German automotive manufacturer Schaeffler is expanding its global development activities for advanced mobility solutions. As part of this, the company has now opened a new state-of-the-art development centre at its location in Kysuce, Slovakia.
The centre develops products and components for electromobility as well as chassis systems for applications such as automated driving. The global automotive and industrial supplier is also expanding its existing testing facility in Kysuce by adding new laboratory and testing equipment and test stations. The new development centre and the testing facility upgrade together represent an investment of about 20 million euros for Schaeffler.
“The ability to innovate has never been more critical to our company’s success,” said Matthias Zink, CEO of Automotive Technologies at Schaeffler. “As a future-oriented technology company, Schaeffler is therefore investing heavily in research and development – in Kysuce and worldwide.”
Schaeffler’s Kysuce location has a workforce of about 4,300 people from 20 nations, more than 350 of whom work in development. The company aims to have as many as 500 developers working there on future mobility by 2025. To achieve this, Schaeffler is creating a range of new positions at the location, focusing in particular on partially and fully electrified drive technologies such as hybrid modules and electric axles.
“Opening such a centre in Kysucie is a good signal that not everything happens only in Bratislava or in the west of Slovakia,” commented the State Secretary of the Ministry of Economy, Peter Švec. “At the same time, the exceptionality of the project lies not only in the contribution from the point of view of innovative solutions but also in the complexity of the system thanks to the connection of research directly with production. A significant added value is the fact that we will be able to follow the development from the 3D model to the initial prototype itself. From this point of view, I consider this project to be an exceptional combination of design and technological processing in one concept.”
“The Kysuce region is ideal for Schaeffler. It means we benefit from world-class universities and research institutions with relevant technological expertise and have access to Slovakia’s best and brightest development specialists,” added Milan Jurky, the managing director in charge of Schaeffler’s campus in Kysuce.
The new centre caters for a wide range of development activities for new products and customer-specific solutions. These activities include system and software development, simulation and testing, hardware design and mechanical product design. The development centre’s specialists also undertake a comprehensive range of project management activities for international customers from the automotive industry. In the adjoining factory halls, Schaeffler assembles motor and transmission systems, an extensive array of bearings, actuator systems, components for electric axles and hybrid drives, and chassis actuators such as electromechanical active roll control systems. In all of this, the company is benefitting from the tight integration of its development and manufacturing activities at one location.
