Ford has shut down its operations in the Philippines for one month because a shortage of parts caused by the earthquake disaster in Japan.
The shutdown began on Monday (11 April) and will last until 9 May, the company said, adding: “Starting this week, we are pulling ahead 18 previously scheduled down days at our manufacturing facility in the Philippines as a precautionary move to ensure we have parts availability going forward.
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“Our inventories are adequate to support consumer demand at this point.”
The 18 down days take in the Easter holidays. Ford employs about 700 people in the Philippines and manufactures vehicles for the local and regional markets.
It’s just the latest of a number of Philippine units of leading global automakers temporarily halting or cutting production at their plants.
The Chamber of Automotive Manufacturers of the Philippines Inc (CAMPI) tol Reuters the extent of the impact differs from one brand to another but common problems include logistics and the disruption to the supply chain for some key parts.
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By GlobalDataToyota will extend a scheduled two-day Easter holiday into five-day break by halting production for three days from 18 April and, ast week, the Philippine unit of Honda Motor said it would halve production due to a parts shortage
Last year, 168,490 vehicles were sold in the Philippines, Reuters noted, and CAMPI had been projecting sales growth of 4-5 percent before the 11 March disasters in Japan.
CAMPI said the local supply of vehicles remained ample to meet local demand but warned the output slowdown would continue for months.
