AvtoVAZ may shave Dec production plan to avoid over-full warehouses
SAMARA. Nov 29 (Interfax) - The management at Russia's largest automaker AvtoVAZ is looking at possibly making Saturday a non-working day in December in an effort to avoid building up too much inventory backlog, head of the company workers union Nikolai Karagin told Interfax.
"Several work-schedule options for December are being considered so as to not create too large finished-product inventory in the warehouses. It's possible that on Saturdays, which had been planned as double-time workdays, will not see any production," Karagin said.
No final instructions on a December work schedule has been signed, since it is early yet to reckon how much the production plan for the month needs to be cut, he said.
Several media outlets have reported that, by cutting working Saturdays from the schedule as of November 27, AvtoVAZ could lower output by 15,000 vehicles, 13,000 of which would otherwise have been built in December. Company production would thereby drop to 51,000 automobiles from the 63,400 originally planned for the month.
The company's production plan called for AvtoVAZ to make more than 240,000 autos in September-December, including 62,300 in September, 59,500 in October, and 56,100 in November (63,400 in December). The plan for the year is 571,000 vehicles.
The AvtoVAZ press service has yet to comment officially for Interfax on this subject.