Rising flood waters in the Czech Republic are high enough to disrupt the flow of Porsche Cayenne bodies to the one plant in Leipzig where they are assembled. As a result, workers on the early shift (one of three shifts per day) will not be coming to work on Thursday and possibly longer depending on weather and transport conditions.
“We have a bottleneck in the supply of car bodies built in the Volkswagen plant in Bratislava, which are transported by train across the Czech Republic to our plant in Leipzig,” said a spokeswoman for VW.
Flooding Will Impact Panamera Production Too
While there are no supply problems related to the Panamera, final assembly is done in the same plant. As a result, the lost shift(s) will mean lost production on the Panamera.
The same spokesperson who discussed the bottleneck in supply conditions also stressed that Porsche uses a flexible production system that allows them to offset the lost output through additional shifts. However, assuming they run 8 hour shifts, we can’t quite figure out how they would run additional ones? Even the Germans can’t create more time… Hopefully the flood waters recede soon.
UPDATE: June 7, 2013: Production has resumed at the Leipzig plant as supply issues have been resolved.
Other Porsche Blog Posts You Will Enjoy
A Very Rare Water Cooled Porsche 964
Don’t Let This Happen To Your Porsche
We Interview the “Floating Porsche” Owner and Learn its Fate
[Source: AP/Reuters. Photo via BBC]