Further details have emerged from GM Europe concerning its September factory shut-downs that will see a swathe of plants in the UK and Germany closed for up to ten days.
Both Opel and Vauxhall will shut down this month as GM looks to address huge overcapacity in the midst of the prolonged European downturn that has also hit other automakers.
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An Opel spokeswoman in Germany told just-auto the manufacturer will shut its Rüsselsheim, Kaiserslautern and Eisenach plants for ten days starting from today (3 September) and then subsequently on 7, 10, 17, 21 of this month, followed by the working week starting 24 September.
Opel’s sister Vauxhall plants at Ellesmere Port and Luton will also shut for the week of 24 September as the UK operation looks to avoid building up stock by what it says will be “balancing inventory with customer orders.”
Hours lost will be paid as normal, although Vauxhall adds these will be “banked” for payback in the future according to volume requirements.
“Our plants are big exporters [with] Luton about 60% and Ellesmere Port about 85%,” a Vauxhall spokeswoman told just-auto. “We don’t want to have cars standing around – it is more cost-effective to do it for five days in a row rather than one day here and one day there.”
In addition, new robots will be installed during the down week in September at the Luton van plant which is gearing up for the next generation Vivaro, due to start production in 2014.
Assembly of the next generation Astra at Ellesmere Port is scheduled to start production in 2015.
In May this year, Vauxhall Ellesmere Port was allocated production of the next-generation Astra compact car as the lead plant in Europe.
Assembly is due to start in 2015 on three shifts with a minimum of 160,000 vehicles to be produced each year, creating an expected 700 new jobs.
