The German truck and bus manufacturer MAN was forced to send about 11,000 employees on unpaid leave due to the Russian military invasion of Ukraine.
The Volkswagen Group-owned company said on Wednesday that its facilities in Munich and Krakow, Poland, have been halted since March 14 due to the cessation of supplies of electrical wires produced at Ukrainian factories. At three other MAN sites, production volumes have been reduced, including at the engine plant in Nuremberg.
“Suppliers of electrical wiring for trucks cannot produce it at Ukrainian enterprises or can produce it in very limited quantities,” MAN said in a statement. “As a result, we could lose production for several weeks, which will sharply reduce output figures in the second quarter.”
The company said it has already started looking for additional sources of truck wiring harnesses in other countries.
“However, this will take several months,” said Alexander Vlaskamp, chief executive officer of MAN.
The company notes that its employees will be transferred to a reduced working hours scheme, in which MAN compensates them for 80% of lost income from both its own and state funds.
The problems of Ukrainian suppliers previously led to disruptions in the work of Volkswagen and BMW enterprises.
Most of the Ukrainian enterprises for the production of electrical wiring, located in the western part of the country, have resumed work, the Financial Times newspaper writes, citing representatives of several enterprises.
Thus, the German Leoni, which owns two factories in the west of Ukraine, has already reported that both of its enterprises have returned to work.
Other companies, including Aptiv and Kromberg & Schubert, have resumed production, FT sources say.
COMPONENTS, EUROPE, FACTORIES, MAN, MANUFACTURER, TRUCK, UKRAINE
A new service center of the European manufacturer of automotive equipment MAN Truck and Bus has been opened in Zhytomyr, it has become the eighth center in Ukraine, Man Trucks and Bus Ukraine LLC reports on Facebook.
The Agrotruckservice center covers an area of 2.5 hectares (including a parking lot for trucks), it includes the main building (with workshops) with an area of 3,020 square meters, a spare parts warehouse with an area of 310 square meters.
The service station has three 25-meter inspection pits equipped with five 16-tonne jacks, a diagnostic line with German equipment from MAXA. It is equipped with four plunger lifts with a total lifting capacity of 60 tonnes, and a mobile column lift with six autonomous supports with a lifting capacity of 7.5 tonnes each.
The first MAN Truck and Bus service station in Ukraine was opened in Bucha in 2007. Also, in particular, the company has service stations in Kyiv, Dnipro, Odesa, Mukachevo.
The subsidiary company Man Trucks & Bus Ukraine has been operating in Ukraine since 2006.
According to the information and analytical group Auto-Consulting, MAN in July of this year was the leader in the sales of trucks with a gross weight of more than 16 tonnes, controlling 23% of the market. In the segment of trucks with a total weight of over 3.5 tonnes, the brand ranked second, more than doubling sales from July 2019, with an overall decline in sales in this segment by 5.7%.
