WABCO Holdings Inc, a leading global supplier of technologies and services that improve the safety, efficiency and connectivity of commercial vehicles, laid the foundation stone on March 27 for its new Engineering Innovation Center in Hanover, Germany. With this investment in the facility the company further strengthens its position as a global technology leader.
Representatives from government and industry joined in the foundation stone ceremony for the new WABCO Engineering Innovation Center. Starting in 2018, approximately 450 employees will work in an area of 11,500 square meters on the latest technologies and systems for commercial vehicles worldwide.
"With the investment in the Engineering Innovation Center, we are setting new standards for a modern engineering environment which will enable the development of many new efficient systems and innovative solutions,” said Juergen Heller, managing director at WABCO Germany. “At the same time, we are strengthening WABCO’s position as a technology leader due to additional product development capacities and the flexible infrastructure that will be created here,"
The innovation center will play a significant role in the development of new solutions that support the commercial vehicle industry to pave the way towards more connected and automated driving and create safer and more efficient trucks, buses and trailers. In addition to laboratories and test rooms, innovative office spaces will be created, helping to make the cooperation of various product development teams even more efficient. In order to continuously advance an atmosphere of creativity, a team of engineers was involved in the designing process of the new offices. Also situated in the Innovation Center will be WABCO’s advanced development department, which works on future projects such as e-mobility and automated driving in the commercial vehicle sector. WABCO invests approximately 25 million Euros in the construction of the Engineering Innovation Center.
"The Engineering Innovation Center will be the new hub of our product development," said Dr Christian Wiehen, WABCO's chief technology officer. "We are looking forward to working on the next generations of technologies that make commercial vehicles even more safe and thus help to save lives."