Toyota Motor Corp. will partially suspend operations at seven domestic plants through Wednesday night, expanding and extending an earlier decision to halt several facilities following a blast at a component supplier’s factory.
(Bloomberg) — Toyota Motor Corp. will partially suspend operations at seven domestic plants through Wednesday night, expanding and extending an earlier decision to halt several facilities following a blast at a component supplier’s factory.
The explosion occurred Monday at Chuo Spring Co.’s factory in Aichi prefecture, where vehicle suspension coils are made for a number of Japanese carmakers. One employee was hospitalized and another treated for slight injuries, the supplier said Tuesday.
Toyota paused some manufacturing at six plants on Tuesday, then expanded the order to include 11 production lines across seven facilities, according to a spokesperson.
It’s the biggest domestic production halt since August, when the world’s largest carmaker was forced to shut down all 14 of its domestic plants for a day due to a glitch in its manufacturing system. Toyota declined to reveal how many production units will be affected because of the latest incident.
Toyota Auto Body’s Yoshiwara and Inabe plants, as well as some production lines, have been offline since Monday evening, while the Takaoka and Tsutsumi plants were stopped Tuesday morning.
In February 2022, Toyota shut its domestic plants after one of its suppliers was subjected to a ransomware attack. It took several days for operations to recover, and the incident impacted about 5% of Toyota’s output for the month. Prior to that, the carmaker saw shutdowns during the pandemic due to Covid outbreaks and supply chain disruptions.
(Adds decision to extend closures through Wednesday)
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