15th Automotive Lean Production Awards: ŠKODA AUTO wins special award for launch of new paint shop

ŠKODA AUTO is one of five winners of this year’s Automotive Lean Production Awards.

The carmaker received the prize at the 15th Automotive Lean Production Congress for its new paint shop at the company’s headquarters in Mladá Boleslav. A high degree of automation of the various procedures and processes in the new facility ensures optimum precision and efficiency. At the same time, ŠKODA is setting new benchmarks in terms of sustainability with its paint shop.

“We are delighted to receive this special award for having successfully launched our new paint shop. The award proves that our paint shop sets industry-wide standards in terms of sustainability as well as cost and process efficiency, and demonstrates how we consistently embrace Industry 4.0 opportunities. A wide range of production stages are carried out by a total of 66 robots, which help to further optimise manufacturing quality.” – Michael Oeljeklaus, ŠKODA AUTO Board Member for Production and Logistics

More than 40 production sites from 10 countries applied for this year’s Automotive Lean Production Awards. The most promising participants were invited to attend a two-day event in Mladá Boleslav. The winners of five individual categories were then awarded and they also presented their projects and measures relating to lean production.

The jury recognised the best Original Equipment Manufacturer and also honoured four exceptional projects with a special prize. ŠKODA AUTO won one of these awards for the successful launch of of its new paint shop, which opened in August 2019 and where up to 168,000 car bodies are painted each year. That means the plant’s total paintwork capacity has increased to 812,000 cars per year. Material and energy consumption, as well as waste generated during the painting process, have been significantly reduced thanks to innovative technologies and procedures. ŠKODA AUTO invested 214.5 million euros in the new premises and created more than 650 new jobs.

As part of the ‘Automotive Lean Production – Award & Study’ initiative, specialist magazine AUTOMOBIL PRODUKTION and business consultants Agamus Consult are honouring projects and companies that set standards in the international car industry relating to lean production and digitalisation.

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