55 Years of Škoda IT

• Cover

• editorial

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  [ Dear Readers ]

  Exactly 55 years ago, in the fall of 1969, a long-awaited shipment arrived at what was then known as Automobile Works, National Enterprise (AZNP): several large cabinets containing an IBM mainframe computer and its peripherals. Today, its computing power may seem laughable, but it was a bold first step for IT at Škoda Auto and the beginning of a revolution that transformed virtually every aspect of car production – from design and construction to inventory tracking and, gradually, inventory and production management, supply chains, logistics, sales, marketing and, last but not least, the cars themselves. 

  In this special supplement of Škoda Mobil, which celebrates 55 years of our IT, we have picked out the most interesting parts of this story, including the unique way in which the first state-of-the-art computer had to be purchased from the West. We also provide insight into what it was like to work with mainframe computers, show you how the small computer centre team functioned and lived and trace how this team has evolved into the current Škoda IT department. Today, more than 700 employees manage 1,500 applications running on 20,000 personal computers and workstations.

  Today, we assume the role of a technology company that develops and produces not only hardware (i.e. cars) but also software (for their equipment and production). This is a major challenge in itself, compounded by the transformation of the automotive industry, which brings with it an emphasis on digitisation in production, logistics, sales models, financial management and many other sectors. Škoda Auto now operates one of the most powerful supercomputers in Central Europe, and two main data centres handle demanding calculations for technical development and production management. 

  Moreover, Škoda IT is set to continue growing, and we must do everything we can to be one of the most attractive employers for professionals in this field. Our top priority is fostering the development of our current employees. Together with Škoda Academy, we provide upskilling and reskilling through specialised training, support them in their university studies, send them on internships abroad and provide a wide range of training on the Degreed platform. At the same time, we cooperate with universities and have our own college and educational institute, 42 Prague.

  The competition is fierce, but we know how to attract great talent. Fifty-five years ago, the carmaker ranked among the top in the Czech Republic and Europe with its first computer, soon complemented by others, including production monitoring systems. Škoda IT remains in the top tier today, not just because of the number of systems, data volume or supercomputer performance but above all, thanks to the continuously developed knowledge, skills, creativity and enthusiasm of both the current and past generations of employees. {end}
  

  >Holger Peters_Škoda Auto Board Member for Finance, IT and Legal Affairs 

  
  

  55 Years at the Top
  

  Supplement to the Škoda Mobil employee newspaper
  

  Editor-in-Chief: Dominika Králová
  

  Content contributors: Lukáš Erben, Petr Rešl, Hana Kazdová, Tomáš Michálek, Kateřina Šulcová

  Photos: Škoda Auto archive, Jan Weiser

  Graphic design and production: Boomerang Communication

  Published: 6 September 2024

• punch-cards

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  Computer Prehistory_Millions of Punch Cards
  

  { The carmaker was enlisting the help of computer technology even before the first computer arrived in Mladá Boleslav. For decades, it had used punch card machines for various tasks. }

  The precursor to digital media for storing data took the form of a thin cardboard sheet on which the stored information was represented by holes at specific positions. Punch card machines were used to record and read this data. Developed for practical use in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, this technology was used by Laurin & Klement for payroll processing. “Three people can do in three days with the most ingeniously designed machines a job that would otherwise take 20 people seven days,” reported the Allgemeine Automobil Zeitung newspaper in 1917. 

  The punch card_If damaged, it could mean as much as half an hour of extra work.
  

  By the turn of the 1920s and 1930s, a machine-computing station was set up at the then ASAP (Automobile Industry Stock Corporation), equipped with Remington Rand Powers punch card machines, which continued to serve for the following decades. “The machine-computing station was one of the best in the country in the 1960s. At that time, we were managing the tasks of three accounting departments – payroll, materials and production – by using machines with 90-column punch cards,” reminisced Richard Nocar, a former employee of the machine-computing station and later an IBM System/360 operator and programmer, in an interview for the Škoda Auto Archive.

  [ Just don't let it rip! ]

  In the 1960s, we received more powerful machines from Aritma in Prague, and in the late 1970s, the Aritma A101 punch-card computer was put into operation. “The original Powers sorters had a capacity of 30,000 punch card passes per hour, while the Aritma machines reached 100,000 per hour. That machine was a beast, but it also ripped cards more often. When this happened, it was necessary to find the ripped card, glue it together, punch a replacement card, put it in the right place and archive the original damaged card because it was usually an accounting document,” continued Nocar.

  Not to be folded_A note on the covers was necessary because folded cards often could not be used.
  

  To give you an idea of the volume of work in the machine-computing station – in 1970, it processed about 9 million punch cards with a total weight of over 20 tonnes. Among its tasks were payroll processing for about 16,000 employees, warehouse management for 45 warehouses with about 35,000 items and numerous others. At its peak, the station operated six sets of machines with more than 100 employees. {end}

   

  Basile Bouchon used a punch card made of paper tape to control the loom in a Lyon textile mill processing silk. 

   

  Another Frenchman, Joseph Marie Jacquard, introduced the first loom automatically controlled by a set of linked cards.

   

  Herman Hollerith’s punch card–adding machines were first used for the U.S. census.

   

  The U.S. Census Bureau, seeking to get rid of its dependence on a single supplier, approached James Legrand Powers to design its own census machines. These machines were later used by the Mladá Boleslav carmaker. 

   

  H. Hollerith’s company merged with three other companies to form IBM, which continued to produce punch-card machines until the 1970s, when they were replaced by computers.

  MicroSD card 512GB

  15 mm × 11 mm × 1 mm

  Weight 0.25 g

  =

  Punch cards depending on the type of recorded data

  6 billion–18 billion pieces

  15,000–45,000 tonnes

  History_Punched Dollar Bill
  

  Census-machine designer, Herman Hollerith, originally suggested using smaller cards; however, the 187 × 83 mm size was eventually chosen as the standard because dollar bills were the same size from 1862 to 1926, allowing for boxes, safes and other common banking logistics equipment to be used for punch cards.

  Originally, the cards had 24 columns, sufficient for the census but not for other data records. Therefore, Hollerith increased the number of columns to 45, but even that became insufficient a century ago, prompting IBM to seek ways to increase capacity to 80 columns. The proposal to replace round holes with narrower square holes won, and it was implemented in 1928 with 80 columns and 10 rows of holes. The competitor, Powers, retained the original round punchings and added a coding system to register two entries into one hole – thus, they were referred to as 90-column cards, even though they physically had only the original 45 columns.
  

• mainframe

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  Mainframe_Always Under Supervision
  

  { What was it like to work on the third-generation mainframe? Very different from PC today. There was no user interface, employees controlled everything manually, and calculations had to be entered in batches. }

  Mrs. Brabcová at the card reader/hole puncher of an IBM System/360 computer.

