Global automakers reeling from the pains inflicted on their survival by the rabaging COVID-19 pandemic are accelerating efforts to restart factories from Wuhan to Maranello to Michigan, using safety protocols developed for China even as certain safety measures differ from manufacturer to manufacturer.
Under this move, automakers and suppliers are converging on a consensus that temperature screening, daily health questionnaires, assembly lines redesigned to keep workers 3 to 6 feet (0.9 m to 1.8 m) apart, and lots and lots of masks and gloves can enable large-scale factories to operate safely.
The COVID-19 pandemic has thrown the global auto industry into the worst situation since the 2008-2009 financial crises. As the pandemic rages on, consumer demand for vehicles has collapsed as governments have enforced lockdowns in China, Europe and the United States.
In Europe, major automakers have said they hope to begin building vehicles again in mid-to-late April, while in the United States, several big automakers, including Fiat Chrysler Automobiles, Honda and Toyota are aiming to restart production during the first week of May.
For the Detroit automakers and their suppliers, the shutdown of profitable truck and SUV plants in North America has choked off cash flow.
“We know the protocols to keep people safe,” Gerald Johnson, GM’s executive vice president for global manufacturing, told Reuters in an interview. GM has relaunched vehicle plants in China and kept factories running in South Korea, he said.
Although, GM has not said when it will reopen assembly plants in the United States, other automakers are putting dates out in public, even though health officials and federal and state policymakers are wary of lifting lockdowns too soon.
General Motors’s head of workplace safety, Jim Glynn, said GM is not persuaded as blood tests are useful. He said GM has studied and adapted measures taken by Amazon to protect warehouse workers, such as temperature screening to catch employees with fevers before they enter the workplace.
At General Motor’s ventilator assembly plant in Kokomo, Indiana, workers and managers have been fine-tuning details such as when employees are handed masks, and when they step in front of a temperature screening device.
Ferrari said it would offer voluntary blood tests to employees who wanted to know if they had been exposed to the virus, Fiat Chrysler and unions are discussing plans for beefed-up health measures at Italian plants to pave the way for production to restart as soon as the government eases a national lockdown due to expire tomorrow.
Among the proposals from Fiat Chrysler’s Italian unions: move meals to the end of shifts, allowing employees to choose to avoid canteens, eat their food elsewhere and leave half an hour earlier without losing pay.
In the United States, some non-union automakers have also said they hope to restart vehicle plants as soon as next week like Bridgestone tyre makers that said it plans to restart U.S. production on April 13. But the Trump administration has said people should continue to practice social distancing until April 30.
MIKE OCHONMA
