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Source: Haldex post
WEYERSHEIM, France – Haldex posted a short article on its Website describing how two of its customers utilize data to improve their operations. One an agricultural shipping firm, the other a city bus company, but what links them, the post explained, “is a strong customer focus and an increasing need for operational and vehicle data produced by integrated vehicle systems. Haldex can help with that.”
The following is excerpted from the post:
Spanish long-distance transport firm Primafrio has grown with the development of intensive agricultural production in southern Spain, and now hauls a fleet of 2,000 temperature-controlled trailers transferring mostly fruit and vegetables, but also frozen goods, from the greenhouses and polytunnels of Andalusia to supermarkets around Europe. They return laden with back-haul goods such as flat-pack furniture from Swedish houseware supplier IKEA. From Haldex, Primafrio buys trailer suspension systems and TPMS.
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Its customers can impose fines or even refuse the consignment if it has not been kept at the correct temperature that ensures optimum freshness and shelf life, explains research & development manager and chief information officer Adrián Valverde. That could mean it would have to be destroyed, or even shipped back to Spain. For that reason, the company has invested in systems that monitor even minor temperature deviations from the optimum, and alert both the fleet manager and the driver, so that problems can be fixed before it is too late.
A New Direction for Cities
Polish bus manufacturer Solaris, which first started working with electric bus drivetrains 20 years ago, was possibly ready even before the market was.
“From the very beginning, at Solaris, we believed that electric was the future: electric-driven public transport. We have been building e-mobility competence for two decades now, since 2001 to be precise, when we produced the first Solaris trolleybus. While many other producers in the industry doubted it, a few years ago it turned out that this really is the future,” observes PR and internal communications officer Agata Barnaś.
Solaris buys Haldex pneumatic components, including oil separators and air dryers, used in every model.
The Haldex view
Even if driverless vehicles remain some way off in the future, the underpinning automation technologies such as those developed by Solaris are creating benefits for vehicle manufacturers now, contends Carl Mellings, Haldex vice president R&D air controls Europe.
“Autonomy provides better awareness of where vehicles are in space, better awareness of [traffic] conditions, better awareness of the vehicle state – its condition – because of the increase in sensing from cameras and other devices. The amount of information and data available is massive,” he says.
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That information-is-good theme applies to many aspects of commercial vehicle operations. For example, knowing that a vehicle’s compressed air tanks need refilling removes a potential delay to setting off, Mellings points out, and improves operational efficiency. Without high-pressure air, pneumatic brakes cannot function, so a truck that is otherwise ready to go would have to wait for an on-board compressor powered through the truck’s alternator to fill them, which can be costly in time and fuel. Haldex is also ensuring optimum flow and minimising the use of compressed air in its brakes.
To read the entire post, click HERE.