  The way computers operated half a century ago was very different. The standard setup included an operator console with several buttons, status lights and an input/output on an electric typewriter. A terminal screen with a keyboard was either non-existent or a considerable luxury. The most valuable resource was the machine time – the computing capacity of the computer, which was never left idle, waiting for a command from a user sitting in front of a screen. As a result, calculations were performed in batches.

  First came the assignment – defining the task to be performed, what the corresponding program should be able to do, with which data, how it should process it and what the output should look like. The programmer then converted the assignment into a program using the syntax of a programming language (or so-called assembler, which translates the program into machine code) by manually writing it on paper forms. Based on these forms, the punchers produced punch cards. For a more complex program, there could be thousands of them. Similarly, the data to be processed by the program was converted to punch cards or tapes. The sorted cards were then manually fed into the reader.
  

   

  The machine-computing station had about a hundred employees in the 1970s, mostly women, thus making it larger than the new computing centre.

  The program and data were read by the computer either directly from the cards or from magnetic tape where they had been transferred. The results processed by the program were written to a hard drive and then copied by employees onto magnetic tape for electronic archiving since disk space was limited. Importantly, everything had to be printed out and distributed to the various departments within the carmaker.

  The printer or electric typewriter was also used to inform the operator, like when a program had ended successfully or when an error had occurred. Basic monitoring of computer-executed operations could also be conducted by using a main panel equipped with buttons and status lights. 
  

  [ Hard disk_Like two refrigerators ]

  The first disk drive, invented by Reynold B. Johnson in 1957, was the IBM 305 RAMAC, roughly the size of two refrigerators and weighing 910 kg. It housed 52 disks coated with a magnetic recording layer, with a total capacity of 3.75 MB. Later units had interchangeable modules, allowing for the insertion of a disk pack with a 7.25 MB capacity. This feature was also present on the IBM 2311 disk drives, which were purchased by the carmaker in 1969, alongside its first computer. This was subsequently augmented with storage comprising three larger removable modules with a capacity of nearly 30 MB. {end}

  Computing Centre_Team of Experts
  

  Technicians: Installed the computer and handled more demanding maintenance or repairs, often requiring training and appropriate certification from the manufacturer.
  

  Operators: Supervised the computer operations and worked directly in the computer hall. They performed basic maintenance, such as replacing consumables and sometimes supervising batch jobs, which included loading magnetic tapes or punch cards and ensuring successful job completion.
  

  Systems programmers: Installed, modified and maintained the operating system of the mainframe computer, including necessary upgrades. 

  Application programmers: Wrote programs based on departmental requests or needs. In many cases, the roles of the system and application programmer were combined.

  Punch-card processing department: Transcription of programs or data from forms to punch cards was labor-intensive task done predominantly by women.
  

• interview

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  Regner/Vosáhlo_First Computer in Exchange for Vegetables
  

  { The acquisition and launch of the first IBM System/360 Model 30 mainframe computer at the then AZNP were described by two veterans responsible for its installation and operation from 1969 to 1970: chief technician Vladimír Regner and system programmer Jiří Vosáhlo. }

  Vladimír Regner and Jiří Vosáhlo at the 55 years of IT at Škoda Auto exhibition in the LKK building.

  ?/ How was it even possible for a carmaker to acquire an IBM computer from the West during the early Normalisation times?

  [Vladimír Regner] That’s a very funny piece of history! I just don’t know how publishable this story is.

  [Jiří Vosáhlo] There was one man who pulled it all off: Ladislav Šmíd.

  [V. Regner] He was a key person in the computer centre; however, the main thing was to get money for at least some type of machine. Finance and foreign currencies were then allocated by the Czechoslovak Automobile Works (ČAZ), where everything initially got stuck because of paperwork.  So, the only way was to secure money on the side. In 1968, when everything was a bit looser, the then Deputy Director for Sales at the carmaker devised a remarkable method. He managed to sell some surplus cars to Austria and thus got some foreign currency, but he left it in an Austrian account. 

  Planned economy_Heavy industry, such as steel mills, was permitted to buy from IBM, positioning it 20 years ahead.
  

  ?/ And with that, the carmaker bought its first computer?

  [V. Regner] Not yet. It would have been a problem to buy a computer directly like that, so they looked for an intermediate product – vegetables. The money for the cars sold was used to buy some carrots and potatoes.

  [J. Vosáhlo] The story goes that it mainly involved tomatoes from Yugoslavia.

  [V. Regner] Probably tomatoes as well. I’ve heard all sorts of things, but I don’t know exactly how it went; the Deputy Director didn’t confide in me. He just managed it somehow, and he had foreign currency that ČAZ didn’t know about.

  ?/ So, it was laundered through vegetables?

  [V. Regner] That’s probably the best way to put it. However, during that time, the revolution, the counter-revolution, the Soviet Army’s liberation, and then Normalisation occurred. That’s when all the power returned to the ČAZ and the ministries, which were divided into two groups. One was heavy industry, which had priority in everything, and the other was light industry, which unfortunately included Škoda. There was a rule that heavy industry could buy, for example, IBM – and companies like NHKG (Nová huť Klementa Gottwalda – ed.) did that too, so they were 20 years ahead. 

  ?/ So, what could you get officially?

  [V. Regner] For Škoda, we could only get computers that passed through the ministry, and those could not be IBM or the British ICL. 

  Chief engineer Vladimír Regner (left) and system programmer Jiří Vosáhlo (right) during the installation of the IBM 360 in the first computer hall of the V8 building.
  

  ?/ Minsk, then?

  [V. Regner] That would certainly get approved because it was from Russia. However, we weren’t interested in it because we already knew what their computers were like, and the answer is sh*t. However, the ministry insisted on following the state regulations. So, we looked for a way around that. And surprisingly enough, we found it. 

  [J. Vosáhlo] The important thing was that we managed to sign the contract with the Austrian representative office of IBM before 21 August 1968. 

  ?/ In fact, the computing capacity of the basic IBM System/360 was already insufficient for the company at the time of its acquisition. It was, therefore, necessary to increase it or to purchase another computer. How difficult was it to buy additional hardware?

  [V. Regner] We wanted to expand, of course, but we couldn’t do it through vegetables anymore, and we ran into tight import conditions. There was an import committee at our ministry that controlled all purchases from the West, and the company had to deposit foreign currency in advance. Moreover, practically nobody in the ministry understood computers. I often had to go to Prague to explain that we would need this or that to have a working computer and to ask for the release of foreign currency – they eventually signed it, but now imagine, we were in a situation where we needed another computer.

  Comecon_The equipment from Eastern Europe was not reliable enough for many applications. The biggest issue was the disks, which nobody here knew how to make.

  ?/ Another computer?

  [V. Regner] Yes. If it had been a computer from the Council for Mutual Economic Assistance (Comecon) country, it would have been approved by the import committees. However, the problem was that the computers from Comecon at that time were good for, well, how do you say it politely?

  ?/ They weren’t the best?

  [V. Regner] Can you imagine if you put equipment into an industrial plant that works twice a day for two hours each, and in the meantime, somebody keeps fixing it? 

