For the first time this year General Motors will halt production of its full-size pickups at two U.S. plants.
GM said it is canceling overtime shifts this weekend at Flint Assembly and Fort Wayne Assembly in Indiana due to a parts shortage.
Also, there will be no summer shutdown this year at the majority of GM's U.S. plants.
The automaker said it will run the majority of its car assembly plants in North America through the traditional two-week summer shutdown for the second year in a row.
GM hopes that it can recoup production losses over the summer brought on by the global shortage of semiconductor chips and winter storm disruptions at assembly plants this year.
GM spokesman David Barnas said the semiconductor shortage — brought on by increased demand during the pandemic for personal electronics that use the chips as well as various car parts that use them — is fluid.
"As we continue to manage the semiconductor impact on our plants, we are balancing parts availability with our ability to run efficiently for the entire week," Barnas said in an email. "With that, we have made relatively minor weekend production adjustments."
'A weekend off'
Early Friday afternoon, hourly workers at Flint knew "there was an issue brewing" with a supplier of parts that use the chips, UAW Local 598 Chairman Eric Welter told the Free Press.
By midafternoon it was confirmed that GM was canceling the weekend overtime shifts due to a parts shortage, Welter said.
"The chip problem is a huge industrywide problem, not just with GM," Welter said. "It is going to impact everybody's bottom line in the end."
GM canceled overtime production at Flint starting with third shift Friday evening. All overtime shifts Saturday and Sunday are canceled too, Barnas confirmed. GM builds its Chevrolet Silverado and GMC Sierra heavy-duty full-size pickups at Flint.
"We're going to take the weekend off and hope we'll run stable next week," Welter said. "There are about 1,100 people on a shift who won't get overtime pay, but most are happy to have a weekend off because we work all the time."
GM also canceled all three shifts Saturday at its Fort Wayne Assembly plant in Indiana due to the chips shortage, UAW Local 2209 Shop Chairman Rich LeTourneau told the Free Press.
GM confirmed that scheduled overtime production at Fort Wayne for Saturday was canceled. GM builds its light-duty Chevrolet Silverado and GMC Sierra full-size pickups at Fort Wayne. It also makes them at its Silao Assembly Plant in Mexico, which will run normally, Barnas said.
First time for both
LeTourneau said it is the first time production has been canceled at Fort Wayne due to a chip-related problem. GM did halt production there in February during the severe winter storms.
It is also the first disruption to pickup production at Flint so far this year, Welter said.
"They've done a great job at keeping us up and running and my expectation is it's just this weekend," Welter said. "I'm sure it'll be hand-to-mouth, but there's no expectation this will lead to anymore downtime for us. We've been a priority for all the parts."
While having a weekend off is nice, it's also added pressure, Welter said. So far Flint's monthly-build rate has been ahead of GM's build schedule. At Flint, about 1,050 pickups are built each day, then there are two Sunday's where GM runs one-shift and an extra 700 pickups are built over those two Sunday's, Welter said.
"We're overbuilding capacity of the plant and even that is not keeping up with the demand our customers want," Welter said. "We're just keeping our head above water on this. Customers like this truck, so we just keep going."
No summer shutdown for some
GM has tight inventory levels, especially for highly profitable full-size pickups and SUVs, yet consumer demand is robust, challenging GM and other automakers to churn out more vehicles.
On Friday, Barnas said the company has confirmed with its employees that all of the company’s assembly plants in the U.S., with the exception of Wentzville Assembly in Missouri, will run during the weeks of June 28 and July 5 "to meet continued strong customer and dealer demand."
Wentzville, where GM makes its Chevrolet Colorado and GMC Canyon midsize pickups and full-size vans, will be idle during this period to retool the plant for a new model changeover.
Typically, summer shutdown occurs in the last week of June through the first week of July, but at Flint, only two times out of the last 10 years has the plant enjoyed a summer shutdown.
"It is so much pressure on getting these trucks to market that I didn't expect they'd pull anything out of our schedule," Welter said. "Most of the people don't like summer shutdown, they don't like their vacation taken for that. We've almost never had it, so for us this is normal."
Shutdowns at Ford, too
GM's confirmation comes a day after Ford Motor Co. told its workforce that it would not take traditional summer shutdown this year at most of its assembly plants in the U.S., specifically Dearborn Truck Plant, Michigan Assembly Plant in Wayne, Flat Rock Assembly Plant, Kentucky Truck Plant in Louisville, Ohio Assembly Plant in Avon Lake, Chicago Assembly Plant and Kansas City Assembly Plant in Claycomo, Missouri.
Also on Thursday, GM said it would halt production at two of its plants that make midsize SUVs, including one in Lansing, due to the chips shortage. But the automaker is able to restart its midsize pickup production at Wentzville.
Still, eight of GM's plants globally remain impacted including Lansing Delta Township, where GM builds the Chevrolet Traverse and Buick Enclave SUVs, and will be down for one week starting April 19. Also, Lansing Grand River has been down since March 15 and will remain down until April 26. There, about 1,400 workers build the Cadillac CT4, Cadillac CT5 and Chevrolet Camaro.
"Will summer shutdown allow them to recoup lost production? My answer is, yes," said Joe McCabe, president and CEO of AutoForecast Solutions.
That is especially true in terms of the production of vehicles GM cares most about such as its money-making full-size pickups and SUVs, McCabe said.
In July 2019, the auto industry took a two-week summer shutdown and was still able to produce 1.19 million vehicles in North America, McCabe said.
In July 2020, when automakers canceled summer shutdown, the industry built 1.25 million vehicles, McCabe said.
“Everyone in North America was able to build more in July 2020," McCabe said. "If you reappropriate your summer shutdown appropriately, summer shutdown is a great way to put more life in to recovering volumes lost in the first half of the year.”
