ABF

The joint stock company "ABF, a.s." was established on 30 June 1996, and since its foundation it has been a genuinely Czech company. In many regards it is a successor of the Czechoslovak Centre of Constructions and Architecture founded in 1967. ABF deals with the processing and dissemination of information, with trade fair, publishing and educational activities in the field of the building industry.

The "ARCH" publishing house issues various publications within the framework of the Czech building information system, such as Stavební katalog ABF (ABF Building Catalogue), Stavební přehled (Building Overview), edition series "Stavební právo" (Building Law), magazines "Fórum architektury a stavitelství" (Forum of Architecture and Civil Engineering) and Stavební listy (Building News), as well as the bulletin "Stavební právo" (Building Law) and a number of professional publications.

ABF pays major attention to presentation on the Internet as well. Its "abf.cz" server has been operating since 1996 and brings information about all ABF, a.s. activities with references to other servers of the ABF group. All essential information from the field of the building industry and architecture can be found by visitors from the specialised building portal "eStav.cz": a comprehensive database of firms and products, current building sector news, event calendar, financial information, job offers and many other items. Technical publications can be ordered from the Internet bookshop at www.eProdejna.cz. The www.forsystem.cz server is dedicated to the system of building exhibitions and fairs known as "FOR SYSTÉM".

ABF trade fair activities

ABF is organiser of the largest International Building Fair in the Czech Republic "FOR ARCH" and of other building exhibitions associated under the name "FOR SYSTÉM" in regional centres of the Czech Republic, and together with BB Expo also a co-organiser of the Building Fair "FOR ARCH Slovakia" held in Banská Bystrica.

In recent years, ABF has organised also other exhibitions and trade fairs in the Prague Exhibition Centre of Letňany, such as: SWIMMING POOLS, SAUNAS SOLARIUMS; ECO CITY; CLEAN CITY; INVEST CITY; PRAGAFLOREA GREEN TOWN; EUROTRAFFIC; AUTO PRAHA; 4x4 OFFROAD SHOW; FOR HABITAT; FOR KIDS.

Competition of apprentices of building trades (SUSO)®

SUSO is, already in its nine year, an excellent competition project designed for apprentice youth studying various branches of the building industry, trades and crafts. ABF has been managing the SUSO competition in cooperation with sponsors and partners already since 1996, within the framework of accompanying programmes of building exhibitions and trade fairs. For the eight year of its existence, almost 1900 apprentices from Czech, Slovak, German and Hungarian schools and institutes took part in the competition (the participants attend secondary specialised apprentice institutes, specialised trade institutes, apprentice institutes and integrated schools).

The competition is financially supported by the Ministry of Trade and Industry, and it has acquired a patronage of the Ministry of Education, Youth and Sports of the Czech Republic, and of the Economic Chamber of the Czech Republic.

The traditional competition branches "bricklayer, tile setter and joiner" were extended in 2000 with the category of dry structure fitter, thanks to the cooperative approach and excellent cooperation with Rigips, a.s. and the Guild of Plasterboard Fitters of the Czech Republic, which provided interesting refreshing effects for the competition and became a regular part of regional rounds in Prague and Brno.

The professional warrantor of the tile setter branch has been the Guild of Tile Setters of the Czech Republic since the beginning of SUSO organisation, and in 2004 this Guild attracted new cooperating partners for this competition category: B-PORT, spol. s r.o.; Henkel ČR s.r.o.; Kiesel s.r.o. and SCHÖNOX s.r.o.

Besides this, ABF cooperates also with the Guild of Plumbers of the Czech Republic while organising certain common regional rounds, and with the Association of Stonecutters and Stone Sculptors of the Czech Republic during he SUSO final round, where the apprentices of the stonecutter and stone sculptor branch demonstrate their inventive ideas and craft skills.

The aim of the organisation of the SUSO competition is to promote the current as well as traditional building trades and to support the interest of pupils finishing their education at elementary schools in the building branches presented, to raise their interest in new modern technologies and materials in the building industry. The aim of the organisers is also the creation of "communication environment" for establishing contacts and direct links between schools, building firms, professional guilds and associations, manufacturers and suppliers of building materials, special tools and instruments, etc. Quite an interesting benefit of the competitions is also formed by the possibility of comparison of the quality of theoretical and practical preparation not only between schools within the framework of the Czech Republic, but also with foreign schools. With the accession into the European Union of the Czech Republic, the information on competitiveness of the future skilled workers in the building industry is very interesting.