  [J. Vosáhlo] These were mainly illegally copied machines with stolen operating systems, to put it bluntly.

  [V. Regner] The biggest issue with the eastern facilities was the disks. Nobody in Comecon knew how to do that; the least problematic ones were from East Germany where maybe they had some license, but even then they couldn’t quite implement it. 

  ?/ Finally, the decision was made to buy the East German Robotron EC 1040, which was subsequently in operation until the early 1990s. Was it reliable?

  [V. Regner] The equipment from Eastern Europe was not reliable enough for many applications. For example, if you want to transfer payroll to a computer, you can give the accountants a terminal (a remotely connected screen and keyboard – ed.), teach them how to use it instead of punching cards, and the data would go straight to disk. If it’s reliable, it’s not an issue. However, when we connected the terminal to the Robotron, it sometimes worked, but sometimes it would randomly shut down – and the biggest problem was figuring out what had been saved and what was lost. And if you can’t trust that the data is correct, you’re at a standstill. 

  ?/ So working with a computer in real-time was virtually out of the question?

  [J. Vosáhlo] Up to and including the 1980s, we relied solely on batch processing, handling one batch at a time. One program was run, it processed the data and printed the output. Then another program, and then another. Just a completely different way of working than people imagine today. Only IBM System/7 computers on the shop floor worked in real-time, but they were limited to simple records and simple terminals.

  [V. Regner] It was just a summary of production processing, and the computers themselves didn’t make any errors, so there was virtually no such problem during the whole period of operation. However, their data had to be transferred to a central computer, which kept accurate records and divided everything into invoices and sales systems. So you had data showing which car it pertained to, including its configuration, colour and other parameters, and you needed to pass that information on to the dealers. The way we ended up doing it was that the data from the IBM S/7 didn’t go to Robotron, but first to the IBM System/360, where it was reliably stored, and then from there, it was transferred to a central computer for further processing. {end}

• ibm360

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  IBM_Top Technology from the West
  

  [ Story_IBM System/360 ]
  

  “System/360 represents a sharp departure from concepts of the past in designing and building computers. This is the beginning of a new generation - not only of computers - but of their application in business, science and government,” IBM stated in its 7 April 1964 press release. The IBM System/360 was indeed a departure from the previous strategy – it was not a single computer, but a family of machines with a single architecture that grew to more than a dozen models by the end of 1965.

   

  The initial price of the IBM System/360 was USD 133,000, which would be equivalent to more than CZK 30 million today.

   

  The Prague Spring period also facilitated the development of computer technology at the carmaker, before Normalisation slowed it down.

  IBM decided to replace nearly everything it had offered with the new “three-sixty”. It was a bold move, but one that the development team and management cleverly insured by backward software compatibility with previous 1400 series models. This strategy proved so successful that even the next-generation System/370 was software-compatible with the “three-sixty”. While this may seem obvious today, the situation in the first half of the 1960s was quite different.

  > The IBM System/360 Model 30, which arrived at AZNP in the autumn of 1969, was a basic model at the time of its introduction in April 1964, and production ended in the summer of 1970 – which may be why the U.S. Export Commission, COCOM, allowed its sale behind the Iron Curtain in 1969.

  [ IBM S/7_Computer for Production ]

  IBM System/7 was a series of computers designed for industrial deployment and real-time operation, introduced in October 1970. These 16-bit machines already used semiconductor memory. The American carmaker AMC was the first user in September 1971, primarily for measuring emissions in newly manufactured cars. It was used at AZNP in Mladá Boleslav just five years later. Surprisingly, the COCOM export committee allowed the S/7 to be exported to the Eastern Bloc in 1975 – after all, it had been modified and deployed by AT&T for military purposes throughout the 1970s. Production of the System/7 ended in 1984.

  “We were given the opportunity to purchase two IBM System/7 computers to be part of the new carmaker’s management in the project for the start-up of the Škoda 742 car line. Such computers were not produced or designed anywhere in Comecon at that time. Unlike regular computers, which could not be placed next to a transformer because of random errors in the data, the System/7 was specially constructed to withstand any external interference. It didn’t need any air conditioning and could be situated in a production plant without any concerns,” recalled Vladimír Regner. {end}

  Where to Put It?_In the Basement of the Block of Flats
  

  A suitable location for the IBM System/360 computer was found in the V8 building in the offices next to the machine-computing station. However, the installers failed to complete the air conditioning in time. Ladislav Šmíd, then head of the computer centre, lived in a nearby block of flats where there was a free basement. He asked IBM if it was possible to install a computer temporarily in the basement room and was told that if it was only for the winter, it would be feasible. Throughout the winter, the computer operated without any major problems. In the meantime, the hall in the V8 building was completed.

• comecon

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  The Computer from the East_Poor Substitute
  

  
  

  When AZNP purchased another computer, the priority was a Soviet-made model. “So, my colleagues and I went to the nearest Soviet plant in Ukraine. These were basically IBM copies, but with components from the East – and that was a problem. I remember irritating the plant manager in Kyiv when he asked me what the mean time between failures was on our IBM and I replied, ‘Comrade, it’s been operational for a couple of years without any failures,” described Vladimír Regner.

  
  

  Eventually, even the leadership in Czechoslovakia acknowledged that it would not be a good choice. So, they began to consider replacing the central computer with a Soviet EC 1050 (the most powerful model of the EC series – ed.). “They kept me away from this, but someone told me that the offer specified how the Soviet computer would be revived and put into operation for 11 months by a group of about 20 Soviet engineers. And when my colleagues returned from training at the manufacturing plant located behind the Ural, they reported never seeing the computer run, not even once in three months, and weren’t allowed to touch it. So, I wrote a report asserting that this would not happen at Škoda,” Regner said, adding that the report got into the hands of the chairman of the company’s Communist Party committee, and he was accused of slandering Soviet products.
  

   

  AZNP’s second hall computer, the East German Robotron EC 1040, could have up to 1 MB of RAM.

  [ IBM Clone_Eastern Bloc ]

  
  

  In 1966, as part of the Comecon central planning, a proposal was made to introduce a unified series of compatible computers, similar to the successful IBM S/360 in the United States. The central planners even decided to go the route of producing copies (clones) of IBM. The line was designated by the Cyrillic letters EC. The full name was Единая система электронных вычислительных машин, in English the Unified System of Electronic Computing Machines – it was the ES series, actually, but in Czech, everyone simply called them “EC”.

  
  

  Their development was carried out in Moscow, Yerevan, Minsk and Penza, with production starting in 1972, first in Minsk and Penza, and later in other Comecon countries, including Czechoslovakia, where smaller EC 1021 models (up to 64 kB RAM and 0.04 MIPS) were produced. The most powerful EC 1050s (up to 1 MB RAM and 0.5 MIPS) were produced in the Soviet Union and the almost equally powerful EC 1040s (up to 1 MB RAM and 0.3 MIPS) in the GDR. The EC 1040 was selected for the expanded computing centre in the V8 building. 

