The Renault-Nissan car factory at Oragadam near Chennai plans to reduce the number of working shifts from three to two.

“This will come into effect from the second week of December and employees have been informed about the same,” said a statement from Renault-Nissan Automotive India Pvt Ltd.

Behind the shift reduction is a fall in waiting period for Renault-Nissan’s small cars, as well as optimisation of operations to maximise production across two shifts.

“In making this necessary change, we are protecting the jobs of permanent, on-roll employees who will all be reassigned to other duties within the plant,” said Colin MacDonald, Managing Director of Renault-Nissan.

In March this year, the company had said it was planning to implement a third production shift at the Oragadam factory in response to strong demand for its current line-up and to prepare for upcoming models.

The decision would allow the plant to meet the accelerated domestic demand for the newly launched Renault Kwid and prepare for introduction of Datsun’s third model (redi-GO) in the coming months, it had said.

Now, it says the demand for the cars remains strong, but waiting times have been successfully brought down.

The Oragadam plant, started in March 2010, has an annual capacity of 480,000 units. The factory also exports to many countries.

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