130-years-November-3

Simona Fryčová with former Head of Industrial Engineering Antonín Jirsa.

Simona Fryčová recalls her time in Kvasiny

1981–2024 She joined the Kvasiny plant immediately after graduating from high school, and it took her almost 11 years to get to the Industrial Engineering department, where she worked the longest. She remained there until leaving the company last year.

Simona Fryčová worked in the Industrial Engineering department after the merger with the VW Group. “It was a newly created department with new, previously unused working methods. That was interesting. There, I was responsible for timing individual operations, and I was also in charge of several workshops and the introduction of the 18-shift system,” says S. Fryčová. It was the preparations for the 18-shift system, which was a big novelty at the time, that surprised her the most. “I had heard about the days when people worked six days a week from my grandmother, and suddenly we were dealing with it in Kvasiny. Surprisingly, the entire new system was implemented smoothly in production,” she adds. In Kvasiny, she also experienced the plant’s expansion and the launch of the first-generation Superb. ”Suddenly, new paint and assembly halls were being built behind the fence, where we were basically starting from scratch. We were working on new lines and started using a range of modern technologies,” she continues. S. Fryčová also recalls these changes. “The technology changes exceeded my expectations. More than 40 years have passed, and our manual tools were replaced by electric or automatic ones. Visual inspection was replaced by lasers in some areas, drawing boards by computer programs... and even the cars are different,” adds S. Fryčová.