hyundai czech plant

Companies Ford, GM and Fiat are building factories in the former socialist countries to reduce production costs through cheaper labor. But why Koreans need to spend almost a billion euros in the Czech manufacture, if in Korea itself, and wages are lower, and the working day is longer?

The main benefit – in the distance and time. Cars from Korea being taken by sea for nearly a month. But in Europe, where the Koreans are eager to actively and persistently, valued possibility of operational performance of individual orders. Now, with the advent of the Czech plant, the British, German and Czechs buyers can order the Hyundai i30 to your taste by selecting three or four options for equipment, five engines (three petrol and two diesels), power from 109 hp to 143 bhp, manual gearbox or “machine”, the ten exterior colors … And can get a car three days, maximum – in a week.

Nosovice township, where the plant is built – not a provincial backwater. This twenty-minute drive to Ostrava, the third largest city in the Czech Republic and the center of metallurgical industry, so that the recruitment problems of the Hyundai was not. And most important – hence only 90 kilometers from the Slovak plant Kia, where they make soplatformenny cee’d and whence come Nosovice engines. Return to Slovakia trucks leave, laden with manual gearboxes – freshly workshop is designed to produce three hundred thousand boxes a year, and in the future, Koreans are planning to increase this figure by half.

Next to the main proceedings have built their shops and related companies – the seat, plastic parts arrive at the assembly on the covered passageway connecting the buildings. And the whole plant operates without a warehouse, according to the scheme «just in time» – details are supplied directly on the conveyor.

Foundation for the Future of the plant was founded two years ago, and in November 2008 with the first production line went down commodity cars. The Koreans had planned to cope more quickly, but in recent months preparing for the launch of production dragged on – the world already in full raging financial crisis …

Now, months later, the feeling of “warming” does not pass. The shops seem to be too spacious for a set in their new, brand-new equipment – like a flat, which had not yet had time to make furniture.
But the plant works, albeit not at full capacity. A few people due to the high level of automation. In the workshop, where the press churns 470 parts per hour, working only 23 people! Car body line serving less than a hundred workers and 306 robots. Robot “logistics” of production, organized under the ceiling of shops, fascinating – mechanical hands are removed from shipping pallets with tapes body parts, at the right time lowered them down to the conveyor belt, taking back an “empty container”. There is, in the twilight of the “second floor”, raised and finished the body on the way passing through another robot, which verifies their geometry on control points.

At the 400-meter assembly line – no revelations. Doors are collected separately from the body, large sites like the instrument panel mounted with a pointing device … Robots – only inset glass, carried about the details of the workshops are not robotic carts, and working on electric cars. And pinch-Andon no – toyota-quality control systems do not practice here.

– The work of each team should be “team-leader.” – Czech guide, it seems, does not understand the question about the lack of Andong. – And all the collected machines are technical control.

Indeed, each car is sent to the test track where the drivers (many of them women), check whether extraneous noises in the suspension and how they work “handbrake and brake, to lead a car to the side on the line … Upon returning to the track car is waiting sprinkler camera and floor, spotlights lit – here meticulously inspect the paint coating the body. And in the far corner of the shop are several lifts to eliminate the defects found – among the “remover” There are many Koreans.

Is this an effective control system, when the Korean, the overseers leave, and the plant will start in three shifts to produce three hundred thousand cars per year?

However, when the company in Nosovitse come to full capacity – an open question. In January of Germany, with the largest market for the Hyundai brand in Europe, the factory has been no order! In February, there were only fifteen, and only in March, the German dealers were able to find two thousand customers. Therefore, a plan for 2009 has already been reduced from 180 to 120 thousand cars and the March transition to two-shift mode is delayed at least until the summer. Now at four o’clock in the afternoon conveyor stops – and 1800 factory workers are sent home. Crisis …