Over the next four years, Škoda Transportation Group member Pars Nova will invest 17.6 million euros in its production facility.
Pars Nova is intending to expand its production capacity by 35 percent and it also wishes to modernise its facilities. This investment is part of a wider investment strategy by Škoda Transportation.
“We are succeeding in fulfilling our long-term strategy and as part of this, we are also increasing the production capacity. In addition to massive investments in Ostrava and Pilsen, we are now preparing to invest almost half a billion for capacity increase purposes and for modernising the premises in the Šumperk company Pars nova. With the capacity expanding, new employees are going to be recruited as well.”
Škoda Transportation has already started building a new production and test facility in Pilsen, where it is investing 30 million euros in expansion with the goal of hiring in excess of 1,000 new employees. Škoda Vagonka, which is located in Ostrava, will double in size. It will get a new paint shop, a machining centre and production lines.
Škoda came under new ownership – the Dutch PPF Group – in April 2018, following approval from the European Commission. Since then it has seen significant growth following new orders.
“Thanks to our business success, we have prepared contracts worth approximately 65 billion crowns ready to be implemented.”
Due to a positive order book, Škoda is able to invest heavily into increasing the capacity of its production and R&D. Consequently it needs to hire new employees as well.
“We need to significantly increase production capacity and to innovate technology in order to satisfy the growing demand for modernisations, repairs and also due to further working within the Škoda Transportation Group.
“Investment construction in our company started with extending the test room and acceptance hall, which we plan to complete by the end of this year. We have also started to comprehensively modernise operations in the main production hall and are preparing investments into a new chassis and wheelhouse repair shop. Investing this way, we aim to acquire up to seventeen new track stands including a new chassis repair line.”
Over the next few years Pars Nova will build a new chassis site. By the end of 2020 it will have two sliders, a 300m long track and a new continuous chassis washing machine. In 2021 then Pars Nova will fit a new wheelset CNC lathe and a wheelset press and create a specialised working area for assembling bearings. There will also be a centre for defect detection. The new chassis site will be completed in 2022. The final installations will be a separate paint shop and a blasting box.
There are preparations under way for full-scale production site in Šumperk featuring traction motor repair and electronics repair shops. There will further be investment into technologies for preparing and dividing materials for the production of spare parts.
Pars Nova has had a presence in Šumperk for more than 70 years, working on modernising, repairing and manufacturing new rail vehicles. It currently employs roughly 700 people.
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