Scania employees producing hospital ventilators

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SVT  NYHETR  /  March 23, 2020

Truck manufacturer Scania has sent production and logistics personnel to medical equipment company Getinge to help it rapidly increase its production of ventilators.

"We need to help us," says Scania's CEO Henrik Henriksson.

Scania on Monday halted production in Latin America. And on Wednesday, the truckmaker will suspend production of trucks and bises in Europe.

"It's a completely new game plan," says CEO Henrik Henriksson. "We are well placed to handle this. But we have to help," he adds.

"It's about Getinge needing to increase its production dramatically and then we want to help and we have good skills that are available when it comes to running logistics flows," Henriksson says.

Scania's own production stoppage is currently scheduled to last at least three weeks, until Monday 13 April.

"Then we have to make a decision week by week on how to handle this and at what pace we will produce," Henriksson says.

According to the Scania boss, several factors determine when and to what extent production can be started up again. Firstly, staffing must be resolved.

There are confirmed cases of coronavirus at the truck dealers in southern Europe. But in addition, there are a large number with suspected symptoms.

"There are quite large losses and it is increasing every day," Henriksson says. "There were too many shortcomings. But in some parts of the organization, more than ten percent are at home, for self-care or to take care of children or relatives.

Another important factor in being able to run production again is the availability of components and functional logistics.

"The first disruption we received was with suppliers in China. We could handle that pretty well. Then it became more difficult when it continued with northern Italy: And when the supplier disruption included those in France and Germany, there were too many restrictions that forced us to suspend production.”

The economic impact of the pandemic is a third factor that determines how Scania will design and time the restart of production and other activities that are now declining on the back burner, such as research and development.

Here it is ultimately the order book that determines Scania's decision.