Winner: Robert Bosch

A showcase for the companies that supply the components and technologies that allow chassis engineers to do their job, this category became a contest of four highly respected nominees. All gave the judges compelling reasons to win their vote.

Over the past year, Brembo has made several acquisitions and announced a big rise in profits for the first half of 2008. ArvinMeritor, meanwhile, has a raft of high-tech new ride control products coming to market under the ‘smart systems’ banner.

TRW Automotive was Highly Commended, a reflection of the fact that, despite tough industry conditions, it’s still performing much better than many of its North American Tier 1 contemporaries, and launching a range of affordable new technological developments.
But the Supplier of the Year trophy was awarded to Robert Bosch. Still growing, still profitable, and still at the forefront of chassis technology development, Bosch’s latest developments include a focus on the integration of active and passive safety systems, a yaw rate sensor currently under development that is half the size of the previous model but with the same accuracy and response time, and a new version of parking assistant that will work with hydraulic power steering.

Awards judge Juergen Zoellter gave this verdict: “In 2008 Robert Bosch GmbH took over Innovations Softwaretechnologie GmbH in order to get the know-how for a better IT-based integration of automotive systems for the future. That’s an essential strategy for the future, I believe. More generally, the cars of today can be powered by smaller and more efficient drivetrains, due to innovative Bosch technologies. There is no similar player in the worldwide automotive industry with such successful solutions.”