When Ayutthaya, Thailand flooded in October, 2011, it’s doubtful Honda Motors ever thought they’d be out of business this long. But, almost four months later, Honda still has not been able to resume production in their once-flooded assembly plant. That happy event is now scheduled for sometime in March, 2012.
What’s taking so long is the massive clean-up Honda, and thousands of other international companies, had to do once floods retreated. Factories sat under up to eight feet of water for more than two months and, once the water drained, the stench and the damage was unbelievable.
Since then, Honda has had to install almost all new machinery and then run tests to ensure it’s working correctly before they can get back up to speed. As they assemble more than 200,000 cars in Thailand every year, the impact has been huge.
Honda has also spent the last month and a half destroying over a thousand cars that were so badly damaged by flood water, there was nothing left to salvage.
The cost of Thailand’s floods to Honda was monumental. Coming as it did on the back of the massive Japanese earthquake and subsequent tsunami in March, 2011, it’s meant Honda has had one of its worst years in decades.