  
  

  “Already during its installation, it became clear that the biggest problem was and would be the disk drives. Their heads had to be cleaned regularly, sometimes daily, and their position frequently had to be adjusted according to IBM’s benchmark. Otherwise, it was impossible, for example, to read a disk on a different rack than where the data had been recorded. Sometimes, it couldn’t be read anywhere at all. The technicians, therefore, had up to three hours every day reserved for maintaining the disks and magnetic tape drives,” Vladimír Regner recalled for the Škoda Auto archive.
  

• computer-hall

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  Building V8_Workshops Turned into a Computer Hall
  

  { The carmaker’s first data heart was created by modifying one of the oldest buildings on the Mladá Boleslav premises, originally used for production purposes. }

  The V8 building was the plant’s first-ever reinforced concrete structure. During the war years, it served as an aviation workshop, a paint shop and a testing department. At the end of the 1960s, the building was repurposed to house the OTŘ (Organisation and Control Technology) department, which was to include the planned computer centre. “The machine-computing station (SPS) was also moved to the second floor, after the necessary building modifications, to the area behind the lift. The entire OTŘ department was thus relocated to the V8 building, which was also shared with the People’s Militia and their storage facilities – we were under their protection!” reminisces Vladimír Regner, the former chief technician, in his memoirs.

   

  The computer halls on the ground floor of the V8 building were in use for nearly 35 years. They ceased operations in 2014.
  

  In 1969, selected areas on the second floor were altered to create the first computer hall. Initially, the floor had to be raised to accommodate cabling and air conditioning. After the completion of the air conditioning, which was somewhat delayed, the technicians managed to move the computer into the building in the spring of 1970. Thus, the first data hall at the carmaker became operational.

  AZNP had already committed to a major expansion of its computer facilities by the late 1970s. “In connection with the installation of the Robotron EC 1040 computer made in East Germany, we relocated the existing IBM computer from the second floor to the newly renovated ground floor of the V8 building next to EC 1040. Two Aritma A 101 computers were later installed in the vacated space and gradually replaced the SPS,” says Regner. {end} 
  

  Key Personality_Gene Amdahl
  

  Born to Scandinavian parents in South Dakota, he designed his first computer in the early 1950s and soon joined IBM, where he was involved in the development of the IBM 704 and 709 mainframes, as well as the Stretch transistor supercomputer project. Later, he became chief designer of the IBM System/360; however, because of disagreements with colleagues over the future of computer development, he left IBM in the autumn of 1970 and founded his own company, the Amdahl Corporation.

  The new company was dedicated to producing clones, computers compatible with IBM System/370 and subsequent mainframes. By the end of the 1970s, it achieved sales of over USD 1 billion and employed more than 6,000 people. Becoming part of the Fujitsu Group in the second half of the 1990s, it also played a role in the development of Škoda Auto’s IT department. In 1993, the carmaker purchased an Amdahl 5995-1100A mainframe from the company.

  The legacy of Gene Amdahl, who passed away in 2015, is still evident in computer systems today: Amdahl’s Law describes the limits of scaling performance across a large number of processor cores in contemporary supercomputers. 
  

  Computer in a Cabinet_Hundred Years of a Rack
  

  In Czech, the English word “rack” has a fairly unambiguous meaning. It describes a metal cabinet, typically 42U or 48U high, which corresponds to 187 or 213 cm, respectively, equipped with internal installation rails with mounting holes spaced at 19 inches, or 482.6 mm. The specific measurements originated in 1922 when Bell introduced a standard rack dimension for telephone equipment.

  Among the first computers offered in a rack-mounted version was the DEC PDP-8 in 1965. In the 1970s and 1980s, the rack-mounted version was primarily used for minicomputers or microcomputers (especially those installed in industrial plants) or as an alternative for mainframes.

  The rack has become the de facto basic unit of modern data centres, largely thanks to Compaq, which introduced the Compaq ProLiant series of PC architecture (x86) servers in a rack-mount design in 1993. Another milestone was the advent of Ziatech’s blade servers, which featured a very low profile. Thanks to advanced tools for remote monitoring of rack servers, the era of having technicians and operators in the data centre hall also came to an end.

• data-centres

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  The Turn of the Millennium_Birth of Data Centres
  

  { The state-of-the-art data centre in the C21 building was completed in 2000, thus concluding the chapter of the V8 building’s historic data halls. }

  The second data centre (C12 ) has roughly two and a half times the floor space of the first

  The first newly built data centre in Škoda Auto was near the “firehouse” and was put into operation in 2000. However, the first HPC (High-Performance Cluster, i.e. a supercomputer capable of performing very demanding tasks) arrived there in a bit of a roundabout way. Pavel Šimek, now head of FII – IT Shopfloor, was reminiscing about this for the Škoda Museum archive. “In 2000, when I was still working at the supplier, the carmaker was interested in acquiring the first IBM SP HPC system, an SMP system capable of combining multiple processors to function as one. It was an investment of tens of millions of Czech crowns, and the machine was intended for Česana for their design and modelling calculations. They had a small local data centre on the first floor of a building that was later demolished, next to the gatehouse. We initially planned to install the IBM SP there, but we soon realised that it would be impossible because the room did not have three-phase power. So, instead, the IBM HPC machine was the first to be installed in the newly completed C21 data centre,” said Šimek.

   

  Total power consumption of the C12 data centre. In the case of C21, it is approximately 750 kW.

   

  Both data centres now process a total of 60 petabytes of data (equivalent to 60 million GB). 

  [ Turbulent development ]

  The C21 data centre was state-of-the-art, but with the rapid growth of the plant and its IT sector after 2000, it did not even take a full 10 years before the new computer technology needed more room again. “By 2006, the numerous VW Group data centres were operating almost at full capacity, prompting discussions about what and where to build next. In particular, Škoda Auto needed to accommodate additional HPCs –supercomputers with higher power and cooling requirements. Therefore, we considered revitalising the data centres we already had at the plant,” recalled Šimek.

  At that time, the original data halls in the V8 building were still in use. The gradual addition of batteries and diesel generators created a small data centre with a capacity of approximately 300 kW. However, it later became clear that the building was no longer structurally sound. “We were regularly operating racks that weighed a tonne when fully equipped. Therefore, we decided to construct a new data centre (now C12) and expand C21 to ensure that we had two data centres with sufficient capacity and reserves,” added Šimek.

  The expansion of the data centres was carried out under the direction of Jiří Klazar, who held the position nowadays referred to as the expert coordinator of data centre facilities and technical rooms.
  

  People at the servers_The fewer, the better
  

  Whereas operators had to be almost constantly present in the mainframe data halls, the opposite is true today. The fewer people in the data centre, the lower the risk of faults occurring. Volkswagen has even built separate entrances and corridors for technical services in its data centres. “That seemed excessive to us, so we have common corridors and then areas dedicated to technicians and areas dedicated to IT staff,” explains Pavel Šimek.
  

