Jaguar Land Rover will restart production today after a cyber-attack shut down its factories and sent sales tumbling. The car maker said workers will return to sites in the West Midlands and Merseyside after more than five weeks of disruption following the hack at the end of August.
It also unveiled a financing scheme to fast-track payments to struggling suppliers left fighting for survival by the crisis. The reopening of its manufacturing operations comes after Jaguar Land Rover (JLR) yesterday revealed it sold 85,495 vehicles between July and September – down 17.1 per cdent on the same period last year. Sales in the UK were down nearly a third as JLR reeled from the impact of the cyber-attack, which crippled it to the point that it has not produced a single vehicle since the end of August.
The firm said it has been a ‘challenging quarter’ as it also grappled with higher US tariffs and the phasing out of older Jaguar models as it shifts to electric vehicles. Boss Adrian Mardell said: ‘We know there is much more to do but our recovery is firmly underway.’ The firm, owned by India’s Tata Motors, said assembly line workers will return to its engine plant in Wolverhampton and its battery centre in Coleshill, Birmingham, today.
It will also restart stamping operations in Castle Bromwich, Solihull and Halewood on Merseyside together with key areas of its Solihull vehicle production plant such as its body shop, paint shop and its logistics operations centre. JLR said this will be ‘closely followed’ later this week by the reopening of its Range Rover and Range Rover Sport production lines at the Solihull factory and its operations in Slovakia where the Defender and Discovery are made.
There was no confirmation, however, of when full production will resume at Halewood where it builds the Discovery Sport and Range Rover Evoque. The phased reopening will come as a relief to JLR’s 30,000 workers in the UK as well as some 120,000 employed in the supply chain.
Around 1,000 vehicles a day usually roll off JLR production lines in the West Midlands and Merseyside and the shutdown is estimated to have cost it around £2billion in lost revenue. The pause has also left its suppliers in limbo, leading to fears that small firms producing parts for the car giant could collapse without financial support.
‘This week marks an important moment for JLR and all our stakeholders as we now restart our manufacturing operations following the cyber incident,’ said Mardell. ‘Our suppliers are central to our success, and today we are launching a new financing arrangement that will enable us to pay our suppliers early. I would like to thank everyone connected to JLR for their commitment, hard work and endeavour in recent weeks to bring us to this moment.’
The Government recently announced it would underwrite a £1.5billion loan guarantee to JLR to give suppliers some certainty over payments.
