Honda extends production cut till July ’11

Man may take years to create things but it is a matter of seconds for Nature to devastate. And for sure it will take another decade for man to rebuild it. Deeply affected by parts shortage due to the earthquake in Japan, The auto giant Honda after exploring every option has decided to continue cut in production at its unit in India until next three months.

Honda is currently working at 50 percent of its capacity following short supply of parts. Initially Honda Motor Company had declared production cut for May only after earthquake and tsunami hit Japan on March 11. Following the cut, Honda also had to postpone launching of Honda Brio in India that was stated somewhere near Diwali this year.

Currently, Honda cars, in association with Siel Group is operating a manufacturing unit at Greater Noida in Uttar Pradesh and producing more than one lakh units per year. Since the cut, this plant is working in only one shift and the time has been compensated with annual maintenance tasks that were carried out well ahead of its schedule later this year on this plant.

Prior to the cut, this plant was delivering around 5,000 units per month. Since this is a production cum assembling unit of Honda cars, it was affected by the parts cut as Honda imports engine parts and electronics from Honda Japan. In the meantime, Honda is also said to have been focusing on its second production unit at Tapukada in Rajasthan to equip it and make it operational soon.

After fumbling to set things right even after a short supply of parts in April, Honda cars finally had to compromise production in May and now as the situation did not improve, it is forced to announce a further cut the would continue till July, said sources. Once the things are back on track and the supply of parts restores, the company may think of putting things back to normal in August.