COVID lockdown 3.0: Industry grapples with supply chain challenges as it looks to restart factories

By OEM Update Editorial May 7, 2020 12:08 pm IST

Industry is grappling with the issues of opening a countrywide distribution network and ensuring supply chain continuity between the designated red, orange and green zones as it mulls restoring manufacturing capacity at factories.

Although the lockdown relaxations have kicked in for industry to operate in many areas, companies especially with a retail front end will see how the last mile link to the consumer becomes operational pan India.

Once the manufacturing starts, demand pick up, especially for big ticket items like cars will be the other important variable as what is manufactured will also have to be sold.

Naveen Soni, Senior Vice President, Sales & Services, Toyota Kirloskar Motor said, “The challenge that lies ahead of us is the fact that for the auto sector to start production, it is necessary that our entire value chain starts operating. Our value chain consists not only of our suppliers but our dealers as well who are based in different parts of the country including cities that are still under severe lockdown”.

Although, the Gurgaon administration has given permission, India’s largest car maker, Maruti Suzuki is yet to announce commencement of its manufacturing operations at its plants.

Hero Motocorp has announced that production will start from Wednesday. To begin with, Hero MotoCorp is commencing operations in a graded manner at three of its manufacturing plants – Gurugram and Dharuhera (both in Haryana), Haridwar (Uttarakhand) and additionally the Global Parts Centre (GPC) at Neemrana in Rajasthan.