Honda was stuck with massive constraints of production due to lack of supply of components from its vendors who were affected by the Thailand floods, hopes to get back to full production by March. The company has managed to secure alternate sources for the components, mainly electronic and underbody parts whose supplies got disrupted. Now, these parts will be shipped by the company from Japan and China. The Japanese automaker has already resumed City production and are aiming to get the production of the Brio and Jazz up and running by next month to prevent waiting periods and delay to customers. Honda aims to resume its production output to 9000 to 10,000 units per month by March, 2012.
“Now that we have secured alternative sources of supplies, we hope deliver as many cars as possible to our waiting City, Jazz and Brio customers,” Jnaneswar Sen, senior VP, sales and marketing, Honda India, said.
Honda is also set to take a decision on setting up a production line at its second plant in Tapukara near Rajasthan. But, Mr. Sen also added that this decision will be taken only when the current plant reaches its full production capacity. The company aims to completely utilize the capacity of the existing plant of 1 lakh units by 2012. He also added that the company will be increasing its efforts in localization of parts to make itself immune from such natural calamities in future and global currency fluctuations. Honda’s sales volumes declined by 3.8% in the year 2010-11 to just 59,463 units. Currently, the company has bookings of 7500 Brios, 4000 Jazzs and 2000 Citys. The Brio and the new City are now facing waiting periods of 4 to 8 weeks while that of Jazz is about 3 to 6 months. The company’s main focus is on clearing the bookings as quickly as possible and giving a re-birth to the Brio. The Brio is Honda’s take on the small car hatchback segment. While the car received quite reviews, sales never picked up high due to unfortunate incidents involving the Tsunami in Japan and floods in Bangkok.
