Jaguar Land Rover (JLR) has restarted manufacturing and is working with suppliers to keep them in business as the U.K. automaker works to recover from a cyberattack that crippled production for more than a month.
The company announced that its phased manufacturing restart will begin Wednesday, when a pair of plants in the West Midlands — the Electric Propulsion Manufacturing Center, where JLR builds engines, and the Battery Assembly Center — come back online.
Employees will also return to work at the company’s stamping operations in Castle Bromwich, Halewood and Solihull. The company is also recalling workers to its body shop and paint shop in Solihull, as well as its Logistics Operations Center, which distributes parts to global manufacturing sites.
The company hopes to next restart vehicle manufacturing in Nitra, Slovakia, where it makes the Land Rover Discovery and Land Rover Defender. JLR also plans to reopen its Range Rover and Range Rover Sport lines in Solihull this week. JLR’s Halewood plant in Merseyside is next in line.
Most Read on IEN:
The attack has been costly for JLR. Some estimates suggest the company could be losing nearly $7 million in profits every day. The cyber incident has also pushed some suppliers to near collapse; however, JLR has also announced a new financing scheme to pay some suppliers upfront.
While JLR has been making manual payments to settle outstanding invoices, its automated supplier payment systems are expected to come back online this week.
JLR’s temporary plan will pay suppliers faster than its standard payment terms, improving near-term cash flow. The short‑term financing initiative means that qualified suppliers will receive a majority prepayment shortly after the point of order and a final true‑up payment upon invoice receipt. JLR’s typical terms are 60 days post-invoice, so this deal accelerates supplier payments by as much as 120 days, according to the company.
JLR will also reimburse the financing costs for suppliers who opt in to the payment program during the restart phase.
The company will start the program with suppliers deemed critical to the production restart and eventually expand to non‑production suppliers.
After the restart announcement, JLR, a subsidiary of Tata Motors Limited, published its Q2 FY26 sales figures. The company reported that Q2 wholesales are down 24.2% from the same period last year and retail figures are down 17.1%. JLR said volumes have been impacted since the start of September, when the cyber incident shut down production and hit wholesales particularly hard. The planned wind down of legacy Jaguar models is also impacting the company’s bottom line, along with U.S. tariffs, which continued to hurt sales throughout the quarter.
Click here to subscribe to our daily newsletter featuring breaking manufacturing industry news.
finance.yahoo.com
#Jaguar #Land #Rover #Restarts #Production #Lifeline #Critical #Suppliers