8th international year of SUSO^® (school year 2003/2004)

Participation at the competition

The seventh year of the international SUSO competition was attended in the 2003/2004 school year altogether by 278 participants from 96 Czech, Slovak, German and Hungarian schools. The regional competition rounds were organised within the framework of accompanying programmes at the building fairs of the ABF FOR SYSTÉM (Prague, Plzeň, Karlovy Vary, Ostrava), at the Brno International Building Fair (IBF), at the professional exhibition "My House - My Castle" in Litoměřice and in Slovakia in Považská Bystrica and Nitra.

The international final round held on 16 - 18 September 2004 was attended altogether by 60 participants from 26 Czech and Slovak schools.

The interest in the competition was again great. For example, in Brno only a limited number of participants could continue in the practical part, because originally a record number of 42 two-member teams were registered for the competition. It was therefore the theoretical quiz, i.e. the theoretical preparation of apprentices, that decided about those who could continue in the practical round.

It is a matter of prestige to succeed in this competition for both apprentices and individual schools.

Professional cooperation

In 2004, ABF continued in the well-proven cooperation with the Research Institute of Work Safety and with regional inspectorates during the involvement of the occupational health and safety topics in the theoretical and practical parts of SUSO. It was shown again and quite often that it was just the points obtained for compliance with the work safety principles that decided about the winners, and hat there persist great differences in the teaching of these issues between individual schools. Not everywhere the proper emphasis is placed on these issues, and some apprentices then come into practice absolutely unprepared, and this fact often leads to useless injuries, and sometimes even fatalities.

Also this year the SUSO organisers try to present the most up-to-date walling elements, special working tools, instruments and technological innovations, directly for the competing teams on the one hand and for their foremen and teachers on the other hand. Thus it was possible, for example, to see a demonstration of laser surveying of a construction, supplied by Wienerberger, a demonstration of application of rendering mixtures supplied by Krkonošské vápenky Kunčice, etc.

Organisational structure and contents of the SUSO project

The regional competition rounds are organised on a two-day basis, divided into two parts: a theoretical part (quiz) and a practical part. The competing two-member teams of apprentices selected generally from the second years of the schools demonstrate their skills on a particular task specification (e.g. walling a partition, placing a lintel, lining a plasterboard wall and laying the pavement, production of a wooden stool, flower box, etc., assembly of a plasterboard structure, etc.). The participants work according to a technical drawing which is made by experts from professional practice, coming from the number of sponsoring firms, guilds and technical schools. The evaluation points from theoretical and practical parts are added, and winners go to the final round.

The Ostrava innovation of the 9th year of the SUSO competition (school year 2004/2005)

The autumn innovation of the year 2004 was the participation of Polish apprentices from the Racibórz school. The fact is that there are not organised any similar competitions like SUSO in Poland, and therefore the managers of that school were interested, after their last year's visit to the event in Ostrava, in attending the "bricklayer" competition category. It was very interesting to compare the work of Czech and Polish "candidates" of the bricklayer's trade just for the reason that both teaching and practice of apprentices are organised in a different way in Poland than in the Czech Republic. The apprentices from Poland finished in the middle of the result scale. They liked the competition, and the pedagogical team accompanying the apprentices declared their interest in enrolment, for the next year's SUSO round in Ostrava, also in other competition categories - tile setter and joiner.

ABF has managed to ensure the Polish participation in cooperation with the Secondary Specialised Building Trade Institute and Apprentice Institute in Opava. The long-term concepts of the SUSO competition focused on a gradual involvement of foreign schools in competition could therefore register another step forward.

Detailed information can be found from the www site: www.suso.cz

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Contact to the organiser
ABF, a.s., Václavské nám. 29, 111 21 Praha 1
PhDr. Lenka Ulrychová, tel.: +420 222 891 136, fax.: +420 222 891 199
e-mail: ulrychova@abf.cz