Volvo Trucks bags quality innovation award for I-Shift Dual Clutch

For the second consecutive year Volvo Trucks has received Europe’s prestigious Quality Innovation of the Year Award. Volvo Trucks received the award for its new transmission, I-Shift Dual Clutch, whose main benefit is that it makes the driver’s job simpler and safer.

“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,” said Matti Kaulio, Associate Professor Industrial Economics, KTH Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm and representative of the Swedish SIQ (Swedish Institute for Quality). 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.  

“It is great that our innovative capability is once again being rewarded in this way. We work systematically to develop new solutions with clear benefits for customers and drivers, and I-Shift Dual Clutch has enjoyed a reception way beyond our expectations. The fact that we have now also received the Quality Innovation of the Year Award is yet another confirmation that our focus is spot-on,” says Hayder Wokil, Quality Director at Volvo Trucks.

Briefly put, 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.

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 worldwide viral YouTube film ‘The Epic Split’, starring Jean-Claude Van Damme.