Car manufacturer Supply shortage leads to short-time work at Ford in Cologne
Cologne. · Due to supply bottlenecks, the carmaker Ford is again shutting down its production. Short-time work has been ordered for the coming week, and the Fiesta production lines will come to a standstill, a Ford spokeswoman said on Friday.
It did not name any specific reasons. According to “Bild” newspaper, it is due to components that a supplier in Ukraine manufactures and now cannot deliver as ordered for the time being because of the war. Among other things, it concerns cable bundles. In addition, semiconductors from Asia continue to be a scarce commodity - which is why the car company had to suspend its production several times last year.
This week, the Fiesta production workforce was on short-time work for three days. It is expected to continue throughout the coming week. After that, there will be two weeks of Easter vacations, and the plant will not produce any Fiestas anyway - that had already been decided beforehand. On April 25, Fiesta production could be ramped up again.
Cologne is the European headquarters of the U.S. carmaker. In addition to car production, the site is also important as a development center. One third of Ford's 14,800 employees in Cologne work on the production of the small car Fiesta. In the long term, production will be phased out because Ford wants to switch completely to electric cars. To this end, the company is investing $2 billion (1.8 billion euros) in the site over the next few years. Orig. text: dpa Translation: ck
