Commercial Vehicle Cluster

© Commercial Vehicle Cluster

The Commercial Vehicle Cluster - together to the top

The Commercial Vehicle Cluster – Nutzfahrzeug GmbH (CVC) is the network of the Commercial Vehicle Industry (trucks, buses, agricultural machines and construction vehicles) in southwestern Germany. The objectives are to improve the competitiveness of the partner companies, to promote cooperation and the scientific and technical networking of the players in the commercial vehicle industry.

The CVC acts at the interface between business, research and politics. It links partners from these areas and in particular opens up access to SMEs, which they could hardly open up on their own. In addition to networking, the CVC carries out knowledge transfer and offers opportunities to actively contribute to the future of the commercial vehicle sector.

The CVC has been, and still is, focused on lead projects, which are designed and supported in close cooperation with the scientific community. During the funding period between 2016 and 2019 the focus will be on the following lead projects:

• Additive Manufacturing in commercial vehicle production
• Autonomous driving of commercial vehicles in the off-road area using the example of the Unimog

Since the strategic reorientation of the CVC the cluster management has been increasingly involved in the area of innovation management. Together with the CVC members, the future vehicles of the commercial vehicle industry are identified, analyzed and assessed with regard to the long-term consequences. The aim is to know the requirements so that tailor-made innovations can be successfully placed in the commercial vehicle sector. In addition to technical aspects, non-technical questions are systematically addressed: How do business models have to change in order to be able to utilize technical solutions economically? Which business processes result from these new business models and how can technical solutions optimally support these processes? What framework conditions and infrastructures are necessary to enable technical solutions to be successfully established? In the strategic development of innovative ideas, the CVC always links two levels: on the one hand, the confidential innovation work in or for individual companies or groups of companies, but on the other hand, the search for cross-company themes for cooperative innovation processes. SMEs in particular can benefit from this offer. In contrast to large companies, they do not have appropriately qualified departments and do not have the necessary resources to fund external support.

In the course of the strategic development of the CVC, the lead project approach was transferred to so-called key areas. In the future, "bundles" of projects will be implemented on topics which are particularly relevant to the commercial vehicle industry, dealing with specific aspects of a key issue. The details are:

• Automated commercial vehicles for off-road use,
• Commercial vehicles for high-tech agriculture,
• Electrification of commercial vehicles and
• Construction.

This innovative approach ensures a sustainable topic development and ensures that the possibilities of the cluster partners to actively participate in R&D projects are significantly increased. Guiding projects are used to initiate or further develop strategic themes.

The added value of a membership in the CVC is in particular the fact that the members can jointly accomplish things that would be challenged by a single company. The breadth of the portfolio also ensures that every member of the CVC can find precisely the offers that correspond to their interests, needs and, above all, the time constraints of an engagement. CVC partners have the opportunity to publish articles about your company free of charge in the newsletter that is published twice a year. Non-partners would incur costs (1st page 400 euros, each additional page 200 euros). Participation at events is also more cost-effective than for non-partners.

In addition, since April 2018, the CVC holds the head office of the initiative "We move it" of the Ministry of Economic Affairs, Transport, Agriculture and Viticulture of Rhineland-Palatinate. The initiative opens up the "Business Ecosystem Automotive Technology Rhineland-Palatinate" and completes the activities of the CVC. The overall goal of "We move it" is to support the automotive industry in Rhineland-Palatinate in coping with the impending change and thus to strengthen the country's economic power. For this purpose, business, science, politics and institutions are networked with the aim of exploiting and expanding existing strengths. More information about „We move it“ can be found on the homepage: Initiative "We move it" of the Ministry of Economic Affairs, Transport, Agriculture and Viticulture of Rhineland-Palatinate

Shareholders of CVC are the state of Rheinland-Pfalz, Daimler AG, John Deere-Lanz Verwaltungs-GmbH, Grammer AG, IAV GmbH Ingenieurgesellschaft Auto und Verkehr and ITK Engineering GmbH. In addition, more than 80 organizations from the worlds of business, science and politics are organized as partners in the CVC. A scientific advisory board consisting of representatives from business, science and the German Association of the Automotive Industry (VDA) and the German Engineering Federation (VDMA) supports shareholders and cluster management in the process of strategic development and implementation. An overview of the current activities and the planned events can be found on our homepage www.cvc-suedwest.com.