Quality, safety and the environment – Volvo cornerstones for 80 years

Quality was the very foundation of Volvo – cars and trucks made from Swedish iron were better than others. The company’s vehicles withstood the tough Swedish climate and stood up to the country’s poor roads. The customers were highly demanding so quality evolved as a natural part of the corporate culture.

The care that Volvo showed both its employees and its customers grew to also encompass the environment as these three parameters became important social issues.

Volvo’s core values – quality, safety and environmental care – remain securely in place as the foundations of Volvo’s operations.

Quality has always been a firm characteristic of all Volvo products and the company’s operations and behaviour. For Volvo Trucks the term ‘quality’ means satisfied customers operating vehicles that offer low maintenance costs and high productivity, vehicles that do not suffer unplanned downtime.

Quality is also a leadership issue, a company with clearly expressed long-term goals in an operation that undergoes constant improvement, not least by being humble enough to always be prepared to learn from others. An attractive design and an ergonomic, comfortable and safe work-place for the truck driver are other aspects of quality.

From Volvo’s infancy, quality automatically promoted greater safety. Since the components from which the company’s cars and trucks were built were more robustly dimensioned, they were better able to stand up to the punishment of the poor roads of that time and also better able to withstand the effects of impacts in the event of a collision.

In 1936, Volvo’s President, Assar Gabrielsson, produced a sales handbook for dealers in Sweden. In one technical section, company co-founder Gustaf Larson writes about safety: “Cars carry and are driven by people. The basic principle behind all our engineering work is and therefore must always be safety.”

Accident investigations

It was already back in 1960 that Volvo started impact-testing its truck cabs according to standards that for a long time were far tougher than those of the transport authorities. 1969 saw the establishment of Volvo’s accident research team – an ‘accident investigation commission’ for trucks and buses – which over the years has carried out on-site investigations of more than 1500 accidents involving Volvo vehicles.

In 1977, the wraps came off the Volvo F10/F12, which featured a large number of innovative safety solutions such as a safety cab, energy-absorbing instrument panel, flame-retardant fabrics and a low-set bumper. In 1985, the FL was made available with Z-cam brakes and anti-locking brakes.

The next major step forward in safety was taken in 1993 with the launch of the FH Series. It had features such as a three-point inertia-reel seat belt with integrated movement limiter. What was perhaps most important in the context of safety was the unique VEB, Volvo Engine Brake, which had been developed for the new 12-litre engine.

The Volvo FH and FM Series have undergone constant development throughout their lifetime, emerging every time with an increasingly long list of new safety features. Volvo never compromises on safety and is constantly at the forefront of the industry when it comes to protecting both occupants and other road-users. This applies both to active systems for avoiding accidents and to the ever-increasing number of passive systems designed to minimise injuries should an accident nonetheless occur.

World-leading

Volvo has long been a world leader in the area of HMI (Human-Machine Interaction, that is to say the interplay between vehicle and driver), seen not least in autumn 2006 when the Integrated Safety Truck was unveiled. This concept truck is equipped with a range of sensors – cameras, laser scanner and radar – to monitor people, animals and inanimate objects outside the vehicle. It integrates a number of functions that help the driver maintain the right course, the right speed, change lane properly and avoid a variety of obstacles. Most of these solutions will probably be introduced into series-produced trucks over a period of time.

Volvo Trucks is also at the forefront when it comes to the issue of voluntary fitting of alco-locks in vehicles and is carrying out intensive research in this area. In Brazil, Volvo Trucks has for many years been working together with the authorities in a multiple-award-winning traffic safety programme that has helped considerably cut accident statistics.

Together with Volvo Cars, Volvo Trucks is active within ETSC (European Traffic Safety Council), a non-profit-making and independent collection of several national traffic safety organisations. ETSC’s focus is on issues such as influencing the EU on matters relating to traffic and transport legislation, sobriety in traffic, seat belt use and police surveillance of traffic infringements, all with the aim of reducing the number of traffic accidents and minimising their severity.

The environment in focus since 1972

During the 1960s, environmental issues quickly gained in ascendancy. Industry’s effects on the environment were also highlighted with increasing frequency and Volvo’s top management was quick to note and absorb the implications of the ongoing debate.

Volvo’s core value of the environment dates back to 1972. That was the year a United Nations Conference on the Human Environment was held in Stockholm. In conjunction with this conference, the company’s new CEO, Pehr G Gyllenhammar, took the opportunity to formulate Volvo’s first environmental declaration. It stated, among other things: “Volvo now believes it is responsible not only for ensuring that its products are a functional means of transport, but also for ensuring that they function in a wider context – in our environment.”

Volvo’s engines have become increasingly clean over the years in terms of emissions, and Volvo has in fact often been one step ahead of the legislation in this respect. Today, emissions from a modern large truck are mere fractions of what they were a decade or so ago.

In 1989, Volvo appointed an internal environmental auditor to review all the corporation’s facilities the world over. The company aims to meet and preferably surpass all eco-legislation.

In 1991, Volvo presented a unique database for chemical use known as Motiv. It contained 4000 chemicals listed according to how hazardous they were. A large number have been blacklisted and replaced with more environmentally suitable alternatives. Similar classification is now being discussed in many countries.

In 1995 Volvo revealed its environmentally optimised ECT (Environmental Concept Truck), which atracted immense attention the world over. The truck featured hybrid power for exhaust-free operation in vulnerable areas, based on a gas turbine with an integrated high-speed generator and an electric motor powered by nickel-cadmium (NiCd) batteries. Other cutting-edge environmental technologies included a highly aerodynamic shape and materials optimised for recycling.

Inspiring challenges

One decade later, in spring 2006, Volvo revealed a new generation of hybrid vehicles, now with an electric motor coupled to a diesel engine. And once again Volvo made positive headlines. The Volvo Group invests considerable resources in the development of alternative fuels and drive systems, all with the ultimate aim of ensuring sustainable development. Each successive new engine model integrates ever more refined technology that reduces fuel consumption and cuts emissions.

One important goal for the company’s environmental dedication is to make Volvo Trucks production plants entirely carbon dioxide-free. First out was the factory in Ghent, Belgium, followed by the Tuve factory in Göteborg, Sweden. The ultimate aim is that all production shall be carbon dioxide-free and that the large factories shall meet this target before 2008.

With its eye firmly set on reducing the effects of constantly increasing congestion in the transport infrastructure, particularly on European roads, Volvo Trucks is keen to see widespread introduction of EMS (the European Modular System). If the system were implemented fully, two trucks would be able to haul the same amount of cargo as three of today’s semi trailer combinations.

Constantly tougher emissions requirements, rapidly depleting oil resources, accelerating climate changes and immensely hard competition are the global – and inspiring – challenges facing all the employees of this vital 80-year-old as the company embarks on its next 80 years of successful operation.