Toyota announces production cuts into June

Toyota has announced that their North American production facilities will continue operating with a 3-day-a-week schedule until at least June 3rd, with future production up in the air based on the availability of parts from Japan.

Toyota originally cut Monday and Friday from the work week in North American facilities due to part shortages caused by the Japanese earthquake, tsunami and nuclear disasters but after a further assessment of their part flow, the company has decided to stretch that schedule from the original end date of April 25th to June 3rd. In addition to production being halted on Mondays and Fridays until June, Toyota has cancelled production for the entire week of Memorial Day in the US (May 30th-June 3rd) and Canadian plants will stop production for the week of May 23rd to the 27th in recognition of Victoria Day.

The production downtimes on Mondays and Fridays began on April 15th with an intended end date of June 3rd and during a normal production run, Toyota’s North American facilities would have gone through 35 days of production. With this schedule, Toyota’s facilities will only be building cars on 18 of those days and even then, the plants will only be producing vehicles at or around half capacity.

Even though Toyota is facing tremendous changes in production plans, they have promised that there will not be layoffs. During production stoppages, factory employees can either take part in training exercises or plant improvement – meaning they can do some maintenance work to keep themselves with a job.

Toyota plans to get back to normal production as soon as they have the supplier support to do so but with Tier 2 and 3 suppliers in Japan still trying to figure out IF they can resume operations – it could be a long summer for Toyota production facilities and dealerships around the world.

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