Toyota Motor Corp. will continue full operations at all of its assembly plants Wednesday while carefully monitoring activity at Nippon Steel Corp. in the aftermath of an explosion at the steelmaker's ironworks in Tokai, Aichi Prefecture, Toyota officials said.
Toyota is expected to do away with overtime for the time being and decide on the size of production activity on a day-to-day basis depending on the steel inventory situation, officials said Tuesday.
On Monday, Japan's top automaker said its vehicle production probably would not be affected by the gas tank explosion at Nippon Steel last Wednesday.
The company, however, decided not to allow overtime work on Monday and Tuesday.
The Nippon Steel ironworks supplies high-grade steel products to Toyota and other automakers and manufacturers. Toyota has a total of 26 assembly lines at its 13 domestic plants, including those of group companies.
Toyota, known for its just-in-time inventory management style to avoid excess stock, will continue studying the feasibility of procuring Nippon Steel products of the same quality as before, the officials said.
Nippon Steel officials have said operations will return to about 90 percent of normal levels by the end of the month.