BMW closing Mini Oxford for April...

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Annual maintenance shut-down, apparently, brought forward from August "as part of brexit contingency"...

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-45561908

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paulrockliffe said:

Sounds like sensible risk management to me.

Oh, I agree.

paulrockliffe said:

Seems daft to be planning to shut down a few months later when there's a risk of somethingsomethingsomething a couple of months earlier.

But is it that simple? An 8+1 month year then has a knock-on to a 15+1 month year in 2020. As well as wondering how that affects maintenance, what's the effect on product cycles? Then there's all the staff who are now looking at having to take their annual holiday in April instead of August.

And that assumes there are no knock-ons still in May, when the Dutch plant might find itself getting geared up... VDL can build 200k cars/year, but currently does less than half that. Oxford builds about 200k.