A number of leading manufacturers have announced a return to production after COVID-19 pressures forced many to shut up shop. Charlotte Cunningham reports.
Announcements this week from manufacturers such as Fendt, Sulky and BKT have seen many restart production after closing due to pressures from the Coronavirus outbreak.
According to Fendt, this is now possible because important suppliers in Europe and worldwide are now delivering parts again on schedule and reliably after an interruption of several weeks due to the virus.
After intensive discussions between the management, works council, company physicians, health management and the occupational safety officers numerous measures for the protection of Fendt employees at the assembly lines, the parts production and in the offices have been implemented.
Christoph Gröblinghoff, chairman at AGCO/Fendt management said: “We’re very pleased that the supply chains are intact again and that our highly motivated Fendt team can get back to work in a concentrated manner.
“This week the assembly lines with high daily production rates are starting again. The changeover of the tractor assembly to a two-shift model is protecting our employees and it also brings, together with other measures, additional production capacities to work up the backlog partly or if necessary completely.
“This enables us to deliver the ordered Fendt tractors and Fendt Full-Line machines to our customers via the Fendt sales partners as soon as possible and contribute to securing the food production that is classified as system relevant.”
