Brown, Boveri & Cie. was a Swiss group of electrical engineering companies. It was founded in Baden bei Zürich, in 1891 by Charles Eugene Lancelot Brown and Walter Boveri who worked at the Maschinenfabrik Oerlikon. In 1970 BBC took over the Maschinenfabrik Oerlikon and in 1988 it merged with ASEA to form ABB.

The RBDe 560 and its derivatives provide motive power for S-Bahn, suburban, and regional traffic on the Swiss Federal Railways (SBB) network. The derivative versions belong to the SBB as well as various private railroads. The locomotive and its matching Bt model Steuerwagen form compositions generally known as the Neuer Pendelzug, which is the source of the acronym NPZ. An NPZ trainset usually includes one or more intermediate cars.