Kovis
Kovis is a Slovenian manufacturer of brake discs and cast components for railway vehicles, headquartered in Brežice and supplying vehicle builders and operators across Europe.
Kovis d.o.o. was registered in 1990 and grew out of a machining business started by Anton Pangrčič in 1977.
On the company’s own timeline, two brake disc types were approved by the then Deutsche Bundesbahn in 1986 — under the predecessor business, four years before Kovis d.o.o. itself existed — and a disc designed for 320 km/h was developed in 1992. The company remains family-owned; in 2025 it employed 167 people and reported total revenue of EUR 71.6 million, according to its filed annual accounts.
The group around it covers most of the production chain for cast rolling stock components. Kovis Livarna runs the foundry for grey and ductile iron. Kovis BP, established in 2005 and based in Bačka Palanka in Serbia, handles machining and final production of freight wagon axle boxes. Kovis Transporti provides logistics.
A further company, Kovis IND, was registered in Slovenia in 2021, and brake disc production in India began in 2022.
Brake discs
Kovis develops and manufactures axle-mounted, wheel-mounted and flange brake discs for high-speed trains, electric and diesel multiple units, light rail vehicles, passenger coaches and locomotives. The company states that it has developed more than 550 disc types.
Within braking systems, the commercial position rests on customer approvals. Published certificates and permits cover the German, Swiss, Austrian, French, Polish, Spanish, Czech and Slovenian national operators, together with Bombardier, Siemens, Alstom, Stadler, Pesa and Škoda on the vehicle building side. Welding is certified to EN 15085-2 and the quality system to ISO 9001 and ISO/TS 22163.
With Miba of Austria, Kovis markets sMart braKe, a jointly developed disc-and-pad package; the FLEX variant is built around optimised pad coverage of the disc face.
Other products and capabilities
Beyond braking, Kovis produces axle boxes for freight wagons — a segment in which it describes itself as Europe’s largest manufacturer — as well as gearbox and stator housings, flanges, consoles and supports. In-house capabilities cover casting, machining, three-dimensional measurement, digital radioscopy, dynamometer testing to UIC 541-3 and non-destructive testing. Environmental management is certified to ISO 14001.
Current activity
Kovis appears on the exhibitor list for InnoTrans 2026 in Berlin, held from 22 to 25 September. In September 2024 its XNET wheel-mounted brake disc for high-speed trains, developed for 350 km/h, received a national silver innovation award from the Chamber of Commerce and Industry of Slovenia, after taking a regional gold award for the same design earlier that year.
A development project set out in 2024, co-financed through Slovenia’s recovery and resilience plan under the EU’s NextGenerationEU mechanism, covers a wheel-mounted brake disc for vehicles running above 200 km/h together with metal pallets for disc logistics.
