Production stalled as parts are waylaid at Honda plant (From The Wiltshire Gazette and Herald)

Production stalled as parts are waylaid at Honda plant

8:29am Thursday 24th January 2008

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HONDA lost total production at its South Marston factory after a major accident at Southampton Docks.

Hundreds of staff were sent home from the Swindon plant yesterday, after a nautical accident at the weekend prevented the delivery of parts.

A crane fell over in high winds onto a ship which prevented other ships from docking.

One of those other ships was the one carrying gearboxes for Swindon from the Far East and had to be diverted to Amsterdam.

From there the transmissions were brought on trucks to the UK.

Part of Southampton Docks had to be evacuated but no-one was hurt in the incident which saw the boom of the crane crash down onto the Kyoto Express freight tanker.

As a result Southampton Container Terminals suspended operations and the emergency services were called as a precaution.

The delivery to South Marston, where 5,000 people work, was a major one and such is the tight schedule of production the factory had to stop the line at 10.30am yesterday.

Two shifts were affected at South Marston and work on both the Civic and CR-V came to a halt.

"This crane failure at Southampton at the weekend has caused us a major problem with the unloading of key engine components," said Julie Cameron, head of corporate communications at Honda.

"As a result the car production was disrupted due to this parts shortage.

"Arrangements have been made to transport the outstanding parts, by road, back to the UK. We are expecting delivery this morning, when full production is estimated to restart on both lines.

"During this non-production time, associates are being given an opportunity to take holidays and other activities such as training are planned."

The loss of production will be between 600 and 1,000 vehicles, providing the line can be started up early today.

It is rare for the production line to be stopped during working hours. A normal working day will see the line start at 6am and go through to almost midnight with stops for meal breaks and a shift change.

Such is the massive demand for Swindon-built Honda vehicles right around the world, that production at South Marston was ramped up to the maximum last year.

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