The Real Reason For Car Production Delays

Monday, 2. November 2009

I have been quite scathing about the extending lead times that car manufacturers have been quoting, questioning the management and accusing some manufacturers of using these extending lead times to manipulate the market prices of their cars. However, it would seem that I may not have been entirely right as I learned that many of the production delays have been out of the control of the manufacturers but have been the result of failed 1^st and 2^nd level component suppliers. For example light clusters may be assembled by a supplier to the manufacturer which may have gone into liquidation or it may have been the lens suppliers that have gone leaving the light cluster assemblers with a shortage of lenses. Whilst suppliers to the manufacturers have tried to ensure that they have continuity of supply no one had expected the recession to be so sudden and bite so deeply, so in some instances both suppliers have gone leaving the manufacturers with some major problems with lead times. I heard a story whereby the manufacturer had cars rolling off the end of the production line without the rear wash wipe motors fitted as they simply didn’t have them available. When the motors finally arrived some were sent to dealers after the cars were sent out to them for fitting at the dealership whilst others were fitted on the cars whilst parked in fields awaiting transport to the dealer. So whilst I still believe that some of the delays are self inflicted, my apologies to those who I may have accused of shady practices when in fact the problem was brought about by the general economic conditions. In fact I seem to recall now a similar problem with the manufacture of the large XJ series of Jaguars, during the last recession, when the manufacturers of VW Golf headlamps suffered similar problems. Few people realised that the twin headlamps fitted in the big Jags were in fact Golf headlamps that could not be manufactured due to a shortage of one key component. Some things never change! By Graham Hill