany, namely the states of Rhineland-Palatinate and Baden-Wuerttemberg. Since March 2008, the Cluster exists in the legal form of a GmbH (Ltd.) as a public private partnership, consisting of Daimler AG, John Deere, Grammer AG, Kirchhoff Automotive GmbH, euro engineering AG and the state of Rhineland-Palatinate.

Main activities

The technological focus

The Commercial Vehicle Cluster offers the participation in six different project groups to its current 62 partner companies. The present focus in the field of technology lies on safety and reliability of the vehicle as well as on "Emission Control Systems". The following project groups are composed of OEMs, suppliers and scientists:
Alternative Drives, E-Mobility: Feasibility, chances, risks and business models of alternative drives for heavy trucks, agricultural machines and other commercial vehicles. 
Materials: Problems of lightweight constructions and the improvement in efficiency of products and processes using multi-material systems.  
Reliability/Robustness: Functional safety (standards), key figures for reliability, optimised coordination concerning the requirement specifications
Diagnosability: Methods of model based diagnosis
Manufacturing process: Key figures for robust processes, traceability
Supply Chain Management: Self-discloser systems for suppliers, change management, total cost approach.

Highlights

The commercial vehicle industry is characterised by production methods that differ from those of the passenger car industry (greater model diversity, lower quantities), various technical specifics and a unique qualification profile of the people employed in this industry. The achievement of competitive advantages is assured by the fact that the cluster is well networked and also by the fact that not only technical but also commercial problems along the value chain are solved in a project oriented way. For this, the CVC involves science partners from Kaiserslautern (TU, Fraunhofer), Karlsruhe (KIT), Aachen (ika) and Saarbrücken (HTW).
2007: Foundation of an interdisciplinary centre for engineering for commercial vehicles at the Kaiserslautern University of Technology and the Fraunhofer-Innovationsclusters Digitale Nutzfahrzeugtechnologie (Fraunhofer-Innovation Digital Cluster Vehicle Technology).
WS 2008/2009: Start of the new and nationwide unique Masters Degree course “Commercial Vehicle Technology” at the Kaiserslautern University of Technology.
March 2010: 1. International Commercial Vehicle Technology Symposium Kaiserslautern (scientific conference at the University of Technology).
The Cluster works on the development of networking R&D-activities in the commercial vehicle sector at the European level.