PSA Peugeot-Citroen says its European production is returning to normal today (31 March) following supply chain disruption in Japan.
The French manufacturer has 12 sites around Europe but work was hampered by difficulties in obtaining a small air flow component from Hitachi.
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“It [production] is back to normal from today,” a PSA spokeswoman told just-auto from Paris. “We have worked quite hard to restore production quickly.
“There is a Hitachi component which is used to make some of [the] air flow centre. This little component, which is just a few centimetres big, could not be sent from Japan because of the earthquake.”
The Hitachi plant is situated in the earthquake zone between Tokyo and Sendai.
The PSA spokeswoman said no figure was yet available of how much production was lost, but that the manufacturer had tried to minimise the impact “as best as we could,” with some plants working at 40% and others at 75% for example.
“We did give priority to the most recent models and to the most successful ones,” she added.
PSA Peugeot-Citroen said it managed the employment challenges posed by the stoppage by utilising its policy of allowing workers to stay home for four days, with the time made up by subsequent flexible working such as Saturdays for example.