  [ Too noisy test ]

  A rather unusual situation occurred during the commissioning of the data centre. The carmaker wanted state-of-the-art fire-prevention systems, including both intake systems for smoke detection and a stationary fire-extinguishing system – gas cylinders that reduce the oxygen content in that space from approximately 17% to 11%. “According to the latest standards, a full test of this stationary fire-extinguishing system is required for the VdS industry standard. We have, therefore, decided to do the test in the original hall of the C21 building, where the whole system was installed. We performed a real test, so the fire-extinguishing system cartridges, costing about a quarter of a million Czech crowns, were released into the hall and we, together with the firefighters, were present when the test took place to test everything on ourselves as well. That is, what it feels like to rise from the sea level to about 6 kilometres in terms of air breathability within 120 seconds.”

  However, there were moments that we did not expect. Firstly, the gas cooled down rapidly during the expansion, so the hall was suddenly really cold. Secondly, the nozzles discharging the gas made a lot of noise, and the sudden draught of gas from the cylinders tore the insulation on the nearby pipes, and glass wool started flying through the hall,” described Šimek.

  The test was successful, but soon alarms started flashing, indicating that several systems in the data hall were malfunctioning. The first casualty was a tape unit whose robot was clogged by glass wool. Then the disk arrays started failing – there were approximately 10,000 disks in the hall, and about a tenth of them stopped working. “It took us some time to discover the cause, which was the noise of the discharged gas and the associated vibrations since the disks are sensitive to it. Although they have protective mechanisms against vibrations, about a tenth of them failed to ‘park’ their heads in time and were damaged,” noted Šimek.

  In the end, it turned out that this is not a completely unknown problem, and that the manufacturer of the fire-extinguishing system even offers special noise-dampeners for nozzles installed in the data hall so that the critical limit for the disks, which is about 130 dB, would not be exceeded. “Therefore, for the C12 data centre, we used more discharge nozzles, added silencers and slightly extended the discharge time. And when we did another real test, we first equipped the hall with a disk array and measured the noise and other parameters. We treated it as a kind of demonstration,” said Šimek. {end}
  

  Energy efficiency_What to do with waste heat?
  

  Data centres generate a huge amount of waste heat – virtually 100% of the energy used by processors and other chips is turned into waste heat. Therefore, efficient cooling is essential, and it plays a significant role in the overall consumption. This is expressed by the PUE – Power Usage Effectiveness coefficient, which expresses the ratio between the total consumption of the data centre, including support systems, and the consumption of its IT equipment. Older data centres had a PUE of approximately 2: That is, for every watt used for operations, there was an additional watt for support systems. Modern data centres have a PUE of approximately 1.5, and the most efficient ones have a PUE between 1.1 and 1.2.
  

  One way to save on cooling is to use waste heat. “Back when DC12 was being built, someone asked us why we didn’t use the megawatts of waste energy we have for heating. To that, we replied: ‘Sure, we would love to, but who is going to pay for it?’ You see, cooling is a critical component, and the server would shut down without it. If we put some kind of recuperation in the data centre, we still won't save money on cooling because we have to keep it cool at all times, even during the summer when nobody wants the residual heat. Therefore, if someone wanted that heat, they would have to pay for the necessary technology. The situation is better today, with the new HPC systems that have hot water coolers where the return water is 50 or 60 degrees, and there are more opportunities for using that heat,” explained Šimek.

• supercomputers

  OK

  Červinka_The Computers that Make Škoda Cars
  

  { Jaroslav Červinka from FIM – Application Management describes how computing facilities for the design, construction and testing of new models have evolved. }

  The very first IBM and Robotron mainframes were used for design and material calculations in the 1970s and 1980s, alongside administrative tasks. The big leap forward was the advent of PCs in the 80s, followed by a revolution over the next two decades, first with workstations and then with SMP supercomputers boasting tens – and HPC clusters with hundreds or thousands – of processor cores. Jaroslav Červinka witnessed this development at Škoda Auto and describes it in detail. 

  ?/ Which systems were used in construction when you joined Škoda Auto (i.e. in 1993)?

  At that time, the carmaker was using the first Silicon Graphics workstations with the Unix operating system, running the ICEM DDM system as a design platform. Initially, there were just a few stations, later expanding to dozens.

  The Future_New topics with great potential lie ahead, such as training AI models – not only for discussions but also for design and materials. 

  ?/ Were they used for material calculations or designing individual components or even entire cars?

  This is the direction where the design was gradually moving. The work was divided among groups that dealt with individual parts of the body and engine, each focusing on their own thing – for example, the doors, which consist of a large number of parts, or the roof. Of course, the platform was created at VW and shared across the Group, so at Škoda Auto, it primarily involved designing the top of the car, engine integration and the interior.

  ?/ Is it possible to say which Škoda model was the first predominantly created on the computer?

  At the time I joined, the Felicia was being developed, based on the Favorit, in which computers had already played a role. So, I would guess that the Felicia was the model where all the changes and new developments were first created on the computer. After that came the first big and beautiful car, the Octavia, which was clearly designed and extensively modelled on computers.

  ?/ What other areas were powerful computers and workstations used for?

  Mainly for material calculations and simulations – for example, shock and deformation or vibration and noise. The capabilities then were probably trivial compared with today, but the necessary software already existed. However, it was more about supplemental calculations to verify how well the test results matched the assumptions, as the computational power at that time was not yet robust enough to be a decision criterion.

  ?/ We are still talking about local workstations or computing servers located in the Technical Development department. What breakthrough did the opening of the new C21 data centre in 2001 bring?

  Until then, our investments had mostly been in hardware for the Technical Development department. However, when our colleagues there planned a new system for technical computing with some 12 or 20 processors, and after everything had been ordered, they realised that they did not have three-phase power in the technical room. So, we installed this system in the C21 building hall, and for the first time, we managed the systems of the construction department. The next breakthrough came a few years later with a new more powerful machine, a Silicon Graphics SMP system with fewer than 100 processors and a large memory accessible to all processor cores. These systems were also intended for aerodynamic calculations.

  ?/ I believe you also got the first cluster system at Škoda Auto from SGI.

  Yes, in 2007. The main difference between a cluster and an SMP system with shared memory is that in a cluster, each processor can only access its own operating memory. A cluster is basically a large number of servers with very fast processors and substantial memory, connected by a fast network.

  ?/ I suppose in car development, computers started to handle accurate modelling much more affordably than actual testing.

  Exactly. For example, in external aerodynamics, the airflow around the car, a key metric of which is the coefficient of air resistance (cw), forms the basis for fuel consumption and emissions. Today, we can calculate this coefficient to within a 1 percent deviation compared with subsequent wind tunnel measurements. Similarly, issues like heating, air conditioning and window defrosting in the car interior can be addressed. For crash test simulations, in addition to body deformation, the impact on occupant body models and the effects of airbag deployment and inflation are included in the calculation. {end} 

• transforming-work

  OK

  New Era_Operators Banned
  

  { While mainframes historically required constant operator presence, the new mainframes, servers and the first supercomputers from the 1990s onwards have gradually required less and less personal supervision and manual intervention. }
  

  Supervisory IT workstation from the turn of the millennium.

