Today, we went on a fantastic site visit to Skoda, a major Czech automotive company that’s known for its affordable family cars — sold across Europe, thus part of the Czech culture — as well as some race cars.
The company began in 1895, under the name of Laurin & Klement. It began with bikes and motorbikes (with complex, exposed antique-looking mechanics!). The brand joined Skoda in 1925 and the Volkswagen family in 1991. In thr museum, we saw their lineup of signature car models and prototypes — some of which weren’t brought to market.
We also visited the main plant, a huge (larger than Monaco) campus in which everyday car models are made-to-order. The factory facilities were visually quite amazing. Many complicated robots work here, alongside human operators. On the assembly line, everything is constantly moving: incoming parts flying on tracks overhead, the cars being worked on, large robotic arms doing repetitive and coordinated dances, and even the humans being shuttled past the supplies on a moving walkway. It’s unbelievable how much engineering work must’ve gone into the tools, robots, and process that work so smoothly together.
Something that stood out to me, as the docent recounted the brand’s history, was the impact of communism on the company’s development and buyers. While Czechoslovakia was communist, the government controlled all businesses; thus, a reason frequently given for not further developing a prototype was that it was barred by the government. Further, the government dictated who got to buy a car, so the waitlist was long and families may have received different models than they had expected.
I was blown away by the complexity, numbers (producing hundreds of cars daily), and activity in the factories — and this for just one car brand! There are so many careful steps and details involved to create the card on which people rely daily.
Swanson School of Engineering 