Jaguar Land Rover has said it will restart manufacturing this week after a cyber-attack paralysed its operations at the end of August.

The shutdown meant that over 33,000 staff members had to stay at home, with the company's supply chain was also impacted by the incident.

JLR said that on Wednesday manufacturing will begin again at two of its West Midlands-based warehouses where it builds engines and assembles batteries.

Its workforce will also start to return to its stamping operations in Castle Bromwich, Halewood and Solihull on the same day.

They will also return to other key areas of JLR's Solihull vehicle production plant, including its body shop, paint shop and logistics operations centre, which distributes parts to its global manufacturing sites.

JLR said that the relaunch of these operations will be closely followed by vehicle manufacturing in Nitra, Slovakia, as well as Range Rover and Range Rover Sport (MLA) production lines in the Solihull facility this week.

It added that it will provide further updates on the next steps of the phased restart, including for JLR's Halewood plant on Merseyside.

“This week marks an important moment for JLR and all our stakeholders as we now restart our manufacturing operations following the cyber incident," said Adrian Mardell, chief executive, JLR.

He continued: “I would like to thank everyone connected to JLR for their commitment, hard work and endeavour in recent weeks to bring us to this moment. We know there is much more to do but our recovery is firmly underway.”

The move comes as the company also announces plans to fast track its new financing scheme to provide qualifying JLR suppliers with cash up front during the production restart phase.

Since the cyber-attack, the business has launched several solutions to support suppliers, including establishing a dedicated supplier help desk and implementing a manual payment system to settle outstanding invoices.

It is also this week re-establishing automated supplier payment systems.

The organisation said that with the new scheme, qualifying JLR suppliers will be paid much faster than under their standard payment terms, aiding their cashflow in the near term.

Following an initial phase with qualifying JLR suppliers critical to the restart of production, the scheme will be expanded, including to some non production suppliers.

"Working with a banking partner, this short term financing scheme means qualifying JLR suppliers will receive a majority prepayment shortly after the point of order and a final true up payment on receipt of invoice," said the business.

JLR’s typical supplier payment terms are 60 days post invoice, with the scheme accelerating payments by as much as 120 days.

This move follows steps taken by JLR during September to bolster its liquidity following the interruption to business since the cyber incident.

---