  “When I joined the carmaker in the early 1990s, we were using a classic Amdahl mainframe. The operators were still mainly focused on managing peripherals, such as tape and disk drives, as well as punch card or tape readers. Then, it all came to a quick end. We were running R2 as the main system – in fact, the very foundation of the SAP system – and by the late 1990s, we had switched to R3, the classic SAP. This shift marked our readiness at Škoda Auto to embrace new challenges,” says Petr Harant Sr., who now works in the FIA – SAP GCC – IT4IT division. 

  Technology exchange_Magnetic tapes and punch cards headed for silicon heaven in the early 1990s, along with the EC 1040 mainframe.
  

  [ The mainframe era is not over ]

  The new SAP R3, with its client-server architecture and local computer networks linking hundreds, then thousands, of PCs allowed direct access to central systems. This development eliminated the need for data collection via punch cards or floppy disks. However, the era of central or mainframe computers did not end there. “As late as 1998, we were still using them to complement the new SAP systems. In the job design department, which I joined at that time, we were working on integrating the mainframes with client-server systems,” says Petr Harant Sr.

  His son, Petr Harant Jr., worked alongside him in the same department at that time. “We were figuring out batch processing, connecting systems via file transfer, moving data and planning large-scale data processing of 20, 40, 60 steps across systems. All this happened in a three-shift, eight-hour operation with occasional weekend standbys, but it was interesting and often creative work,” explained Petr Harant Jr.

  [ The advent of monitoring and ticketing ]

  With the new data centre in the C21 building came a major change: The operators became administrators. “Between 2002 and 2003, I first joined as an external worker in the monitoring centre of the large hall,” recalled Petr Harant Jr. He added that despite the rapid development, numerous tasks still required manual intervention. “For example, we worked with a large-scale robotic tape backup system. Every Sunday, we had to make backups, remove the tapes from the system and store them in a vault where they were kept for three weeks before the media was ‘rotated’,” he said.

  From the 1990s onwards, it was not just the operation of ageing mainframes, new servers or the first supercomputers in the data centre that required supervision but also the thousands of networked PC end stations – and their users. The carmaker, therefore, gradually introduced and expanded tools for IT support, device, network and application management, change management and IT services.

  [ When a “critical incident” occurs ]

  Computers at that time became absolutely critical to managing the carmaker’s production and operations. As a result, a new term emerged in its IT vocabulary: critical incident. Today, Petr Harant Jr. serves as an incident management coordinator in a nine-person team under the FIO/2 – IT Processes & Service Desk. “A critical incident is a situation where a production stop is imminent. When it actually stops, it becomes what is known as a major incident. There are about 300 critical incidents per year, and several more serious ones. Such situations can mean several busy days and nights for us,” concluded Petr Harant Jr. {end}
  

  Archived Materials_Shift Communicator
  

  Before the advent of modern IT supervision and technical support management systems, mainframe computer operators simply wrote down any faults and their solutions in a notebook, the so-called shift communicator. Four of them from 1972–1980 are now preserved in the archives of the Škoda Museum.
  

  The shifts operating the computers communicated increasingly about other matters. The initially brief messages soon evolved into humorous or sharp discussion between shifts. They even mentioned people who neglected to clean something or who stole and ate someone else’s snack. “My colleague Babák and I once failed to notice on the console that the operation was interrupted. In the shift communicator, we wrote to the supervisor, who reduced our bonuses for this, that man is to God what flies are to cruel children, which naturally offended him,” recalled Richard Nocar, a former operator and programmer.
  

  The shift communicator essentially became an analogue Facebook, containing both work- and non-work-related messages and jokes pasted from the Dikobraz magazine.
  

• software

  OK

  Software Story_Programs from Our Own Workshop

  { The carmaker’s programmers initially had to create most of the programs to cover company agendas, and later to manage their interfacing with VW Group systems. }

  The computer hall on the second floor of the V8 building with Aritma (Aritma EC 6112 card‑punching machines and punch-card reader) and Tesla (tape drives), 1981.

  Without an operating system and programs, i.e. without software, a computer would just be a pile of idle hardware (or rather iron, silicon and plastic). However, 55 years ago, the range of applications and programs was very modest – it was expected that the customer would create most of them.

  Therefore, the creation of the first programs at the carmaker began before the first computer had even arrived. “We were preparing programs for testing, punching them into punch cards, which we then took to UNICHEM in Prague. We had machine hours prepaid there for overnight, during which we could test the programs,” recalled Jiří Vosáhlo, a systems programmer at the computer centre, in a podcast about the history of IT.

  Testing_We had a kind of informal competition among ourselves to see who could make their program bug-free on the first try. It was, of course, mainly an excuse to celebrate. 

  Marcela Čepová, programmer

  One of the first female programmers at the computer centre and later a coordinator of SAP projects, Marcela Čepová, shares similar experiences. “In Prague, using their computer, they always ran our program stored on punch cards. At the end, there was a paper printout, and if we had written the program well and everything worked, it said ‘successful’ at the end. However, very few people got it right the first time because we typically made a mistake either while writing it or during the punching. So, debugging one program could take weeks; it was an amazing time, especially for bringing the team together. We all advised and helped each other,” described Čepová.

  The 32 kB operating memory and 7 MB disk space of the IBM 360/30 posed significant limitations. Therefore, the computer centre programmers usually wrote programs not in higher programming languages but in assembler or directly in machine code – to keep them as small and efficient as possible. 
  

  First Website_Initially, Without Czech Diacritics
  

  Škoda Auto launched its website in 1996. At first, it did not use characters with Czech diacritics because they did not display correctly in some browsers. Visitors could access information about models, the Škoda Motorsport team, press releases, a presentation of the Škoda Museum and sections for dealers and job offers.
  

  [ Bill of Materials database ]

  One of the few original IBM applications that could be used at the carmaker was the BOMP (Bill of Materials Processor) system. This was specifically designed for creating BOMs – that is, lists of all sub-assemblies, parts and source materials for a particular part or entire product. “It was essentially a hierarchical database system that needed to be supplemented and modified for the needs of the carmaker. However, when we switched to the EC 1040, we no longer had this software available, so we rebuilt the entire BOM system based on the IDMS structural database, which we acquired through Data Systém Bratislava,” explained Svatopluk Fronk, who now works with FIM/4 – AM Production Planning and Control, Quality Management, in the podcast about the history of IT at Škoda Auto.

   

  An important intermediate step between punch cards and the later networked PCs was the eight-inch floppy disks, which were prepared in the user departments.

  [ Linking systems with VW ]

  The software revolution came with Škoda Auto’s integration into the VW Group. “They used different systems, a variety of procedures and a different product description than Škoda Auto. We relied on what was essentially a Baťa-style system of internal sales between centres in the form of an ‘offtake’ – so the costs of individual production centres were tracked. In the Group, the inputs and outputs of the entire plant were monitored, and the Bill of Materials was based differently than ours. Our main task was to bridge these two worlds so that we could communicate with their systems and describe the Group’s products in our BOM and prepare an interface for their world,” explained Fronk.

