Interview with Balázs Liktor, Knorr-Bremse Freight Car Budapest: Our Cooperation with Sigma is Flexible and Professional

Knorr-Bremse is the market leader manufacturer of brake systems for rail and commercial vehicles in the world. During the spring, the company's Freight Car Department needed a partner for media representation at the international trade fair Innotrans 2018. “Sigma Technology Hungary became the obvious choice with their suite of services and professional way of working,” says Balázs Liktor in the interview.

Balázs Liktor is a project manager at Knorr-Bremse’s freight R&D department in Budapest. Mechanical engineer in the background, Balázs has made the journey from trainee to design engineer and is now a project manager in the Freight Car Department working with innovative solutions for freight vehicles.

Knorr-Bremse Budapest and the Freight Car Department

Knorr-Bremse Budapest is the biggest location in the Knorr-Bremse Group worldwide. The company manufactures products for the railway industry, including brake systems, brake control systems, air supply units, and has also a rail service operation unit.

Balázs works in the Freight Car Department dealing with digital, electronics, and IoT solutions.

Intelligent monitoring solution at Innotrans 2018

Innotrans is the world’s leading transport fair conducted in Berlin, Germany. Knorr-Bremse Group has presented several solutions focusing on safety and environment protection. Balázs’s team project was one of the highlights in the booth.

Balázs shared with us the insights:

“What we presented, was our digital solution for freight wagons.

The development started out as a startup-like project inside our department. Our goal was to create a reliable monitoring system for freight wagons. Rail vehicles still need to catch up with the automotive industry when it comes to automation and self-driving systems. I believe that intelligent monitoring is the key to this development and the future will be full automation.

The device we created was a monitoring unit. Knorr-Bremse’s know-how in the railway industry helped us to ensure that we add as many functions to this system as it was possible.

What we achieved was more than GPS tracking, our unit can also monitor the freight wagon and its brake equipment, and we can predict a lot of safety-relevant issues that might come along the operation period of a freight train. We have also added automation by introducing automated testing of the brake system, reducing the launch time of the locomotive from 45-60 minutes to 15-20 minutes.

We built a mini-model of a locomotive with a brake arm and half of the brake unit for Innotrans 2018. The machine functioned just as a freight-wagon would work. We were able to monitor pressure, movements of the mechanism and could present it on the big screen.”

Cooperation with Sigma: professional, flexible, and understanding partner

When Balázs decided to look for a consulting partner, he was looking for a professional partner that would create an appealing delivery for the media representation of his project. After thorough selection, Sigma Technology Hungary became his choice:

“Sigma was the best candidate for the partnership as you had everything in one hand.

After my work experience with the Sigma team, I understood what qualities are important for a great supplier—communication skills and flexible way of working. Since we work on an R&D project and we develop brand new systems, sometimes we had to modify the scope and change project requirements and timeline. Sigma Technology Hungary team was always flexible and understanding to shifted deadlines and tasks, and they always met our requirements. If I would have to describe our work process in three words, I would choose professional, understanding, and flexible.

The delivered material had exceptional quality, and it was a great experience working together with Sigma Technology Hungary. Even though we had a lot of pressure on the project, we could deal with everything without friction. The project goes on and I believe that Sigma Technology will be the obvious choice to continue.”

The design project

Sigma Technology had a complex, yet very creative design task. We had two objectives to fulfill—support Knorr-Bremse’s image and, at the same time, highlight the company’s new product features, requiring outstanding design solutions for demonstration purposes.

During four months of the project, we created the following artifacts that were presented on the Knorr-Bremse’s stand during the exhibition:

• a two-part 3D animation focusing on the main features of the test product
• a 2D use case-based animation for demonstrating product benefits
• web design facelift and usability updates for the test monitoring tool’s webpage
• design for the live demo and fix presentation of the exhibition

Gabriella Alexi, Unit Manager at Sigma Technology Hungary, comments: "The graphics team found the tasks challenging due to changing scope and content to be visualized, but, at the same time, very inspiring and exceptional since they could use their creativity and a wide range of skillset throughout the project."

For more information, please contact:

Gabriella Alexi, Unit Manager, Sigma Technology Hungary

Gabriella.alexi@sigmatechnology.se

About Sigma Technology

Sigma Technology is a part of Sigma Group and is a global supplier of product information, embedded and software design, and offshore development. We are experts with a passion for technology and information, and take pride in delivering quality and constantly improving our deliveries. Our philosophy is “Local Drive – Global Strength”, therefore we have offices worldwide to be close to our customers.

Sigma is owned by Danir AB and has about 4,400 employees and a network of partners in 11 countries.

For a complete picture, visit https://sigmatechnology.se/