Michal
Ondrej

The Speedtail is McLaren's three-seat hypercar, the fastest road car the company had built, with a carbon fibre monocoque and a price of over $2M per car. I owned supplier quality for the complete composite body in white and led its delivery into McLaren.

Day to day that meant production part approval (PPAP) for every component, 8D investigations and fixes once series production started, and pushing new engineering materials through approval at the suppliers.

On the Range Rover Evoque launch I got engineering changes into 63 body, chassis, powertrain and electrical commodities on time. On the shared Evoque and Discovery Sport platform I set up one common containment process across the plants, which cut stop-ships by 80%.

I also ran the cubing quality audits, which reached a zero score at production prove-out and the highest PSW rate Halewood had seen. The Discovery Sport went on to win Auto Express Compact SUV of the Year in 2015.

Promoted to site engineer, I covered 23 supplier sites for all JLR vehicles and got every part approval signed off on time, with no stop-ships or recalls from those suppliers.

I also rebuilt the training programme for the 20 supplier quality engineers and managers who would run the new plant in Nitra, Slovakia. Their performance came in up to 30% above forecast.

c2i makes carbon fibre parts for premium car makers. I ran product and process development and the tool shop, with five CNC machines and six assembly stations.

The biggest change was people, not machines. Training plans and team work brought turnover from 8% down to 2% in half a year. I also moderated FMEAs for the Porsche Speedster and BMW M4 programmes.

My first job. I coordinated manufacturing, purchasing and engineering readiness for the Euro VI heavy-duty emissions launch at three customer plants, and moved the build from a prototype facility in France to serial production in the Netherlands without the customers noticing.

Later I planned up to four engine validation tests a day as a test engineer.

A small company designing and making composite car parts, with a focus on natural fibres, custom materials and recycling composites. It taught me more about cash flow and customers in six months than any corporate role had.

I closed it in 2023 when I moved to Riyadh.

Starting a car company from zero means building the processes as well as the product. My first year was the vehicle development process and programme timing. Since 2024 I've led the Innovation Center: technology scouting, partnerships with research institutions, AI and R&D.