Wiring harness manufacturer Leoni resumes production in Ukraine
The cable system manufacturer Leoni is currently working at full speed to control the consequences of the war-related production stoppages in the Ukrainian plants. The company, which is based in Nuremberg, Germany, announced that its task force is working almost around the clock to constantly re-analyse and manage the dynamic developments on site. As a result, production is currently restarting at both plants under the strictest safety regulations and on a limited scale, it said. The resumption of production despite continuing difficult war-related restrictions is in line with the declared will of the Ukrainian government and the wishes of the workforce, the company added. At the same time, other locations in the Leoni production network have begun to duplicate Ukrainian production capacities in order to support their colleagues in the war zone.
According to the company’s estimates, 60 to 70 percent of normal production capacity will probably be reached in the short term. The cable harnesses are produced individually not only for each vehicle type, but also for each individual vehicle due to the extremely high number of variants and are delivered to the vehicle manufacturers in a just-in-time process. Since the wiring harness is one of the first parts to be installed in the body-in-white and also provides indispensable functions, delivery problems with wiring harnesses directly affect vehicle production. Now the company is working to establish a mirror-image production of the wiring harnesses at other production sites to avoid a “single point of failure” in manufacturing in the future.
“There were missile attacks and bombings not far from our sites,” said Leoni CEO Aldo Kamper. Workers would at times hold out for hours in air raid shelters in low temperatures, only to return to the production hall. “But the people want to work. They want to show that Ukraine has a future.”
The company’s two production facilities are located near the city of Lviv in western Ukraine. The region has been relatively little affected by the fighting, but missiles keep flying over the area, Leoni CEO Aldo Kamper reported. “I have very high regard for the employees who make this production possible,” he said.
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