Following a production system malfunction, Toyota Motor has scheduled Wednesday to restart operations at its assembly plants in Japan.<\/p>\n
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The malfunction had brought domestic output to a halt at the world’s biggest-selling automaker.<\/p>\n
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Toyota will resume operations at 25 production lines of a dozen plants in its home market from Wednesday morning and add the final two plants from the afternoon, the company said.<\/p>\n
The company continues to investigate the cause of the glitch, which it said was not due to a cyberattack and prevented it from ordering components.<\/p>\n
The plants together account for about a third of the automaker’s global production, Reuters calculations showed.<\/p>\n
Toyota’s domestic production had been on the rebound after a series of output cuts it blamed on semiconductor shortages. Output was up 29% in January-June, the first such increase in two years.<\/p>\n
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\u200bIts Japan output averaged about 13,500 vehicles daily in the first half of the year, Reuters calculations showed. That excludes vehicles from group automakers Daihatsu and Hino.<\/p>\n
Operations were halted for a day last year when a supplier suffered a cyberattack, hampering Toyota’s ability to order parts. Toyota resumed operations using a back-up network.<\/p>\n
Analysts said Toyota could be tested in making up for output lost during the outage, such as by running extra shifts.<\/p>\n
“Output was running at full capacity so there’s little additional room for production,” said Seiji Sugiura, an analyst at Tokai Tokyo Research Institute.<\/p>\n
Tuesday’s incident also had a knock-on effect. Group firm Toyota Industries said it has partially suspended operations at two engine plants due to the automaker’s glitch.<\/p>\n
Toyota is a pioneer of just-in-time inventory management, which keeps down costs but means supply chain snarls put production at risk.<\/p>\n
While the cause of the latest malfunction was unclear, corporate Japan has been on alert in recent days as businesses and government offices reported harassing phone calls.<\/p>\n
The government said the calls were likely from China and related to Japan’s release of treated radioactive water from the wrecked Fukushima nuclear power plant into the Pacific Ocean.<\/p>\n