Together We Can Build a Stronger Region
BUSINESS INTERVIEW
www.posiv.cz 19
since we graduated from being simply a manufacturing
company with messy assembly lines. We are continuing
our extensive investment into automation just like
Remoska. Thanks to this, students now have a variety
of different options when it comes to their own
development within the company.
Zdenek Sartoris: Supporting education is one of our
priorities. We offer positions like device operator, but
also others that are part of our development centre,
which nonetheless requires the knowledge of qualified
engineers. Companies that have a development plan
for the future and want to prove that they are more than
simple assembly lines need to be prepared to accept
fresh graduates from universities. If the city of Kopřivnice
expands its housing, I believe that this will allow not only
local companies, but also the region as a whole, to grow
exponentially.
Adam Hanus: The Moravian-Silesian region, as one that
is burdened by its history with the mining industry, is
facing the issue of population outflow, and Kopřivnice
is no exception. I believe that by increasing the local
quality of life, constructing comfortable housing and
providing employment that offers a lot of potential
growth and work opportunities, we can begin to shift
the perception the younger generation has of this
region.
Are you planning to expand the industrial complex?
Adam Hanus: The complex where Brose, Remoska and
other companies are located is nearly at full capacity.
The city has a couple of plots available for any interested
parties, and there are a couple more plots currently in
private ownership.
Brose is celebrating its second decade in Kopřivnice.
What has the company’s journey looked like?
Petr Zajaroš: We became the largest plant within
the Brose group that is focused on the production
of eating systems. Between 2008 and 2011,
the company integrated multiple production lines
from different divisions into Kopřivnice and transferred
production from France and Germany as well. We built
a large development team, along with a combined
service centre for Europe and became pioneers in dual
education within Czechia.
We are proud that our industrial plant is now considered
to be much more than an eastern assembly line. Next
year we are preparing to implement a super modern
seat production line, which will make use of 20 robotic
units to assemble seats. Currently, this same work is
done manually. For some context, throughout a single
shift, our workers produce around 700 seats, and we
currently run on a three shift system. In the East, hourly
wages are low and investment into automation is
essentially non-existent. This is something we managed
to move away from and Kopřivnice is now considered
to be a high-tech futuristic factory. Brose CZ currently
employs over 3 000 people and is a large player within
the market.
What does investment into digitisation and
automation look like in Remoska?
Petr Vaněček: We fully automated the production
of intermediate goods within our new plant. This helped
us eliminate manual transportation of component
palettes between assembly stations. In the coming
years, we are preparing to automate assembly itself.
This step will, however, only be made possible after
the development of new Remoska products that
will be designed with the automated line in mind.
Automating the assembly of a pre-existing product is
exponentially more expensive compared to an approach
that develops a new product to fit the assembly method.
As of right now, we managed to fully automate around
70% of our production.
Modernisation also requires digitisation, which is
also something Remoska is heavily invested in. We
implemented digital production subtraction and
warehouse management, which will monitor individual
palette locations so that we always know where each
material is stored. We also kept cyber security in mind
and developed separate networks so that production
cannot be fully cut off. All of our systems are interlinked
with redundancies that prevent production from being
fully halted in the event of an external attack.
Zdenek Sartoris: Our goal was maximising work
efficiency in order to develop our competitiveness. We
wanted to make our employees’ work easier, primarily
by cutting out physically demanding tasks, which is
something automation helped us with. Our automation
strategy was designed with growth in mind. Thanks to
this approach, we were able to simplify the production
process, eliminate unnecessary steps and save on
human resources. At the same time, we plan to increase
our production capacity thanks to our expansion into
new markets and the development of new products.
Currently, only one of our shifts is a production shift,
however, we expect this number to increase very soon.
Adam Hanus: I would like for Kopřivnice and Remoska
to become two words that are strongly correlated within
the minds of the people.
Thank you for the interview.
“
We plan to increase our producon
capacity thanks to our expansion into
new markets and the development
of new products.
”
“
I would like for Kopřivnice and
Remoska to become two words that are
strongly correlated within the minds
of the people.
”
“
We also kept cyber security in mind
and developed separate networks so that
producon cannot be fully cut o.
”
Text: redakce
Foto: Renáta
Botošová, Renei.cz