Today, we spent the whole day in Mlada Boleslav, the town in Central Bohemia where Škoda now resides. We firstly visited the museum and automotive, and in the afternoon we visited the motorsport division who develop the most advanced cars for the World Championships of Rally2.
Starting with the factory, it was impressive to see the city within a city, the factory itself employs over 28,000 employees and is bigger than Monaco. Each division is intricately connected and the cars move along the production line as if they were in a perfectly choreographed routine. Automated machines, and forklifts are utilized throughout the whole factory, with some portions even being 85% automated. This experience was incredible to see, and especially to see what Czech engineers are capable of producing, that is in line with the top standard in the world. Finally, we visited Škoda Motorsport, which I cannot talk much about, but it was an amazing experience to see the production of tailor-made racing machines.
As we were walking throughout the various Škoda parks, I got the chance to speak to Aleš Holan, a graduate of the Pitt Executive MBA Program, and someone who has helped us set up many of the company visits we have done. It was amazing to pick his brain about certain aspects of motorsport and the industry, and it was nice to bond over our admiration of what Škoda has been able to accomplish from such a small country like the Czech Republic. We were both impressed with the scale and with how intricate the operations were, being engineers, but mostly being Czechs, and being proud of what is accomplished in this country.
Swanson School of Engineering 