Honda has announced that it will be restarting motorcycle production at its Kumamoto factory as of Monday, March 28th. Initially closing all its facilities in Japan after the devastation caused by the Sendai earthquake, Kumamoto will be one of Honda’s first facilities to re-open in almost two weeks’ time. Other factories, such as Sayama, Saitama, and Suzuka facilities will remain closed through April 3rd, and Honda will make a decision on when to restart production at those locations later.
Honda Kumamoto factory assembly line
At other operations, including the Automobile R&D Center (Tochigi) and Honda Engineering Co., Ltd., associates who will work on the restoration started returning to work. However, based on the expectation that it will take several months until the complete recovery of these facilities, Honda decided to temporally transfer some functions such as the automobile product development, development of manufacturing technologies and procurement to Honda operations in other locations such as Sayama, Suzuka, and Wako.
via Honda
