Two local manufacturers have announced the temporary suspension of certain operations due to their customers shutting down production.
Cummins, Inc. announced that it has closed the Cummins MidRange Engine Plant in Walesboro for two weeks due to a shutdown at all Fiat Chrysler Automobiles production facilities in North America. The shutdown occurred at 10 p.m. Friday.
NTN Driveshaft has confirmed that it will suspend production at its facility in Columbus at the end of second shift on Tuesday because “all of our customers have announced they will stop production beginning next week,” according to a letter sent to employees on Friday. Currently, company officials are unsure when the company will restart production, said Barry Parkhurst, company vice president and chief financial officer.
The Cummins plant employs around 900 people and supplies a facility in Mexico with the Dodge Ram engine, said company spokesman Jon Mills. Fiat Chrysler announced earlier this week that it would temporarily halt operations in North America due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
[sc:text-divider text-divider-title=”Story continues below gallery” ]
“Because COVID-19 and the impact is unprecedented, Cummins plans to pay employees during this time,” Mills said.
As of Friday, Cummins, which is based in Columbus and has several manufacturing facilities in the area, had not given any indication that other company facilities would temporarily halt production related to the spread of the virus. Mills said earlier this week that the company remains “focused on health and safety” in its facilities.
“We have significantly increased the cleaning and disinfection practices, including at each work station, the break rooms and restrooms, etc.,” Mills said. “We are making sure there is ample distance between our coworkers and limiting gatherings. We have also made hand sanitizer and sanitizing supplies more readily available.”
Parkhurst said the suspension of operations “was not something we were happy to do” and looks forward to operations returning.
The customer base of NTN Driveshaft, which employs around 1,500 people in Columbus, is “100% automotive,” Parkhurst said.
“We’re 100% automotive, so our schedule is dictated by our customers and we supply many of the automotive companies. Each one of them might have a different start-up period, which will affect how we start back up and when we start back up,” Parkhurst told The Republic on Friday.
According to the letter and Parkhurst, NTN employees will only be paid for time worked.
“We’re normal operations through the close of business Tuesday,” Parkhurst said. “Anytime after that, we are giving people the opportunity to take their vacation and their paid sick time to fill in for those days, and we’re also allowing them to borrow five days of vacation time from the next period so they can help use that to get paid for that. That’s an option the employee has, they’re not forced to take that, but that’s an option. Of course, they always have the option of filing for unemployment. In addition, all of our fringe benefits are still in place. Everybody, no matter what option they choose, will continue to have full medical benefits just like they would have if they were working.”
Faurecia has not provided any updates on its local operations.
On Friday, Toyota Material Handling North America’s production facility in Columbus was in the midst of a two-day shutdown after company officials said a company associate could be a presumed positive case for COVID-19. As of Friday, the case had not been confirmed.
Toyota is proceeding with a full sterilization protocol for its production facilities, a company spokesman said Thursday. While the company’s office and parts distribution areas were not affected, the company is testing a work-from-home plan for associates where that is an option to reduce our campus population, the spokesman said.
Earlier this week, Fiat Chrysler joined several other automakers, including Ford, General Motors, Toyota and Honda, in temporarily suspending production in North America, according to wire reports.
“Working with (United Auto Workers) and listening to the concerns of our people, we have agreed to cease production at our plants across North America, starting progressively from today through the end of March,” Fiat Chrysler said in a statement. “While production is paused, the company will put actions into place to facilitate the steps agreed through the joint task-force set up between the UAW and the automakers.”
Earlier this week, Honda said that it will suspend production for six days at all of its automobile production plants in North America, including Honda Manufacturing of Indiana in Greensburg.
The automaker said in a statement released Wednesday that the decision was made due to an anticipated decline in demand related to the economic impact of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Production will be suspended from Monday to March 31, according to the statement. All employees will receive full compensation during the six-day hiatus, company officials said.