  According to him, colleagues from the VW Group were impressed with how the Czech carmaker managed to implement the changes. “We also managed to data-connect all three Czech plants so that production could be centrally managed,” said Fronk.

   

  The vast majority of paper records at the carmaker existed in three forms: on a paper form, on a punch card and as a computer printout.

  [ How SAP was deployed ]

  The deployment of a company-wide information system was also undertaken in the mid-1990s by numerous experts who had started in the computer centre at the turn of the 1960s and 1970s. In the personnel area, Marcela Čepová was in charge of coordination. “I created a team around me that covered all personnel areas, and each department had its own representative. Anything related to human resources in the company, we covered and automated,” remarked Čepová.

  The SAP system is global, but each company tailors and adjusts it according to its own needs. "We were super-special in this regard. Whether it was the specific conditions, the wishes or a certain level of indulgence of the people for whom we had created various support programs in the past, not to mention the amazing Excel spreadsheets, we now had to do it all centrally, in one place, in SAP,” noted Čepová. {end}

  German giant_SAP Information System
  

  In the early 1960s, Czech emigrant Josef Orlický was promoting a computer management method to IBM customers: MRP – Material Resources Planning. He also laid the groundwork for systems encompassing the entire company’s operations. Another major development occurred when five programmers from the IBM department in Mannheim decided to establish their own company, Systemanalyse und Programmentwicklung – SAP, in 1972. It gradually focused on applications where data was not batch-processed but interacted with by users via terminals and PCs.
  

• into-the-world

  OK

  Production Management_Around the World
  

  The IT department’s experience in supporting the startup and subsequent production management in foreign plants became the basis for the establishment of the SAP Group Competence Centre at Škoda Auto.

  Another Škoda IT milestone was the management of plants around the world from Mladá Boleslav, starting with the plant in Chhatrapati Sambhajinagar (formerly Aurangabad), India, where there was initially not even a data connection. “We first set up a local PC-based material management solution so that, upon arrival, a container of parts could be correctly allocated. In the beginning, these containers were even accompanied by CDs with all the necessary data for the local systems,” explains Svatopluk Fronk. This eventually led to enabling remote online control of production processes for Škoda and later Volkswagen and Audi cars.

  The Ukrainian Solomonovo plant followed. “We managed orders, planned production, ensured synchronisation with suppliers, collected production data and processed parts sequences to precisely match the materials needed in Ukraine,” notes Fronk. Škoda Auto experts were the first to launch remote production control at other Group companies. This expertise facilitated the establishment of a SAP Group competence centre at Škoda Auto. {end}
  

  Data link_Satellite Networking Site
  

  In the former Czechoslovakia, not only were computers in short supply, but telecommunications networks were also inadequate. This deficiency became glaringly obvious after the merger with the VW Group, when the requirements for the number and quality of telephone and data lines increased drastically. Thus, while the historical telephone exchange was still operating at the old plant, the installation of state-of-the-art fibre-optic networks began on the carmaker’s premises.
  

  The surrounding environment was a bigger issue. “In the beginning, there were no decent lines to the borders with our former archenemies. It was a little better with neutral Austria, so initially, communication was routed from Mladá Boleslav through Prague to Vienna and then through former West Germany. However, it was slow and not very reliable,” recounted former chief engineer Vladimír Regner.
  

  The solution was to build our own satellite link, which took just a few weeks to establish with a large dish installed on the roof of the V8 building. “The first major task was setting up the company’s K-Mail e-mail system, which was accessed via a terminal,” added Regner.
  

• people

  OK

  Transformation in Time_Small Big Team

  { From a team of about 20 computing centre team members in 1970, the current FI team has grown to more than 30 times that number. }

  The dynamics of the small team that was part of the OTŘ (Organisation and Technology Management) department were understandably different from today’s. This contrast is vividly depicted in historical documents, such as the chronicle of the Socialist Labour Brigade between 1970 and 1988 or the recollections of contemporaries.

  “We were a perfect gang. We all had quite young children at that time, so we made family trips together, went to the theatre and organised trips with the obligatory factory visit, a monument tour and an evening meal. Jiří Vosáhlo played and sang for us on the road. We celebrated the arrival of each season – for example, in the allotment garden where we brought our own refreshments, and some played whatever instruments they could, while others danced,” recalls Marcela Čepová, then a programmer at the computer centre, about the camaraderie among the young team in the 1970s.

  Today’s Škoda IT team consists of more than 700 people. The allotment garden would probably not survive a spring welcome involving singing and dancing with such a number of employees (and their family members), and perhaps only a larger zoo could manage a joint excursion! Nonetheless, team sports and other activities continue even today – whether it’s regular participation in the Jizera Fifty, events for cycling fans or others. {end}
  

  Company Culture_Dress Code
  

  AZNP employees had to adhere to strict rules at the company during the time of the IBM mainframe acquisition. A clean-shaven face, black suit, white shirt and striped tie were required. Vladimír Regner recalls a situation when a lecturer, during a demonstration of repairing a printer drive, removed his jacket, rolled up the sleeves of his white shirt and plunged his hands into a container of hydraulic oil.
  

  In Mladá Boleslav, the dress code for IT professionals was initially more relaxed. However, suits and ties became the norm in the 1990s with the new management, although this standard eased again later on. 
  

• overview

  OK

  Škoda IT today_People, Data, Technology

  { The IT department, under area F, is spread across the country but also has designated competencies within the VW Group and oversees the IT supervision of plants in India. }

  Locations of Škoda IT_Czech Republic
  

  The core of Škoda IT is in Mladá Boleslav, but it also serves other locations and has recently expanded into new premises in Prague.

  Mladá Boleslav

  Laurin & Klement Campus

  Headquarters of the FI area management and its FIP, FIT, FIG, FID, FII, FIC and FIA departments

  C12 Data Centre

  Launch of the first phase: 2012

  Launch of the second phase: 2018

  Area: 9,257 m2

  Total power input: 3 MW

  Annual consumption: 16.4 GWh of electricity

  C21 Data Centre

  Launch of the first phase: 2001

  Launch of the second phase: 2008 

  Area: 3,848 m2

  Total power input: 750 kW

  Annual consumption: 7.1 GWh of electricity

  Building V8

  Headquarters of the FIM 

  and FIO departments

  First data hall: 1970

  Second (large) data hall: 1978

  Decommissioning of the data centre: 2014

  Vrchlabí

  FIP, FIM, FIO and FII departments.

  Kvasiny

  FIP, FIM, FIO and FII departments.

  Prague

  AFI City building in Vysočany. FIT, FIG, FID, FIP, FIA and FIM departments.

  Data centres_in numbers
  

   

  Škoda Auto servers, including virtual ones.

   

  Physical servers available to Škoda Auto.

