[Venkatesh]

Royal Enfield to temporarily halt manufacturing operations at its plants in Chennai, from May 13 to May 16, 2021. During this time, the company will undertake maintenance activity at its manufacturing plants.



Source

[Aniket03]

As a Tier 1 and in some cases Tier 2 supplier to commercial vehicle and off highway application manufacturers, in my limited knowledge, the situation is starting to look grim.

Commercial vehicle manufacturers such as Ashok Leyland and VECV's demand is going down. Off highway and farm sector orders have not been affected till now, but it can come crashing down very fast. For people like me, who are operating at a very small level, this is beginning to feel like the automotive slowdown of 2019, which took us almost a year to recover from.

Still, I would say automotive manufacturers and their ancillaries are better off than 90% of businesses right now, keeping in mind the effects of lockdowns in various states and so on. This is a time for survival and not earning in my opinion.

[Venkatesh]

Hero MotoCorp is gearing up towards a gradual resumption of operations by starting production at all its manufacturing plants in the country from May 24.

It had started single shift production at three of its plants - Gurugram and Dharuhera in Haryana and at Haridwar in Uttarakhand from May 17.

The other plants of Hero MotoCorp - Neemrana in Rajasthan, Halol in Gujarat and Chittoor in Andhra Pradesh will also start single shift operations from May 24.

The Global Parts Centre (GPC) at Neemrana will also be operational from next week.

Source

[TusharK]

Toyota has announced that it has resumed partial operations at its plant at Bidadi, Karnataka from June 15, 2021. The factory will operate with 50% workforce and will conform to all norms laid down by the government.



Official statement:

TKM confirms partial resumption of operations at its plant at Bidadi in Karnataka beginning 15th June, 2021. Operating at the prescribed workforce strength of 50%, TKM will resume its operations as well as enhance training of all employees for the “new normal”, both in terms of facilities and processes. Furthermore, all such operations will be carried out in strict concurrence with all State and Central Government’s directives. Since the outbreak of the pandemic, we are very clear that we will respond to the needs of those in the midst of this outbreak, making prompt decisions and taking immediate action to help ensure safety and security of all our employees and other stakeholders.

On the manufacturing side, we are trying to ensure that all possible measures & preparations are made to resume production soon, so as to be able to cater to the immediate mobility needs of our customers, at the earliest. Our focus will be to cater to pending orders that could not be met due to the non-production days of planned annual maintenance shutdown, followed by the lockdown announcement by the state Government. Moreover, we are also focusing on vaccinating both our employees as well as their families and extending our support to have dealer and supplier staff vaccinated too, so as to ensure lower risk & severity of infections.

In April, Toyota had halted production at the Bidadi factory for 3 weeks. Since then, Hyundai, Renault-Nissan and Ford have also had to suspend production due to the rising number of Covid-19 cases.

[CalmConquests]

I'm actually waiting on a car myself. And this has me wondering, would it be any riskier to end up with a car manufactured during this plant "restart" phase ??

[vamsi.vadrevu]

Originally Posted by CalmConquests

I'm actually waiting on a car myself. And this has me wondering, would it be any riskier to end up with a car manufactured during this plant "restart" phase ??

I don't think the virus can survive on surfaces for very long. By the time the car is ready to be delivered to you, any surface contamination would have perished. Also, the showrooms are sanitising all the surfaces before delivery. So we would not need to worry. If we are a bit more worried, then best to let the air conditioner run itself in "Hot" mode for half an hour, which would definitely kill any residual contaminants within the HVAC system. Thoughts from doctors in this forum?

FYI: I am not a doctor, I'm merely guessing based on what I've read on how coronaviruses work.

[CalmConquests]

I'm sorry. I think my original post wasn't clear enough.

I was referring more on the chance of a car being manufactured during this restart phase being prone to more manufacturing defects than usual.

I'm wondering how restarting a plant would affect the quality of the product during this "restart" phase.

[CEF_Beasts]

Originally Posted by CalmConquests

I'm wondering how restarting a plant would affect the quality of the product during this "restart" phase.

Resuming manufacturing after the previous lockdown had also taken place, I don’t think there was any news of a manufacturing defect arising from the restart operation.

Even after maintenance shutdowns every year, factories are restarted, nothing to be worried about .