The failure of a supplier after the floods in Slovenia causes more and more failures at Volkswagen. After the plants in Portugal and Hanover, the main plant in Wolfsburg has now also announced that it will cut production from mid-September. The group now wants to get the problem under control quickly. A plan will be in place by the end of September on how to proceed, announced Purchasing Director Dirk Große-Loheide at the IAA Mobility trade fair in Munich. “The issue was resolved at the end of the year.”
The bottlenecks are triggered by the floods in Slovenia, which affected a supplier of engine parts. These are sprockets for combustion engines, said Große-Loheide. The supplier is therefore currently unable to produce. In order to close the gap, production is now being ramped up by substitute suppliers.
VW wants to hold on to the affected supplier
However, VW wants to hold on to the supplier affected by the flood. “This is an excellent supplier,” said Große-Loheide. “Of course we want to keep it.” VW supports the supplier, who only has 250 employees, with the clean-up work and the restart of production. 100 employees alone were sent to Slovenia from the VW engine plant in Salzgitter, and another 30 from VW Commercial Vehicles in Hanover.
Because of the missing parts, VW has already had to cut production. In Wolfsburg, individual shifts are to be canceled from September 11th, and in Hanover the production of combustion models will be canceled for several weeks. The plant in Palmela near Lisbon will even be completely stopped for two months from September 11th.
