Nissan will be forced to halt production at four of its plants in Japan for three days this week because of a supply shortage of engine control units from Hitachi.
Production will be affected from Wednesday to Friday this week (14-16th July) and will affect the output of 15,000 vehicles, though it is unclear how many of the production lines at those plants it will suspend.
Nissan’s plants at Kyushu, Oppama, Tochigi, and Nissan Shatai Kyushu will all be affected.
Two other, as yet unnamed, manufacturers are affected on a small scale but Nissan is being affected chiefly because it takes 90% of the specific engine control unit being supplied by Hitachi.
The unit is a main component in Nissan’s car engine system and Hitachi is blaming the delay on a shortage of integrated circuit chips from one of its suppliers. Though the supplier has not been confirmed, the Wall Street Journal claimed on Wednesday it could be Swiss-based manufacturer STMicroelectronics.
"Nissan has been assured by Hitachi Automotive Systems that this is a short term delay for ECMs and that we can expect resolution by the end of this week," a Nissan spokesperson told Automotive Logistics News. “We will resume production next week,” he added.
Nissan could not comment on what production and logistics contingencies it was putting in place to return to normal production and recover from the loss of output.
“We are trying to minimize the impact on our production,” said the spokesperson. ”We don't know how quick we can recover from this delay at the moment.”
