The Farmers Mart Apr-May 2020 - Issue 68 | Page 65

MACHINERY 65
• APR/MAY 2020
JCB stops production as global demand for machines reduces
JCB is stopping production at all
its UK manufacturing plants as
disruption resulting from the
worldwide Coronavirus pan-
demic causes an unprecedented
reduction in global demand.
The company is halting pro-
duction for the rest of this week
and the whole of next week at
its nine manufacturing plants in
Staffordshire, Derbyshire and
Wrexham. Shop floor employ-
ees affected by the move will
be paid in full during this period.
No decision has yet been taken
on what happens from the week
commencing Monday, March
30th and beyond. Office staff
will continue to work a 39-hour
week, with many working
from home, in support of the
Government’s social distancing
policy.
Graeme Macdonald JCB CEO
said: “These measures are
unprecedented in the history
of JCB but are absolutely nec-
essary to protect the business.
As we continue to deal with
the health implications of the
COVID-19 pandemic, it has
become more challenging to
maintain business continuity
in this volatile economic
climate.
JCB is a global exporter and
worldwide demand for our
products has dropped sharply
as customers cancel orders and
defer deliveries. This is not just
a UK issue, it is worldwide and
with countries like France, Spain
and Italy going into lock-down,
those key markets for con-
struction equipment disappear
overnight. Considering this
fast-changing situation, we need
to re-plan our production and,
as a result, manufacturing at all
UK factories will cease for the
rest of this week and all of next
week. This will allow us to take
stock of the situation, re-plan
our order book, prioritise
products that are required by
customers, and ensure parts
and components are reassigned
to support the production of
these products.
JCB’s plant in Pudong, near
Shanghai, ceased production
last month as the impact of the
pandemic initially took hold.
After several weeks of disrup-
tion, the factory is now fully
operational again.
SULKY re-starts
production after
Covid-19 shutdown
SULKY BUREL has re-started production
of its fertiliser spreaders and seed drills
at its French factories, after a three-week
shutdown due to Covid-19 restrictions.
The restart will ensure current and new
orders can be fulfilled.
Modifications have been made
throughout the sites to factory worksta-
tions, personnel movements, catering
areas, changing rooms, plus the provision
of personal protective equipment and
cleaning products to enable staff to go
back to work safely.
Rob Thurkettle, Managing Director of
Sulky UK says: “Most of the orders for
new machines were delivered before the
factory shutdown and we anticipate the
lead-time for delivery of new machines to
return to normal in the near future.”
There has been no interruption to
parts supply to UK farmers during
the busy spring season, and the UK
team continue to be able to fulfil parts
requests.
Since the factory shutdown on 17
March Sulky’s parts department in
France has processed 1,200 orders
globally, with 95% of parts sent the same
day since couriers continued to be
operational.
“Due to the UK Government’s advice
to restrict unnecessary travel and work
from home where possible, we are
unable to provide face-to-face assis-
tance to customers as we normally
would, but we have found that most
issues can be handled remotely over the
phone or by email,” says Rob.
“We would like to thank our dealers
for their support during this time and our
colleagues in France who have worked
hard to modify operations to enable us
to get back to production.”