News: May 2009

A four-day week at Scania in Sweden

Scania has agreed with the unions concerned on a four-day week for all employees in its Swedish operations starting in June.

The four-day week will be introduced in June and cover employees and managers at production, research and development units as well as administration and corporate staff units at Scania’s operations in Sweden - some 6,000 white collar employees and 6,000 workshop employees in all.

The agreement will apply for six months, with a break for holidays. Scania undertakes not to issue any lay-off notice during the period of the agreement.

The four-day week is a key element of Scania's strategy to preserve the collective competency of the company despite a very sharp decline in market demand.

Scania has already introduced various forms of working hour reductions for more than 2,000 employees in the Netherlands, France, Germany and elsewhere. www.scania.com

Map and Guide launches green route-planning

The map&guide professional 2009 software from PTV offers its users a ‘green’ route planner. The software helps transporters, if they wish to, organize ecological transport, including being carbon neutral. The software includes a CO2 emissions calculator for each trip. A simple click of the mouse is enough to calculate the amount of the environmental compensation. For a journey between Berlin and Munich, for example, this amounts to around € 6.60 for a 12 tonne Euro-4 vehicle. www.mapandguide.com

Kögel celebrates its 75th anniversary

German trailer manufacturer Kögel is celebrating 75 years of existence. It was on May 1st 1934 that Franz Xaver Kögel bought the workshop from his apprentice master at Neu-Ulm to form his own company. They are now in the top 3 in the sector Europe. Located in Burtenbach, the company has production sites in Chocen in the Czech Republic and Stargard in Poland. In 2008, the 1,350 staff members produced 18,000 vehicles. www.koegel.com