A fire which broke out last week at Faurecia’s plant in Abrera, Spain has impacted production at the Seat assembly plant at Martorell and the wider supply chain.
Faurecia was supplying dashboards to Seat on a just-in-time basis for all the models made at Martorell, near Barcelona.
The fire, which broke out on the evening of Tuesday night (19) affected one of three buildings at the tier one supplier’s facility, which includes paintshop operations. That equipment is reported to have been completely destroyed in the blaze, according to local news source La Tribuna de Automoción.
The disruption brought the carmaker’s assembly lines to a halt on Wednesday afternoon (20) last week. Seat has since confirmed production has started again on Line 1 as of Tuesday this week (November 27). Line 1 makes the Ibiza (pictured) and Arona models, which account for 50% of production. A spokesperson for Seat told Automotive Logistics that production on Line 2 (making the Leon) and Line 3 (Audi A1) will remain out of action until Friday (29).
”Seat is working to resume production on L2 and L3 in the next few days and a meeting will be held next Friday to evaluate the situation,” said the spokesperson. ”Both lines are still not operational due to the serious nature of the fire that broke out in the Faurecia factory in Abrera and the complexity of the parts that [now] cannot be supplied.”
Seat said that lost production would be recuperated over the coming weeks.
The Martorell assembly plant currently makes around 2,200 cars a day from 16m parts and recently introduced a control tower to manage the real-time location of those parts.
The suspension of full production at the Faurecia plant has led to a slowdown at sub-tier one suppliers to Faurecia as well as suppliers feeding other parts to the Martorell plant.
Seat sources the majority of its parts from domestic suppliers in Spain, but earlier this year announced it was planning to buy more components from outside the country. That was in part influenced by the fact Seat is now in charge of the Relizane assembly plant in Algeria, which is owned by its parent company VW Group. Seat formed a team last year to manage supplier relations in North Africa and contacted potential local and international suppliers interested in manufacturing parts in Algeria.
Faurecia also supplies interior panels to the nearby Nissan plant in Zona Franca on the outskirts of Barcelona, though a spokesperson for Nissan Motor Iberica said production had not been affected. The plant retains more than two-days’ worth of parts in stock. This week Faurecia recommenced production of those parts, which are fitted to the Nissan e-NV200 van.
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