IN the early hours of April 12, 2022, with the heavy rain subsiding, it appeared as though Toyota South Africa Motors’ production plant in south Durban would remain relatively unaffected by severe flooding in KwaZulu-Natal which caused 448 deaths and destroyed thousands of homes and businesses.
Less than an hour after sending photos showing everything was fine, the plant was under 1.5 metres of mud. “What had happened was when the Shongweni Dam sluice gates released at capacity. It sent a deluge of water all the way down the Umlazi River that broke through its banks as it wasn’t able to cope with that volume of water,” explains CEO at Toyota SA, Andrew Kirby. The wall of water hit nearby empty container yards, sending containers down the N2 in flood water.
The financial impact was severe, with extensive damage across the 87-ha site including electrical, mechanical, and IT equipment. “Toyota had to order just over 100 000 new equipment parts to replace the damaged ones, while around 4 300 flood-damaged vehicles had to be crushed”, says Kirby. Despite a top disaster management executive stating that it was the most extensive damage to any production facility within Toyota globally, swift action from both Toyota and its partners’ management teams enabled the plant to bounce back to production in a mere three months.
Industrial robotics partner Yaskawa Southern Africa worked closely with Toyota to establish a priority list of repairs. “We brought every available person from all Yaskawa branches throughout South Africa to our Durban branch to assist,” recalls the managing director at Yaskawa Southern Africa, Andrew Crackett. “A temporary workforce along with an international team of Yaskawa experts were also sent to Durban, whose members comprised of colleagues from the UK, Germany, and Japan”.
With no immediate spares on hand, as they first needed to be expedited around the globe and no user manual for repairing damage to this extent, Yaskawa’s team were required to think on their feet and consistently come up with new ideas to find solutions. In the end, approximately 400 robot controllers and 600 welding devices were successfully repaired, a noteworthy feat for a team that had never dealt with a project of this magnitude before.
Crackett noted that Yaskawa Southern Africa had learnt helpful lessons from the disaster. “We now know how to recover flooded equipment and what type of facility is required. We also learnt by hard experience, what worked and did not work when it came to money and time. One of the other key lessons was maintaining open and honest communication with the customer. Their understanding of our progress was key to everyone’s planning and expectations”.
Similar sentiments were echoed by Toyota, with Kirby stating that while “It is not something we’d ever wish on anyone, the challenges helped us to grow and develop our capabilities and resilience – as an organisation – to be able to survive and even flourish.” The leading car company’s internal slogan for recovery is Rebuilding Better Together. This philosophy speaks to working together as a team while using crisis situations to improve future site planning.
Toyota’s Durban plant regained its full production in September 2022.
