After the opening of the Lego factory in Kladno in 2000 and the distribution center in Jirny near Prague six years later, the Czech Republic earned the nickname Legoland. The factory has grown significantly since then. Dozens of employees became thousands. In addition, it has had Czech leadership since May. The main tasks of CEO Michaela Horáková include not only delivering millions of ready-made kits per week.
What is your favorite Lego product?
What I enjoy the most are the Lego products that we as his employees receive at Christmas. It’s always some special limited and unsold series. In recent years, we have had a Christmas gift with a Star Wars theme or received a set of various gnomes and toy boxes. We had the Nutcracker from Lego Technic because we were celebrating the anniversary of that product line. Our Christmas gifts are carried in such a spirit and I can’t imagine sitting by the tree without them.
You became the CEO of the Lego factory in Kladno at the beginning of May. How much of a change was it from your previous position where you were responsible for kit production and internal logistics?
I have been working at the Lego Group for 12 years, and the fact that I have been through different departments of the company during that time helps me a lot in my new role. I know the company environment well, I was also lucky enough to gain new experience in our factory in Mexico, where I spent four years. Thanks to this, I was able to get to know in detail the part of production that we do not have in Kladno. And that’s an advantage for me now.
In my role as director, I also feel great support from my team and all the experts and specialists we have in the factory. I also work closely with colleagues in other factories and in our global departments. And I must not forget the support of my family, thanks to which I manage everything much easier.
What are your biggest tasks as CEO?
The first priority is, of course, to deliver, so that we have enough goods on the market, and especially products that the customer requests. But our specialty in Kladno is primarily our research and development department. We are developing automation and digitization, and we then share the final solution with other factories in the group. We are also a testing factory, which means that new machines and equipment are tested here before we release them further into the world.
For example, what have you developed recently?
Currently, colleagues have developed the Vision system. It’s basically a scanner that helps us detect damage to kit packaging. It has been tested here and is currently being transferred to other factories. We also focus on artificial intelligence. We have one very interesting project in production, with which CTU helped us. As part of it, we strive to ensure that our machines can be adjusted automatically with the help of artificial intelligence.
Is there anything you would like to change in the way the factory works in the future?
Continuity is important to us at the Lego Group. I have to stand up for this too. We then set strategic goals within the entire group and it is my task to fulfill them. We are absolutely clear about our priorities. This is especially the automation and digitization that I already mentioned. We are also currently switching to sustainable materials.
So an important task is to replace the foil bags in which we put the individual parts of our kits with paper ones. This may seem easy, but it has a number of side effects. For example, paper bags are opaque, so the control needs to be adjusted. Compared to foil, they take up more space, which has an effect on folding the kits into boxes. All this needs to be resolved.
Sustainability is a big topic in the corporate sector right now. Is a change in packaging the only thing on your mind?
At the Kladno factory, this is probably one of the biggest projects we are currently working on. But we also have other – partial – projects, which, for example, relate to our product itself, or also to the operation of the factory. For example, we have solar panels on the roof, we use all the rainwater and so on. We are trying to work in this direction in order to keep our world in good shape for a long time.
In Kladno, you don’t make blocks, you only assemble them. How does the process take place, what are its most important pillars that you need to watch carefully?
First of all, we have to sort and pack the cubes. They come to us in large boxes – always one color, one type. We have an automated warehouse for them where we have about half a million of these boxes. For production, we then select from the warehouse what we currently need in order to be able to produce a specific kit, which must have the exact number of blocks, the right shape, the right color. We also have a so-called processing department, where we make decorations for, for example, minifigures or assemble some elements together, so that the children don’t have to do that much work. For example, this is how we add hands to the figure’s body.
How do you prevent some blocks from being missing from the kit?
This is one of the most important tasks we have. We don’t want to cause anyone grief by not being able to build a kit at home because something is missing. Quality and its control is therefore the most important thing for us. We developed a whole system for it. We weigh the blocks and kits and thereby reveal any deficiencies. We pack the smallest ones separately in packages and weigh them separately so that the result is as accurate as possible.
The finished kits from Kladno first go to the distribution center in Jirny before heading to the customers. But it lies at the very opposite end of Prague. Isn’t it unnecessarily difficult to transport?
The distribution center in Jirny is at the opposite end of Prague, but above all it offers us exactly the storage and operational capacities we need. Kits from other factories of the group, for example from Hungary, are assembled there, and only from there are they distributed to Europe, Africa or the Middle East.
It is necessary to realize that it is such a large warehouse – at one time it was the largest in the Czech Republic – that it cannot be simply moved elsewhere. In terms of transportation requirements, we recently managed to purchase an electric truck, so we believe that these steps will also reduce our carbon footprint.
Unemployment has been extremely low in the Czech Republic in recent years. How does a factory with three thousand employees keep running in such an environment?
Fortunately, the turnover of our employees is very low. We attribute it to the kind of environment we create here, the kind of benefits we give. For example, every new father can choose six weeks of paternity leave and receives full pay for it, in the case of mothers it is 26 weeks.
We are a company focused on children and we realize that establishing the right ties with parents is important for their healthy development. And we try to support parents in this. But at the same time, it is clear that during life people also experience other phases, when, for example, there is a need to help grandparents or take care of someone close to them. Therefore, we also provide employees with paid time off for this purpose. New employees also seek us out because of who we are and what we produce. Building Lego is tempting for a lot of people.
In recent years, there has been an increase in employers in Kladno, the Lidl logistics center has started operating here, and the developer Pannattoni is now building a large new business park, which is expected to create approximately two thousand jobs. What does this new competition in the labor market mean for you?
I believe that our employees appreciate the fact that we are a stable employer. We currently feel no danger, no risks from the growing number of other employers in the city. On the contrary, we will be happy if we can provide additional opportunities for qualified employment to the increasing number of residents of Kladno.
2023-09-03 16:02:50
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