Excursion ŠKODA AUTO a.s. Mladá Boleslav

For the students of the Joining and Assembly Technology module and other interested fellow students, this tour became a reality. After two highly informative guest lectures by the company's management, which further increased interest in a tour of the site, the long-awaited factory tour was carried out with the help of Prof. Dr.-Ing.

Ignoring the academic quarter, we set off with a full bus in the direction of Mladá Boleslav. After a good hour's drive, we arrived at Gate 8 of the plant premises and were overwhelmed by the size of the site. With almost 20,000 employees, the plant is the main employer in the region and dominates the entire image of the town.

After a short introduction, "armed" with safety goggles and reflective vests, we went into the M15 press shop. The large presses and heavy coils were very impressive.

Every second, body parts are punched from the unrolled sheet steel. With the help of changeover tools, a quick changeover for the different car types can be realized. Pressed parts for the FABIA, OCTAVIA and RAPID models as well as for the new SCALA are currently produced in this part of the plant. This highly automated production of pressed parts was a new experience for all of us. At 10:30 a.m. we went to the M14 body shop. Things got even more interesting here!

In this department, the stamped and pressed body parts are assembled into a body-in-white or chassis. The enormous number of robots—mostly KUKA models—along with the various types of resistance welding and the incredibly fast cycle time of the parts moving through the line provide a wealth of experience for anyone lucky enough to observe the process.

For the production engineers as well, the body shop served as an informative supplement to the robotics module, as they were able to observe a wide variety of different robot movements and handling operations there. After a short bus ride within the plant grounds (10 minutes!), which once again underscored the size of the site, we arrived for a tour of the M1 assembly line.

Here we were able to watch the assembly line production of the car models mentioned above. The moving assembly line, on which both the vehicle being built and the workers stand, is an almost surreal experience. The cycle time here is so fast that, during our tour guide’s brief remarks, a car traveled the entire length of the assembly line. A unique feature of the line in Mladá Boleslav is that different trim levels and models are assembled on the same line. An OCTAVIA follows a RAPID, and then, for example, a FABIA comes next. Another technical highlight of the M1 assembly line was the so-called “wedding”—the joining of the engine and the body—which will remain in our memories for a long time.

After our tour of the assembly line, we were taken to the foundry and forge. In this department, tens of millions of forged and cast parts are produced. The heavy hydraulic forging hammers and machines are operated automatically, and to our surprise, even in this department we could see a form of assembly-line production. However, we hadn’t expected this type of production in such a clean plant. Noisy, dirty, and with a room temperature reminiscent of a summer day at the beach, production takes place here for the company’s other locations. Despite these challenges, this department was very interesting, and we could appreciate just how demanding the daily work is for our colleagues there.

As our final stop that afternoon, we were given a tour of the component manufacturing area. Countless automatic turning, milling, and grinding machines, as well as flexible manufacturing systems for fully automated machining, produce items such as engine blocks, crankshafts, and other high-precision parts for assembly in this department.

We were able to observe several production steps on the machines and were impressed by the heat treatment shop. Among other things, they use the method of vacuum hardening with helium, which has a much lower environmental impact than quenching in oil or other media.

Around 2:30 p.m., the eventful but also exhausting tour of the plant came to an end. Walking several kilometers had left us feeling quite worn out. The realization that we were able to see only a fraction of this highly complex facility gives a sense of the sheer scale at which Škoda’s central facility operates.

The trip home was interrupted for a refreshing and much-needed break at the Pivovar Svijany a.s. brewery. Over a good lunch and a cold, house-brewed pilsner, however, our aching feet were quickly forgotten. The subsequent tour of the brewery, organized under the leadership of Mr. Dipl.-Ing. (FH) Kammler, gave us a glimpse into another important economic sector in the Czech Republic. The production of a wide variety of beers is carried out here just as fully automatically as car manufacturing at Škoda. In 2017, 637,500 hectoliters of beer had already been brewed and sold. Enough to recommend this tour as a complete package to other fellow students!

With that in mind, we would like to thank Prof. Dr.-Ing. Kretschmar and Dipl.-Ing. (FH) Kammler for this enjoyable and, above all, informative excursion. We hope that many more classes will take advantage of the opportunity to go on a tour like this. It strengthens the practical connection to the classes / courses, and as students at Zittau/Görlitz University of Applied Sciences, we can only benefit from such opportunities!

Text: Ferhat Macar and Martin Friedrich, K-MMd 15