LEAD TIMES? WHAT LEAD TIMES?
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CM asks whether MAN has learnt the lesson of the 07/08 truck production boom (and the subsequent bust) with ensuing enormous lead times for customers followed by cancelled order and huge stocks to clear for the manufacturer.
Pachta-Reyhofen is clear: "This will not be a topic in the future. We all learned in the recession that you have to be extremely flexible. The unions understand that is essential for the prosperity of the company to be flexible."
He reveals that MAN's factory workers are paid their normal salary at a constant rate, but work flexibly, ie. they may work a period of 'short weeks' followed by a period of 'long weeks', with both periods at their usual rate of pay: thus MAN can meet peaks and troughs in demand, while maintaining a consistent cost base.
He adds: "We can easily match the demands of the future. We are still far away from the record numbers we saw in 2007 and 2008, which were not really healthy."