   

  Number of applications Škoda IT took care of this May.

   

  Total length of electrical cables exceeds this amount.

   

  Number of disk arrays with a total capacity of 60 PB.

   

  Air cooling units with a capacity of 350 kW.

   

  Tape backup stations.

   

  HPC systems water-cooling capacity in megawatts.

  Supercomputer_The Most Powerful in the Czech Republic
  

  HPE Cray Ex at Skoda Auto ranked an outstanding 112th in the June 2024 Global Supercomputer Top500. The computing cluster with AMD EPYC chips contains a total of 196,608 cores and is the most powerful supercomputer in the Czech Republic. The supercomputer solves challenging aerodynamics problems, crash test simulations and engine calculations.
  

   

  The beeline distance between Mladá Boleslav and Pune. IT at the local Škoda Auto Volkswagen India Private Limited plant is supervised by experts from Mladá Boleslav. This is also true for India’s second plant, Chhatrapati Sambhajinagar (formerly known as Aurangabad), located just a little closer.

  Divisions_Škoda IT 

  The FI – Information Technology area is divided into several specialist divisions. Here, you will find their basic overview.
  

  FIT – IT Enterprise Architecture & Technology: Addresses enterprise architecture (EA) management and coordination of IT technologies, process management, automation and data architecture.

  FIC – SAP Group Competence Centre: Delivers SAP-focused IT solutions across the VW Group (together with FIA) in areas such as financial systems, archiving services, user support and more.

  FIA – SAP GCC – IT4IT: Created from FIC to split up professional competencies and enhance the efficiency of personnel work. It also manages IT services for other Škoda IT departments.

  FIG – IT Governance, Security and Service Management: Ensures the alignment of IT activities with corporate objectives, manages risk and promotes the responsible use of IT resources.

  FID – Škoda Sales IT: Oversees and implements IT requirements and projects, as well as product development, for the sales area.

  FIP – IT Process and System Integration: Manages and implements IT requirements and projects across the carmaker.

  FII – IT Shopfloor: Provides IT services and operations of systems in production and logistics.

  FIM – Application Management: Responsible for the strategy and management of applications.

  FIO – IT Services: Dedicated to the operation, planning and development of information technology for Škoda Auto and other VW Group entities.

• cio

  Eisl_IT is the Driving Force Behind the Car Company's Success

  { Alexander Eisl, Head of FI – Information Technology, explains the challenges facing Škoda Auto in this area. }

  ? What do you think makes Skoda's IT team stand out today, and what role does it play within the VW Group?

  It's remarkable to witness the evolution of Skoda's IT team from just 20 employees in 1970 to over 700 colleagues today. Their exceptional ability to adapt and innovate with technology has been a major part of our success over the past 55 years. Initially, IT was merely a support function, but now it is fundamental to the entire company. Internal processes, production, quality and technical development are being digitised, most notably the cars themselves. Within the VW Group, our IT department is regarded as a respected strategic partner. Our team pioneered the implementation of remote production management across other Group companies globally, including in India and Ukraine. Thanks to these initiatives, the SAP Group Competence Centre was established here and now boasts close to 300 colleagues. 

  ? How do you see the IT infrastructure evolving in the future, and what investments will be needed?

  Although I have been in IT since the 1990s, the industry still excites me simply because it never stops evolving. I believe our future IT infrastructure will prioritise maximising system usage and ensuring easy access to all critical data. We are committed to empowering everyone to build their own digital tools using low-code or no-code platforms, and we aim to ensure our IT operations are sustainable and have minimal environmental impact.

  ? The involvement of digitalisation is growing in all departments of the carmaker. How can you support colleagues in this regard?

  We focus on sharing skills with all Škoda employees and providing support during the digital transformation. Our goal is to equip our colleagues with skills in data analysis and AI, basic software development and cybersecurity awareness. We are excited to step into the world of AI and familiarise our colleagues with our internally developed application, ŠkodaGPT. These skills will empower all Škodians to actively contribute to digital initiatives. 

  ? What do you see as the biggest challenges in the IT industry for Škoda Auto in the coming years?

  We look forward to introducing new technologies to enhance our capabilities and manage complex IT setups. But we are prepared for all the challenges, and we are confident in our team’s ability to overcome them. We are focusing on continuous talent development to make sure our employees have the skills and knowledge to excel in the ever-changing IT landscape.

  ? Would you like to share a message with current and former employees in Škoda's IT department?

  I want to express my gratitude for your dedication and contributions over the past 55 years. You have been, and will continue to be, the driving force behind Škoda Auto's success. I encourage everyone to embrace learning and growth as we navigate the exciting digital future ahead. Let's continue our tradition of excellence and drive innovation within the company. {end}

  At the Head_Overview of the Škoda Auto CIO 

  Claus Dieter Hohmann

  1 July 1991 – 30 June 1999

  Uwe Schulte
  

  1 June 2000 – 31 January 2003

  Martin Taege

  1 May 2003 – 30 April 2008

  Andreas K. G. Hafemann

  1 May 2008 – 28 February 2013

  Andre Wehner

  1 March 2013 – 30 June 2016

  Ralf Brunken

  1 August 2016 – 31 March 2019

  Klaus Blüm
  

  1 March 2019 – 31 August 2022
  

  Alexander Eisl
  

  since 1 October 2022
  

  Leadership_How It Used to Be
  

  The position of CIO (Chief Information Officer), which in the current Škoda Auto hierarchy is the head of the FI area, was established at the carmaker with its entry into the VW Group in 1991. At the time of the creation of the computer centre in the late 1960s, the first head was Ladislav Šmíd. During the era of Normalisation, organisational changes included the management of the computer centre and the "political" management of the OTŘ (Organisation and Technology Management) unit above it.
  

• ibm360

  IBM 360/30 computer with peripherals in the large computer hall on the ground floor of the V8 building, pictured in 1984.

  Operator, Mrs. Brabcová, at the console and main panel of the IBM 360.

  One of the first IBM 360 operators, Šárka Tůmová, pictured in 1970.

• datova-centra

  Expansion of the first data centre (C21), which opened in 2000.

  Opening ceremony of the second phase of the data centre (C12).

  Opening ceremony of the C12 data centre in 2012.

  Today’s data centres can operate without constant operator supervision.

  Modern backup DUPS (Dynamic UPS) combine batteries, flywheel and diesel generators.

  Today’s cabling: Electrons have largely been replaced by photons, and copper by optical fibre.

  Supercomputer cluster liquid cooling distribution.

• lide

  Team Škoda FI – Information Technology, 2019.

  Team EO – Information Systems and Organisation, 1999.

  Part of the computer centre team in 1981.

• vypocetni-sal

  General view of the Mladá Boleslav plant with the V8 building in the middle (early 1990s).

  Closing of the original data centre in 2014 (Vladimír Regner in the middle).

  Proliant x86 rack servers from the 1990s.

  The decommissioning ceremony of the computer hall on the ground floor of the V8 building culminated with a symbolic cable cut.