Adam Bartoš
A passion for technology led to a new role in VELUX
During Adam Bartoš’ 12 years in VELUX, he has shown his talent for not only maintaining the production machinery, but also for designing and implementing technical solutions to improve day-to-day production.
Taking a look back, Adam started as a production operator in VELUX in 2009 just after finishing upper secondary school. At that time, he was 19 years old – the youngest among his colleagues – and about to start his own family. He wanted to continue his studies at university, but decided to look for a job now that a new family member was on the way. Already then, he was considered a dedicated worker by his manager and tried many activities and positions on the Sun Tunnel production line, where his responsibility was to operate the different machinery. Adam’s manager, Martin Guba, noticed his abilities and offered him a position as maintenance electrician, where his responsibility was to repair the machinery and make sure everything was up and running. “From the beginning, Adam had a visible potential and I could see that he was willing to learn and develop and also step out of his comfort zone if needed. I remember times when Adam as a production operator was proactively improving our maintenance methods and supporting the maintenance staff by performing some of their usual tasks. Because of this, I decided to promote him to Maintenance Electrician,” says Martin Guba, Technical Support Manager, PBC-SK.
Proving his potential
Being promoted was a big chance for Adam and a great opportunity to show what he is good at and what he loves to do – fixing things. As a child, the first thing Adam would do when he got a toy car was to disassemble it and figure out how it worked and was put together. He also spent a lot of time in the garage with his dad who, like him, had a big interest in everything that was electrical. It was while working in the maintenance team that Adam realised he had potential and that if he showed his skills, he might progress and become an engineer in VELUX. “As a maintenance electrician, I had the opportunity to develop my skills by solving countless different tasks and problems and come up with improvements. I went through several production halls and gained more and more experience about the machinery and our systems,” he says and continues: “I especially think of the time where we had to close the production of hardware products in PBC-SK. The production moved to NB-PL in Gniezno and here I was involved in dissembling the machinery and set it up in the new plant and train my colleagues in Gniezno in how to operate the equipment.”
I wanted to develop in my role and expand my knowledge base, so I decided to enrol at the University of Technology in Trnava to study mechanical engineering.
Industrial Engineer at work and developer at home
After 7 years in the maintenance team, Adam was promoted to his current role as Industrial Engineer. In this role, he is responsible for the technologies and machinery in the production of flat roof windows and takes part in designing and implementing new equipment. Although he did not have a university degree in engineering, he taught himself to model in 3D and in his previous maintenance role, he was part of both programming and designing the robotics in the factory. However, to better himself and learn more about robotics and engineering, he chose to continue his studies at university shortly after his promotion. “I wanted to develop in my role and expand my knowledge base, so I decided to enrol at the University of Technology in Trnava to study mechanical engineering. I finish my bachelor’s degree in May 2022 which I am really looking forward to. Luckily, I can study while still working and my manager gives me flexibility to do so – each Friday night and Saturday, I have classes. The days are long sometimes, especially during exam periods, but I like to learn new things and spend time on what I would also call a hobby of mine,” he says. It is not only at work that Adam shows his dedication to technology and engineering. In his free time, he works on different projects, such as a bionic hand prosthesis controlled by the human nervous system, which he has been working on for more than 10 years. Another project is the Ultrasonic Leak Detector, as he calls it, which is a handheld device that can detect leaks of compressed air and other gases. With its help, production plants can identify losses of the compressed air used for running the machinery and thus decrease the cost of producing it as well as prevent CO2 emissions. This project has been so successful that Adam won a national competition – the Slovak University Startup Cup – and got a place in the world finals in the University Startup World Cup 2021. When the device is fully developed, he hopes that VELUX production plants will be the first to try it.
Bionic hand prosthesis.
