Carmakers, Honda and Nissan, have both confirmed they will be halting car production in the UK as a result of the recent earthquakes in Japan.
Honda have announced that their Swindon site will be running at 50% capacity from Monday 11th April, as a result of the recent quake. Despite much of Honda’s parts coming from Europe, the shortage of supply from Japan is still having a huge impact. In fact, Honda were the first to announce the cuts in production.
Ken Keir, the executive vice-president of Honda Europe, explains, “We’ve decided to reduce our production volumes as it enables us to continue with our manufacturing activities”.
The Nissan factory in Sunderland, have also announced that their production will stop for three days from the 26th April. They too have confirmed this is largely due to the shortage in parts and car components coming from Japan.
“Despite an unavoidable interruption to production schedules, Nissan is wholly focused on minimising any impact on customers or staff throughout this period, and every effort is being made to return to normal operation as quickly as possible,” Nissan said.
Relieved staff at both firms have been reassured that they will not be affected by the cuts. Staff at the Honda plant will continue to receive full pay, with plans for them to make it up later in the year through flexible working. Nissan have simply brought forward planned non-production days to ensure staff are not impacted.
Honda hope to have production back to normal by the end of May, and Nissan are confident once Japan are back to ‘business as normal’ they will be able to make up for any lost volumes quickly too.
It is thought that approximately 500 component makers have been affected by the quake and tsunami, resulting in shortages of electronic, rubber and plastic components. Some believe the impact of the disaster could see global car production down by 30%.
Toyota seems to have been the worse hit by the quake with much of the production in Japan stopping completely.
And it’s not just the Japanese carmakers being hit by the shortages in production. Ford and Peugeot have also had to slow their outputs down.
The impact of the quake is already raising questions about the stability of the ‘lean manufacturing’ models in the industry.
David Raistrick of Deloitte, has commented, “In terms of global production levels this is just a blip. But in a wider sense the industry will likely look at lean manufacturing because this is the result of having just enough parts held in stock, a limited number of suppliers and absolutely no excess capacity”.
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