In a recent interview on 702, president of Ford South Africa Neale Hill said the collapse of seven electricity pylons on the N4 in Pretoria East over Easter Weekend has severely affected the manufacturer’s Silverton assembly plant.
With an “installed capacity of 720 units a day,” Hill said the factory missed an entire day of production on Tuesday and that he expects Wednesday to be the same.
“We don’t have a clear line of sight on when we think we’ll be switching the lights back on again,” he said.
The Silverton facility produces both the new Ranger as well as the second-generation VW Amarok for local and export markets, running five days a week in three eight-hour shifts to achieve an annual output of 200,000 units.
Due to this potent schedule, playing catchup isn’t going to be easy, said Hill.
Many of the company’s suppliers work six to seven days a week to meet Ford’s orders, so even if the Silverton plant was willing to extend production into weekends to make up for missed time, it may not be possible to recoup the losses completely.
“We will assess what the absolute volume of lost production is when we get back up and running and that will take a couple of days,” he said.
“Once we’ve done the final tally in terms of how many units we are behind, we will then have to assess if and when we can potentially catch it back.”
Ford is not alone
Hill noted that it is not only Ford who is suffering from the power outage, but also other automakers in the city including BMW and Nissan who are situated a couple of kilometres away in Rosslyn.
The blue oval’s suppliers are experiencing pain, too.
When assembly lines at Ford stop, it has a ripple effect on these companies as they must slow down production to reserve storage space, consequently, other businesses around South Africa will grind to a halt while waiting for electricity in Pretoria to be fully restored.
“It is not only our suppliers that are in the immediate Pretoria vicinity that are going to feel the effects of this, but it’s also going to be our suppliers across the country,” said Hill.
Keyword: Pretoria power crisis costing Ford South Africa over 700 bakkies a day