The sharp drop in production at Maruti Suzuki's Manesar plant on the back of a workers' strike for almost three weeks is likely to lead to a delay in the company executing its export orders for the A-Star compact.
This is because production of all models at the plant, apart from the new Swift, has been halted for around the last 10 days.
“There will surely be an impact on exports, mainly on existing orders. We send around 2-3 shipments every month and these orders usually come six months before,” a top company official told
Manesar, sole unit
Manesar, Suzuki's sole global manufacturing base for the A-star, exports the compact car to various markets in Western and Eastern Europe, South America, Africa and other parts of Asia. In Europe it is sold as the ‘Alto', while in some markets it is branded ‘Celerio'.
The company also has an agreement with Nissan, under which the latter sells the same car in Europe as the ‘Pixo'. Maruti is expected to supply a minimum of 35,000 units this fiscal, as part of a three-year agreement (2011-12 is the last year) for a total of 1.05 lakh units.
SX4 diesel
As the carmaker concentrates on first meeting the pending orders for the new Swift – now at over 90,000 units, bookings for the other models made at the plant could accumulate in the domestic market. Apart from the A-star and the Swift, the SX4 sedan is also made at the plant – of which the diesel model has high demand.
The official added, “The SX4 diesel has a waiting of around 2-3 weeks minimum. If production does not start, this also could increase. However, we currently have enough stocks for the petrol SX4 and the A-Star.”
On a normal daily production run, Maruti would make around 150 SX4 units and 300-400 A-Stars at Manesar.
Maximise Swift
Another official said that with the strike at Suzuki's power train facility over, it would look to steadily maximise Swift production to the target of 17,000 units a month. At that level, the pending order should be met over the next five months.
“It took us some time to get new manpower for the first line at Manesar, which has lower levels of automation. The focus was to go for the Swift first, especially with the second line which has high automation,” a third company official said.
Though the strike started on August 29, production resumed two days later on a low initial output of 60 cars. Maruti had hired fresh employees on contract, inducted new permanent workers, shifted employees from its Gurgaon plant and asked its suppliers for support.
With the plant shut on Friday and Saturday, Thursday (September 15) saw an output of 220 Swift models across both plants. The actual production capacity of the first line at Manesar is about 1,200 units a day and with the second line coming on-stream this month, this has further been increased. Manpower at Manesar is now at 1,200, less than half of the 2,500 plus employees that it last employed at full swing.