“Our factories have reopened, which is great news for us,” said Robert Grozdanovski, MD of Volvo Trucks UK & Ireland. “Admittedly it’s at a lower level than before, but then building trucks with social distancing measures in place is not easy, and takes some time to adapt to,” he added.
Grozdanovski explained that on the first day just nine finished trucks rolled off the line, followed by 18 on day two. Volvo expects this to increase to 40 per day in the coming weeks, which although a far cry from the pre-Covid-19 level of 100-plus vehicles per day, is nonetheless a huge step in the right direction.
Grozdanovski told CM that there is positive news to report in the UK too, with activity levels in its workshops increasing. “From week 13 workshop activity started to drop, and drop, and drop, but then it levelled off for three weeks,” he explained. “However last week we witnessed a small upturn, and although it is tiny, it proves that we hit rock-bottom, and maybe now we will see a gradual recovery going forwards.” As a consequence, Volvo is bringing back some technicians that had been furloughed.
At the start of lock-down, Volvo Financial Services gave a helping hand to some customers wanting to park-up trucks, by way of payment modifications for lease agreements. “And now some of them are saying that they don’t need our help any more, which is really positive,” he said.
The Volvo Trucks’ boss, who has been working from home for the past seven weeks, is delighted to see traffic levels increasing again. Earlier this week he had to go to the Volvo Group head office in Warwick to collect something, and found himself stuck in traffic. “It was great. Never before have I been pleased to get stuck in a traffic jam,” he joked.
