Carmakers across the UK are dusting off plans drawn up to cope with Brexit to help their businesses during the wave of factory shutdowns because of coronavirus.
They are restoring emergency measures, including letting warehouses to stockpile parts, as they prepare for weeks of plant downtime while still accommodating shipments of goods from across the world.
Every major car plant in the UK will close in the coming days, following a tumultuous week that saw Nissan, Jaguar Land Rover, Mini, Vauxhall, Toyota and Honda all announce the shuttering of their facilities.
A defiant handful, including Aston Martin, McLaren and Lotus, remain open, but even some of the luxury makers such as VW’s Bentley and BMW’s Rolls-Royce have closed shop to protect workers and prevent the spread of the outbreak.
Yet, despite closing plants, carmakers will continue to receive parts ordered from suppliers across the world that were shipped several weeks ago.
Bentley chief executive Adrian Hallmark said the luxury company still has parts arriving on boats for some weeks.
“Part of our hard Brexit plans were to more than double warehousing, and increase the intensity of our storage systems in separate locations. We will now fill those up and use other means of storage,” he told the FT.
Boats from Japan and China, a main source of parts, take up to six weeks to reach the UK.
Because many groups operate a just-in-time delivery system where components are fitted to cars within hours of arriving at the site, many do not have the space to store all of the parts that are set to arrive in the next month and a half.
Many large sites still only have capacity for a maximum of two days’ worth of parts, such is the intensity of their deliveries.
Nissan is planning to store parts on arrival in the Port of Tyne, while it is also leasing additional space near to its Sunderland car plant. Parts from Asia destined for BMW’s Mini plant will be held in Germany.
Other carmakers, like Bentley, are digging out Brexit plans to boost storage and help them cope with disruption to supplies because of expected border checks when importing from Europe.
“It makes perfect sense to use this,” said a director at one of the large carmakers. “In a way, Brexit means we are prepared for this.”
As carmakers prepared for Brexit, they developed various ways of eking out storage.
Mini hired a car park in which to park lorry trailers laden with parts, while sending back the truck cabs to collect more trailers. Companies such as Honda took out additional warehousing space.
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March 23, 2020 at 12:32AM
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Carmakers dust off Brexit plans to deal with factory shutdowns - Financial Times
"Factory" - Google News
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