Top Business News

DETROIT – General Motors Co. canceled creation shifts at assembly plants in Flint, Mich., and Lordstown, Ohio, and prefabricated changes at individual others because of a blast at an machine parts being in Michigan that makes inland components for a sort of automakers, the consort said Thursday.

Other GM plants strained by Wednesday's blast include Arlington, Texas; Detroit-Hamtramck; Lansing Delta Township in Michigan; Fort Wayne, Ind.; and Oshawa Consolidated in Canada. GM said it was streaming shorter shifts, rescheduling creation and dynamical overtime plans at plants.

"General Motors is working to control creation issues at numerous plants," GM said in a statement. "We are working closely with the supplier to countenance at alternatives in an try to uphold creation as quickly as possible."

Engine and stamping plants also haw change their schedules, GM said.

The blaze began weekday daytime at Magna Atreum in Livingston County's Howell Township, most 45 miles north of Detroit. It is a organisation of Aurora, Ontario-based Magna International Inc.

On weekday afternoon, firefighters unwooded the artefact for Magna personnel and repair crews to move assessing alteration and working toward a restart of operations.

About a lodge of the creation floor and most 40 percent of the total being was strained by the fire, said consort spokeswoman Tracy Fuerst. She said firefighters did an "outstanding" employ in halting the blaze and limiting the damage.

Magna officials are today at impact figuring out how daylong it module take for creation to uphold and whether another Magna plants crapper modify whatever of the gap, Fuerst said.

"Those discussions are taking locate right now," she said. She said the cause of the blast remained undetermined.

GM creation in Lordstown, Ohio, which has most 4,150 hourly workers antiquity the Chevrolet Cruze auto car, was suspended indefinitely effective weekday morning. At metropolis Assembly, GM said most of the 2,100 employees antiquity Chevrolet Silverado and GMC Sierra HD trucks module stay bag Friday. Production at the metropolis being was due to uphold Monday, GM said.

Ford Motor Co. and Chrysler LLC said weekday they didn't have creation issues attendant to the fire, but were monitoring the situation. Chrysler said the parts being makes inland components for its metropolis North Assembly Plant in Ohio; and plants in metropolis and Brampton, Ontario.

Magna employees were evacuated when the blaze was discovered, and no injuries were reported. Production was temporarily halted at the 187,000-square-foot being that employs most 450 and makes dashboards, consoles, entranceway panels and another parts for GM, Ford, Chrysler, Nissan and Mazda vehicles.

Nissan said the being makes console components for the Armada SUV, collective in Canton, Miss. The consort said there is sufficiency have on assistance to avoid any immediate gist on production.

The Associated Press mitt a communication with Mazda seeking aggregation on whether its operations would be affected.

"We consider our suppliers part of our extended family, so we're very grateful that no one was injured," Chrysler said.

___

Associated Press reporter king N. Goodman contributed to this story.

Source