Resilient, adaptive Kässbohrer commits to the next 125 years of innovation

Semi-trailer manufacturer, Kässbohrer, recently shared a detailed update on the company's 2019 results as well as its ambitious vision for the future.

The OEM hosted a virtual press conference on 25 September due to Covid-related constraints where Board Member İffet Türken spoke about Kässbohrer’s 2019 results, 2020 updates, its continuing investments, recent digital upgrades, launch vehicles and Trailer Innovation 2021 Award nominee vehicles that are engineered aligned with the recent technologies.

Kässbohrer is reported to provide the highest-quality vehicles to its customers in more than 55 countries from four production plants located at the crossroads of transportation, respectively Ulm and Goch in Germany, Tula in Russia and Adapazari.

Since 2016, Kässbohrer continually outgrew market growth and in 2019 grew by 120 per cent.

During the Covid-19 pandemic, Kässbohrer’s first priority has been the health and safety of its employees, all precautions according to World Health Organisation and Health ministries were taken and implemented immediately.

As a result, Kässbohrer’s production and supply to the transport industry never stopped. Kässbohrer’s vehicle delivery, spare parts business, customer service, breakdown service, sales and other departments continued to offer the best service to its customers. Moreover, production and supply chain operations undisrupted continued by following meticulously hygiene rules as a result of Kässbohrer’s resilience.

Kässbohrer’s resilience enables the company to continue its efforts of sales organisation localisation. To meet the needs of its customers, Kässbohrer expands its sales network every passing day and open facilities in the strategically chosen locations. Kässbohrer recently opened its sales offices in Poland, Spain, and Sweden, now has nine sales offices and 54 dealerships across Europe.

Kässbohrer continued its investments as well.

“In 2018, we have made an investment for the state- of-the-art low-bed factory that is designed with Industry 4.0 principles and has an annual capacity of 2,500 vehicles that is the highest capacity low-bed production in Europe,” said Türken.

“The factory began its operations in 2019 and is in full production to continue to deliver the highest-quality vehicles,” she said.

Kässbohrer has also successfully adapted to trends in digitalisation.

Beyond social and economic disruption Covid-19 has played an important role in the acceleration of digitalisation among other major changes according to Kässbohrer. Adapting to the need for rapid digitalisation, Kässbohrer rapidly enhanced its operations in order to sustain open and constant communication with its customers.

As a pioneer of digitalisation, Kässbohrer announced the Video Conference Now (VCN) feature on its website available in eight languages which helped to facilitate more efficient stakeholder communication at the beginning of the pandemic when there was utmost uncertainty.

To guarantee the continuity of logistics operations, Kässbohrer found it was important to address the challenges in organising for service and maintenance during rapidly changing pandemic precautions environment especially with regards to country and region lockdowns. Kässbohrer addressed the need to find reliable information on the current business status of aftersales workshops by making the necessary digital upgrades on its website and started broadcasting in real time, the opening and closing hours of all of its service locations, 580 workshops across Europe. Kässbohrer customers or not, anyone could find out the exact situation with the service and proceed with service and maintenance planning or emergency help.

In the absence of opportunities to connect in physical spaces, Kässbohrer brought K-Talks at ktalks.kaessbohrer.com, webinar sessions to life which is a program of fast-paced interactive webinars of 30 to 60 minutes. These sessions, which will run between 23 September and 7 October 2020, showcase the OEM’s highest-quality vehicles for dangerous goods transportation, intermodal transportation, and construction sector. These sessions are moderated by expert team members and include product launches.

To be able to meet with its customers and inform them about the latest developments, Kässbohrer also created the Kässbohrer Virtual Exhibition and participates in the virtual fair at nfz-messe.com from 24th of September to 8th of October. The fair is accessible through https://virtualexhibition.kaessbohrer.com/ and https://nfz-messe.expo- ip.com/stand/kaessbohrer.

Staying true to the company’s inventive spirit, Kässbohrer maintains its R&D projects to develop new vehicles and services to meet the unmet needs with reliable and efficient solutions.

As a result, Kässbohrer continued to develop brand-new vehicles and will introduce nine of them during the virtual fair and share detailed information through the dedicated K-Talks sessions.

This year, Kässbohrer’s R&D activities were awarded by the prestigious Trailer Innovation Awards and Kässbohrer proudly received nomination for all its submissions for Trailer Innovation Awards. Also available to view in their entirety at the virtual fair at their dedicated conference hall.

Nominated in the category ‘Body’, Kässbohrer’s the first and only 45′ Coil Swap Body K.SWAU CC presents an integrated coil well and is developed for intermodal coil transport all made possible by its innovative chassis design with total capacity of 30 tons.

Nominated in the category ‘Concept’, Kässbohrer Curtainsider K.SCX L with Dynamic Wheelbase for 14,980mm length is making difference with its optimal wheelbase chassis design for uniform and safe load distribution leading to road safety and its innovative system integration with control systems for the ability to turn on EU standard road curves and is the first of its kind solution.

Nominated in the category ‘Component’, Kässbohrer’s Multifunctional rear underrun protection device RUPD-5K1 comes to the forefront with its secure and foldable design. RUPD-5K1 can be adjusted at different up and down positions while fulfilling its protection task for semi-trailer as a rear bumper in accordance with the ECE.R58.003 Regulation for the Type Approval and providing solutions to operational efficiency in 5 different operations, preventing docking, ferry, intermodal, discharge and tyre change problems.

Nominated in the category ‘Smart Trailer’, Kässbohrer Advanced Driver Assistance Systems (K-ADAS) makes difference with its 4 features composed of seven technologies of which more than 50 per cent is new to the trailer industry and are compatible with existing truck ADAS systems, contributing to the development of the smart trailer that will be necessary when fully autonomous driving becomes standard.

Nominated in the category ‘Environment’, Kässbohrer’s Coated Hygiene Reefer prevents dirt contamination with hydrophobic coating and has the potential to save up to 1.62 million tons of water annually with the freeing up of 60,000 work hours for repurposing.

“We develop our products and services in line with the latest technological developments and Kässbohrer stands out in the sector with its R&D and production capabilities. Towards the next 125 years, we are committed to address the needs of our customers and to develop new products and services to address their operational challenges thanks to our heritage full of ‘Enginuity’.” said Türken.

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